Chapter 352

“You shouldn’t be here, Dallas,” she cooed, stopping two steps below me. Her hand rested on her stomach, on the swell that supposedly held my father’s new heir. The replacement.

“This is my house,” I said, my voice trembling but defiant.

Seraphina smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. It was a cruel, jagged thing. “Not for long, little monster. Kaelen is tired of looking at you. He’s tired of the coldness you bring.” She looked down the long, spiraling drop of the staircase. Then she looked back at me, her eyes gleaming with malice.

“Watch this,” she whispered.

She didn’t slip. She didn’t stumble. She threw herself backward.

I reached out — a child’s instinct to save — but my fingers only brushed the air. She screamed, a blood-curdling sound that echoed through the manor, and then came the sickening crunch of bone meeting wood.

When the servants and my father arrived, I was still standing there, hand outstretched. The perfect picture of a murderer.

“He pushed me!” Seraphina had wailed from the bottom of the stairs, blood trickling from her lip. “He tried to kill the baby!”

My father, Kaelen, looked up at me. There was no shock in his eyes. Only relief. He finally had his excuse.

I blinked, the memory receding like a tide and leaving behind the cold, hard rage of the Alpha King. I ripped the door open and strode down the hallway, my aura flaring out so violently that the guards stationed outside the elevator flinched and bowed their heads.

I would not let history repeat itself. I would not let Gigi use a lie to steal my future again.

When I reached the study, the heavy oak doors were closed. I didn’t bother knocking. I threw them open, the wood slamming against the walls with the force of a gunshot.

Inside, the air was thick with the scent of old paper and Gigi’s distress — sour, like curdled milk. Adella was sitting in the high-backed leather chair, looking small but fierce. Gigi stood over her, tears streaming down her face.

“He has a darkness in him, child,” Gigi was saying, her voice trembling. “He killed his own brother before he was even born. He pushed poor Seraphina—”

“Enough,” I commanded. My voice wasn’t loud, but it carried the full weight of the Alpha command. The room fell instantly silent.

Adella turned to me. Her eyes were wide, searching mine. She didn’t look afraid. She looked relieved.

“Dallas,” she breathed.

Gigi spun around, clutching her pearls. “I am telling her the truth, Dallas! She needs to know what you are!”

“You are telling her a fairy tale designed to ease your own conscience,” I said, stepping into the room. The temperature seemed to drop ten degrees. I walked past Gigi and stood behind Adella’s chair, placing a hand on her shoulder. The sparks of the mate bond flared instantly, grounding me.

“I saw the police report,” Gigi stammered, her confidence wavering under my gaze. “Seraphina lost the baby. You pushed her.”

“Seraphina jumped,” I said coldly. “And there was no baby.”