Chapter 28

Chapter 28:

Her voice was small. Trembling. It should have activated every protective instinct I possessed. Instead, it acted like a trigger.

She stepped into the room, and the air shifted.

My senses—sharpened to a painful degree by the shift I was fighting to suppress—caught it immediately. Beneath the rain and her own intoxicating scent of moonflowers, there was something else. Something acrid. Something male.

Braydon Hyde.

𝘔о𝘳𝘦 𝗇ove𝗹𝘀 𝘰n ѕ.𝖼𝗈𝘮

His scent clung to her clothes, her skin—faint, but to Ragnar it was a declaration of war.

He touched her! He tainted her! Ragnar roared inside me. Mark her. Make her clean. She is ours.

The crystal decanter shattered in my grip. Shards bit into my palm, blood mixing with spilled whiskey on the rug. I didn’t register the pain. I only registered the insult.

I turned slowly to face her. Adelia stood near the doorway, wide-eyed, chest heaving. She looked beautiful. She looked frightened.

“Why?” The word scraped out of my throat, raw and low.

“Dallas, please—you have to listen,” she stammered, taking a hesitant step forward. “It wasn’t what it looked like. He trespassed. I told him to leave. I hit him p>

She defends him, Ragnar snarled. She speaks of him in our house.

“You were crying,” I said, stepping over the broken glass. My voice had lost its humanity, threaded through with the Lycan’s growl. “I saw you on the pier. You were weeping for him p>

“No!” She shook her head, tears rising in her eyes. “I was crying because of you! Because you left! Braydon means nothing p>

“Don’t say his name!” The roar tore out of me and shook the walls.

I closed the distance between us in a blur. My hand closed around her wrist and the moment my skin met hers, the mate bond snapped through me—scorching, electric, and utterly addictive.

“I saw his hands on you,” I said, leaning down until my face was inches from hers. My eyes burned; I knew they were glowing. “I saw him holding what is mine p>

Adelia flinched, her pulse hammering against my grip. “Dallas, you’re scaring me. Please—the contract.” Her voice broke. “The Binding Protection Contract—you signed it. You said you would protect me p>

The world stopped.

Contract.

The word fell into the silence, cold and sterile. She was talking about paper. About ink and clauses and legalities. While my soul was being torn apart by a need that predated civilization, she was hiding behind a document.

Something inside me gave way entirely. The tether holding Ragnar back dissolved.

She thinks paper keeps us apart? Ragnar laughed darkly. Show her. Show her who owns her soul.

“You think a piece of paper protects you from this?” I asked, my voice dropping to a whisper that was more dangerous than any shout.

Before she could answer, I took her arm and pulled her out of the study.

“Dallas—stop!” she cried, stumbling as I moved her toward the grand staircase.