Chapter 342
I lay with my head on Dallas’s chest, the steady rhythm of his heart beating against my ear like a war drum at rest. His arm was draped heavily over my waist, a possessive weight that grounded me. We were in a bubble, suspended high above the city, safe from the politics and the pain.
Or so I thought.
The silence was shattered not by a sound, but by a psychic shockwave. Even without a wolf, I felt the static charge in the air as a frantic mind-link slammed into the room, loud enough to bleed into the physical world.
Dallas’s body went rigid beneath me. The languid lover vanished in a heartbeat, replaced by the Alpha King. He sat up, his movement so abrupt it nearly dislodged me, his grey eyes instantly clearing of sleep and hardening into steel.
Before I could ask what was wrong, a frantic pounding assaulted the heavy mahogany door.
“Dallas! Open up! Now!”
Azalea.
Dallas pulled on a pair of sweatpants and strode to the door, his muscles coiled tight. He yanked it open, revealing his adopted daughter standing in the hallway. Azalea Sterling, usually the picture of composed elegance, looked like she had seen a ghost. She was clad in thin silk pajamas, her dark hair a mess, her face drained of all color.
“Vance just linked me,” Azalea gasped, her chest heaving. “Her jet just touched down at the private airfield. She bypassed the flight logs. She’s here, Dallas. A week early.”
The temperature in the room seemed to drop twenty degrees. I watched as the last traces of warmth evaporated from Dallas’s face. A terrifying, cold mask slid into place — the face of a man preparing for battle.
“Gigi,” he said, the name leaving his lips like a curse.
“She knows,” Azalea whispered, her voice trembling. “She knows about the press conference. She knows about Adella. The official summons just came through the Pack link. Dinner. Tonight. At the Estate.”
I wrapped the sheet around my body and stepped into the hallway, the plush carpet cold beneath my bare feet. “Tonight?”
Azalea flinched when she looked at me, her eyes wide with a mixture of pity and dread. “So you’re the girl my grandmother has been demanding to meet.” Her voice was hollow. “She’s calling it a family reunion, but we all know what it means. It’s a trial.”
Tears welled in Azalea’s eyes, spilling over her pale cheeks. She hugged her arms around herself, looking smaller than I had ever seen her. “I can’t go, Dallas. Please don’t make me go. She looks at me and sees the orphaned daughter of a Beta — someone who shouldn’t even be here. She thinks my blood is weak. If she sees me shaking like this…”
“You aren’t going,” Dallas cut her off, his voice low and vibrating with a growl that started deep in his chest. He stepped between us and the imaginary threat of his grandmother, his shoulders broad and protective. “Neither of you are. I will go. I will handle Gigi.”
“No.”
The word left my mouth before I had even processed the thought.