Chapter 294
Chapter 294:
Braydon stumbled back, clutching his wrist, his face twisting into a snarl. “Get your hands off me. You think you can just waltz in here and take her? You don’t know her. She’s fragile. She needs care, not some savage Lycan dragging her into a war p>
Dallas didn’t roar. He didn’t posture. He simply stood there — a mountain of silent, lethal calm. Ragnar was close to the surface, turning his eyes a swirling, predatory gold.
“Fragile?” Dallas repeated, the word rolling off his tongue like a curse. “She survived ten years of your care, Braydon. That is not fragility. That is endurance p>
“I saved her life!” Braydon shouted, pointing a trembling finger at me. “I pulled her from the wreckage! I gave her a home when she had nothing! I love her p>
“No,” Dallas said. His voice dropped, cold enough to freeze the air in my lungs. “You didn’t save her to give her a new life, Braydon. You saved her to own her p>
The silence that followed was deafening.
Braydon’s face went slack, the color draining from his cheeks. The truth hung in the air between us, naked and ugly.
“You…” Braydon choked, his humiliation morphing into blind rage. He swung a fist at Dallas — a clumsy, desperate blow born of impotence.
𝗟𝗮𝘵est 𝗰𝗵а𝘱𝗍𝖾𝘳𝘴 𝘰n
Dallas caught it mid-air without flinching. With a sickening crack, he twisted.
Braydon screamed and dropped to his knees, his wrist bent at an unnatural angle. Dallas released him with a shove, sending him sprawling onto the unforgiving asphalt.
“Pathetic,” Dallas murmured, wiping his hand on his jeans as if he had touched something filthy.
I stepped forward then. The fear that had ruled my life for so long was gone, replaced by a clarity so sharp it hurt. I looked down at the man who had been my world — cradling his broken arm, gazing up at me with wet, pleading eyes.
“Did you save me so I could live, Braydon?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper, yet it carried in the stillness. “Or did you save me so I could be yours p>
He opened his mouth to spin another web of lies, but the words died in his throat. He looked at Dallas, then back at me, and in his eyes I found the answer. He didn’t regret stealing my life. He only regretted getting caught.
“Goodbye, Braydon,” I said. It wasn’t a farewell. It was a verdict.
I turned my back on him and climbed into the passenger seat of the SUV. The heavy door slammed shut, sealing out the cold, the damp, and the man on the ground.
Dallas slid into the driver’s seat. He didn’t say a word — he simply reached over and squeezed my hand. The engine roared to life, a powerful, beastly sound that vibrated through my bones.
As we pulled away, I looked into the side mirror.
Braydon was still sitting on the asphalt. He wasn’t looking at his broken wrist. He was staring at the car — not crying, not shouting. Just watching.
A shiver raced down my spine, colder than the wind outside. Even as the distance grew, I could feel the weight of his gaze: heavy, possessive, and unhinged.