Chapter 257

Chapter 257:

I walked down the stairs on legs that felt like lead and climbed into the back seat. The interior smelled worse—stale tobacco and wet dog.

As the door slammed shut behind me, I pulled out my phone. My fingers hovered over Dallas’s contact. I wanted to tell him about the Rogue. I wanted to tell him about Braydon’s warning.

But I could already hear Dallas’s voice in my head: I told you it was dangerous. I’m coming to get you.

I couldn’t let him be right. I couldn’t let him think I was incapable of handling this on my own.

аc𝗍i𝗏𝖾 co𝗺𝗆𝘂𝘯і𝗍у о𝗻 ѕ.𝖼𝗼𝗺

Silas sent a car, I typed, my thumbs moving quickly. On my way to the manor. Don’t worry.

I hit send just as the engine roared to life.

I didn’t look back as we peeled out of the station, tires crunching over the gravel. If I had, I might have noticed the grey sedan pulling out from the shadows at a discreet distance, its driver hidden beneath the brim of a baseball cap.

Instead, I stared ahead into the gloom, the trap closing around me with every passing mile.

Adella

The black SUV didn’t wait. The moment my boots hit the gravel, the Rogue driver peeled away, leaving me standing alone in the shadow of Thorne Manor.

The house, once a symbol of our Pack’s strength, now looked like a rotting carcass picked clean by vultures. The stone facade was slick with moss, and the windows stared down at me like hollow, dead eyes. The wind coming off the cliffs howled, carrying the mingled scents of salt and decay.

I tightened my grip on my bag and pushed open the heavy oak doors. They groaned in protest, the sound echoing through the cavernous emptiness of the Great Hall.

The air inside was stale, thick with damp wool and something sourer beneath it—the scent of fear.

“Look what the storm washed in,” a voice drawled from the shadows.

I turned to find Maeve Thorne lounging on a dust-covered chaise by the cold fireplace. My cousin’s wife looked thinner than I remembered, her Omega features sharp and pinched, her eyes burning with a mixture of envy and malice.

“The little wolfless stray,” she sneered, not bothering to rise. “Come back to the den she abandoned p>

“Hello, Maeve,” I said, keeping my voice neutral. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of seeing me flinch.

Silas appeared from the hallway, his smile stretched too wide across his gaunt face. “You made it. We were worried p>

“Worried enough to send a Rogue to pick me up?” I asked, arching a brow.

Silas’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second. “Help is hard to find these days. The Pack is struggling. But you’re here now. That’s what matters.” He stepped too close, his gaze sweeping over me—not with the warmth of family, but with the calculating assessment of someone appraising a commodity.

“I’m tired, Silas,” I said, stepping back. “I’ll take my things to my mother’s room p>

“Of course,” he said, too quickly, too eagerly. “Rest. We’ll have dinner shortly p>