Chapter 301
Chapter 301:
“Everyone,” Dallas confirmed, his thumb tracing slow circles on my skin. “I didn’t want you returning to whispers and rumors, Adella. I wanted you returning to the truth. They won’t see you as the girl who ran away. They will see you as the survivor who prevailed p>
I looked out the tinted window, watching the world blur past. He wasn’t just protecting me — he was weaponizing the truth to build a fortress around us.
“We are approaching Marshall Tower,” the driver announced, his voice tight.
“Ready?” Dallas asked, turning to me.
I looked at him — the sharp jawline, the power radiating off him in waves, the absolute certainty in his eyes. Fear was a cold knot in my stomach, but his strength was a fire that thawed it.
“Ready,” I said, though my voice was steadier than I expected.
𝖩𝗈𝗂𝗇 𝗈𝗎𝗋 𝖼𝗈𝗆𝗆𝗎𝗇𝗂𝗍𝗒 𝗈𝗇
The moment the SUV doors opened, the world exploded.
It was a sensory assault. Camera flashes strobed like relentless lightning, turning the afternoon into a disorienting nightmare. The noise hit like a physical wall — shouting voices, questions overlapping into a roar of hungry curiosity.
Panic clawed at my throat. Every instinct told me to shrink, to hide, to flee back to the safety of the shadows. But then a scent enveloped me — rain-soaked earth, deep cedar, and the ozone crackle of a storm.
Dallas.
He stepped out first, his presence so commanding that the air seemed to drain from the plaza. He reached a hand back for me — not as a savior pulling up a victim, but as a King welcoming his Queen.
I took it.
As I stepped onto the pavement, Dallas pulled me flush against his side, his arm wrapping around my waist like an iron band. The Lycan power rolling off him was suffocating to everyone else, but to me, it was a shield.
“Mr. Marshall!” A bold reporter from a major human news network pushed to the front, shouting over the din. “The documents released by your office allege that Alpha Marcus Hyde — Adella’s former guardian — was directly responsible for the murder of her parents. Is this the official stance of the Alpha King p>
The crowd went deathly silent. The question hung in the air, sharp and poisonous.
I felt Dallas’s chest rumble against my shoulder. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t look away. He stared directly into the camera lens, his golden eyes burning with a ferocity that made the reporter stumble back a step.
“It is not a stance,” Dallas’s voice boomed, amplified by nothing but his own Alpha authority, resonating deep in my bones. “It is the verdict p>
He looked down at me, his expression softening just enough for the cameras to catch the devotion written there, before turning his hardened gaze back to the world.
“The Hyde Pack has fallen because it was built on the blood of innocents. Justice has been served by the Council.” He paused, letting the weight of his words settle over the crowd. “The woman standing beside me, Adella Everett, is the sole survivor of that treachery. She is not a scandal. She is not a rumor p>
Dallas tightened his grip on me, pulling me closer until no space remained between us.