Chapter 165
Chapter 165:
It wasn’t a loud entrance. It was terrifyingly quiet. Dallas Marshall stepped onto the pavement, and the scent of ozone, cedar, and approaching storm slammed into us. It wasn’t the forced projection of an Alpha trying to dominate a room — it was the natural gravity of a Lycan King simply existing in his territory.
Lance froze. His Alpha instincts, usually so arrogant, were now screaming at him to submit, to flee, to survive.
Dallas didn’t rush. He moved with the predatory grace of a shadow peeling itself from the dark — past me, placing his massive frame between Lance and me. He didn’t growl. He didn’t shout. He simply looked at Lance with the flat, absolute indifference of a god regarding an insect.
“She said no,” Dallas said.
The words were low, vibrating through the pavement and into my bones. A final verdict.
Lance went pale, the color draining from his face as he took an involuntary step back. He nodded once — jerky, terrified — before turning and practically fleeing back toward the restaurant, his dignity left in tatters on the sidewalk.
The moment he was gone, the suffocating pressure vanished, replaced by a wave of warmth. Dallas turned to me, the lethal ice in his eyes melting into dark, frantic concern.
“Adella,” he breathed, reaching for me.
“I’m okay,” I whispered, though my knees buckled. “Just cramps. Stress p>
He didn’t wait for an explanation. He swept me into his arms as if I weighed nothing and pulled me against the solid wall of his chest. I buried my face in the crook of his neck, inhaling the scent of rain and safety, letting it ground me.
He carried me into the back of the Maybach, the door sealing us into a private world of leather and silence.
𝗔𝗱𝖽𝘪𝗰𝘵𝗂ve 𝘯𝗈𝘃𝗲𝘭ѕ 𝗈𝗻
“Drive,” he commanded the driver, his voice rough.
He didn’t let me go. He kept me in his lap, his large, calloused hand slipping beneath my jacket to rest flat against my lower stomach. The heat radiating from his palm was supernatural — a Lycan’s warmth that seeped deep into my cramping muscles, soothing the ache better than any medicine.
I rested my head against his shoulder and listened to the steady, powerful thrum of his heart. It was beating too fast. He was still reeling from the threat — from the primal need to destroy anyone who looked at me wrong.
I thought about what I had said to Lance. About the way it had felt to say it out loud.
“Dallas?” I murmured, my eyes closed.
His hand stilled on my stomach. “I am here p>
“What I said back there…” I took a shaky breath, my fingers curling into his shirt. “About loving someone… it wasn’t a lie this time p>
Dallas went rigid beneath me.
The silence stretched — heavy, thick, and alive. I waited for him to say something. To tell me he loved me too. To make a joke. Anything. But he didn’t speak. His arm around me tightened until it was almost painful, his grip desperate and possessive.
He buried his face in my hair and inhaled deeply, greedily, as if trying to absorb my very essence. I could feel the tension in his jaw against my temple, the war raging inside him.