Chapter 336
I stood paralyzed on the sidewalk, the city blurring around me. The warmth of the bond I had felt that morning suddenly turned cold, like a shackle snapping shut around my wrist.
Braydon didn’t pull a gun. He pulled a folded, yellowed piece of parchment from his inner pocket. The paper looked fragile, as though it had survived a fire — its edges singed and brittle.
“Read it,” he commanded, shoving it toward me.
My hands trembled as I took it. The ink was faded, but the signatures at the bottom were unmistakable. One was a bold, aggressive scrawl: Alpha Kaelen Marshall. The other was elegant, precise — a signature I had seen on birthday cards and school permission slips a thousand times. Luna Elara Everett.
It was a land transfer deed. A massive tract of territory, historically belonging to the Everett Pack, signed over to the Marshalls for nothing. No payment. No trade. Just a transfer.
“Why?” I whispered, the sour taste in the air choking me. “Why would she sign this?”
“Hush money,” Braydon answered, his voice dripping with false sympathy. He leaned in, invading my space, his breath hot against my ear. “Kaelen Marshall slaughtered a village of Rogues on that land. Women. Children. It was a massacre that would have started a war with the Council if it got out. Your mother — the saintly White Wolf — used her influence to bury the bodies and the truth. She gave him the land to hide the graves.”
I shook my head, backing away until my heels hit the curb. “No. My mother wouldn’t protect a murderer.”
“She protected the peace,” Braydon corrected, snatching the paper back. “And in return, the Marshalls owe a blood debt to your line. Dallas didn’t find you by accident, Adella. He didn’t fall in love with a wolfless girl because of destiny.”
He laughed — a cruel, jagged sound. “He’s binding you to him to keep the secret buried. You aren’t his Mate. You’re a liability. A chain forged from his family’s shame. Ask yourself — does the Alpha King really want a Queen who can’t even shift, or does he just need to keep his father’s sins quiet?”
Nausea rolled through me, violent and sudden. I turned away and scrambled into the back of the waiting SUV.
“Drive,” I choked out to the driver. “Just drive.”
As the heavy door slammed shut, sealing me inside the cool, leather-scented interior, I caught Braydon through the tinted glass. He wasn’t chasing me. He was smiling.
The car merged into traffic, but I couldn’t breathe. I looked down at the ring on my finger — the massive diamond Dallas had placed there. Ten minutes ago, it had felt like a promise. Now it felt heavy. Like a shackle.
A liability.
The word echoed in my skull. Was that why Dallas was so protective? Why he was so desperate to claim me? Was the heat between us, the pull of the bond, just a biological trap to ensure I never asked questions about the bodies buried on Marshall land?
I needed to hear his voice. I needed him to deny it.