Chapter 178

Chapter 178:

Time seemed to slow. Ragnar was clawing at the back of my mind, screaming for me to rip Jared’s throat out with my teeth. But the King in me took the wheel. I didn’t lunge. I didn’t roar. I didn’t need to give any orders — I had trained my warriors for moments exactly like this.

I knew Vance was watching through his scope, waiting for the perfect shot. I just had to trust that he’d see Adella’s move and take it.

A split second later, the air cracked.

The bullet tore through Jared’s right shoulder, misting the air with red. The impact spun him around violently, the silver knife clattering uselessly onto the rotted wood of the dock. But Jared Solder was a cockroach — even in his destruction, he refused to die alone.

His good hand was still tangled in the ropes binding Adella to the chair. As the force of the bullet knocked him backward off the edge of the dock, he didn’t let go.

“No!” The roar ripped from my chest.

I watched in horror as Adella was yanked off the concrete lip. She didn’t scream — she didn’t have time. She simply vanished into the black, churning water below, dragged down by the weight of a dying man.

I didn’t think. I didn’t breathe. I launched myself off the pier, my body cutting through the night air like a missile.

The water hit me like a wall of concrete — freezing and pitch black. The salt stung my eyes, but I forced them open, Ragnar lending me his sight in the gloom.

Below me, a chaotic struggle was unfolding. Jared was thrashing, panic overriding his pain. He wasn’t trying to save her. The bastard was pushing Adella down, using her bound body as a stepping stone to propel himself toward the surface.

A fury unlike anything I had ever felt detonated in my blood. It wasn’t just anger — it was the wrath of a Lycan whose mate was being touched by filth.

𝘉е 𝘵𝗁e fi𝘳ѕ𝘵 𝘁o 𝗋eаd o𝗻

I propelled myself downward, my suit jacket dragging against me, my muscles burning with adrenaline. I reached them in two strokes. I grabbed Jared by the throat, my fingers digging into his windpipe, and ripped him off her.

He thrashed, his eyes wide and white in the murky darkness, bubbles escaping his lips in a silent scream.

I didn’t give him the mercy of a quick death. I pulled back my fist and drove it into his temple with the force of a pile driver. His skull gave way. His eyes rolled back, and his body went limp, sinking like a stone into the abyss where he belonged.

I turned to Adella.

She was drifting, suspended in the dark water, her hair floating like a halo around her pale face. She wasn’t moving.

Terror — cold and sharp — pierced my heart. I grabbed her waist and kicked hard, driving us toward the surface.

We broke the water with a gasp — or rather, I gasped. Adella remained silent.

I dragged her onto the rotted wood of the dock, my movements frantic. I ripped the ropes from her wrists with my teeth, spitting the hemp aside. Her skin was like marble. Cold. Too cold.