Chapter 361
“Take it!” he roared, his voice cracking. “A dowry for the wolfless bride! Or maybe it’s blood money for what my son did to you! I don’t care! I will not be at your wedding! I will not watch my lineage bow to—”
He turned and stormed out. The heavy oak doors slammed shut behind him, the boom vibrating through the floorboards.
Silence returned, but this time the air felt lighter. Cleaner.
I looked down at the check. Ten million dollars. The numbers were jagged, written in rage.
“A fool’s tax,” Gigi broke the silence, her tone light, as if commenting on the weather. She signaled for a servant to right the fallen chair. “Accept it, child. It is the least he owes you for the noise he made.”
Dallas reached out and took the check from the table. He didn’t look at the amount. He folded it neatly and tucked it into his pocket, his other hand coming to rest over mine. His skin was warm, grounding me.
“This will start a trust fund for our pups,” he said quietly.
My breath hitched. Our pups. The future he was painting was so certain, so solid. He wasn’t just defending me — he was building a life with me.
Across the table, Victoria Hyde rose to her feet. The trembling woman from moments ago had vanished, replaced by a survivor. She walked around the table, head bowed low, and stopped before us. With careful hands, she placed a small silver data drive beside my plate.
“My King. My Luna,” Victoria whispered, the titles falling from her lips with terrified reverence. Her gaze remained fixed on the floor. “This is Braydon’s ledger. Every illegal silver trade he made with the Rogues. Every bribe. It is yours.”
It was a peace offering. A surrender.
Gigi tapped her cane on the floor, drawing our attention back to the head of the table. A small, satisfied smile played at her lips.
“Excellent,” she declared, clapping her hands once. “Now that the trash has taken itself out, we have real work to do. I will personally oversee the arrangements. A wedding between the Alpha King and his Luna must be nothing short of legendary.”
I looked at the three of them — the Matriarch who ruled with fear, the Alpha who ruled with strength, and the fallen Luna who had survived by submission. And for the first time, the name Marshall didn’t feel like a threat.
It felt like armor.
Adelia POV
The heavy oak doors had barely settled into their frames after Marcus’s departure when the atmosphere in the dining room shifted again. The air was no longer thick with violence, but it was heavy with something else — expectation. Ancient, suffocating expectation.
Gigi didn’t give us a moment to breathe. She snapped her fingers, the sound sharp as a whip crack in the cavernous room. The butler, who had been blending into the shadows, stepped forward carrying a box of dark ebony wood inlaid with platinum veins that shimmered under the chandelier light.
He placed it on the table before me, right next to the ten-million-dollar check.
“Open it,” Gigi commanded. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it carried the weight of a century of rule.