Chapter 400
“Prepare…” I choked out, the word tasting of ash and copper. I stared blindly at the ceiling, my heart shattering into unrecognizable pieces. “Prepare the Rejection ceremony.”
Duncan bowed his head, his eyes flashing with a grim, protective satisfaction. “Yes, Alpha.”
Before he could turn away, a shrill, jarring sound shattered the heavy silence.
Ring.
I flinched. On the nightstand sat the Crimson Line — an ancient red rotary phone wired directly into the suite, bypassing the hospital’s main switchboard. It was a relic, a line of ultimate trust. Only one person in the world knew that number.
Ragnar snarled, convinced it was another layer of her deceit, but the fragile, human piece of my heart hammered against my ribs. I forced my heavy, trembling hand toward the receiver.
Duncan was faster.
He snatched the phone and jabbed the speaker button.
“Dallas! Dallas, please!” Adelia’s voice exploded into the room, hysterical and thick with terror. “I’m locked in! They trapped me in Family Consultation Room B on the twenty-second floor! Braydon—”
“Save your lies, Adelia,” Duncan interrupted, his voice a blade of pure ice. “We just saw you in the Moon Goddess Garden with Braydon Hyde. We have the footage.”
“What? No! I’ve been upstairs the whole time!” she screamed, the raw panic in her voice tearing at my frayed nerves. “Dallas, listen to me! Nightingale! Dallas, it’s Nightingale!”
My breath hitched. The monitors beside me spiked wildly.
Nightingale.
The secret code. The name my mother had used for her mother — the ultimate symbol of the life debt I owed her bloodline. A word we swore only to use if it was a matter of absolute life and death.
A sliver of desperate doubt pierced through my blinding rage. I opened my mouth to speak, to demand the truth — but the image of her kissing Braydon burned behind my eyelids, suffocating my words.
“The Elders have been summoned,” Duncan stated coldly, ignoring her plea entirely. “The Alpha King has ordered the Rejection ceremony. It is over.”
“No! Dallas, don’t let them—”
Duncan slammed the receiver down, cutting off her scream. Without a moment’s hesitation, he reached behind the nightstand and violently yanked the phone cord from the wall socket.
The room plunged back into suffocating silence, broken only by the erratic rhythm of my heartbeat.
I didn’t reprimand him. I didn’t have the strength. The visual proof of her betrayal was too heavy to fight. I closed my eyes and let a single tear — tinted pink with my own blood — slip down my temple and disappear into my hair.
The line went dead with a hollow, final click.
“Dallas? Dallas!” I screamed into the receiver, my voice cracking. I slammed the ancient red phone back onto its cradle and threw my weight against the heavy oak door of Family Consultation Room B. It didn’t budge.
I pulled out my phone and dialed his number again. Straight to voicemail. I tried Azalea. Voicemail. I tried Duncan. The line rang once, then disconnected.
They were blocking me. All of them.
Heavy footsteps paused outside my door.