Chapter 407
Duncan exhaled a shaky breath. His eyes glazed slightly as he tapped into the Pack’s network and opened a direct mind-link to the Elders. He didn’t hide it from me — he projected his thoughts so I could hear the absolute finality in his decree.
The Rejection ceremony is canceled. All records are to be expunged. She is our Luna.
The heavy suite door swung open wider. Gamma Vance Decker stepped into the room, having caught the end of Liam’s revelation. The Pack’s top warrior looked lethal, his jaw set in hard, violent lines.
“Give the word, Alpha,” Vance growled, his eyes moving between Duncan and Dallas. “Duncan and I will hunt Braydon Hyde down tonight. We’ll tear him apart for what he tried to do to this Pack.”
A low, guttural snarl ripped from Dallas’s chest. The force of his Lycan aura slammed into the room, heavy and suffocating. Even Vance — a hardened Gamma — took a physical step back.
“No,” Dallas commanded. His voice was raspy from his injuries, but it vibrated with the terrifying, undeniable weight of an Alpha’s Command. His stormy eyes swept past his men and locked onto mine, burning with a dark, primal possessiveness. “He touched what is mine,” Dallas declared, the Lycan bleeding into every syllable. “His blood will be on my hands. When I can stand, I will hunt him down myself — and I will enjoy breaking every bone in his body before I rip his throat out.”
Duncan and Vance bowed their heads immediately, submitting to their King’s decree. With a quiet nod from Dr. Liam Barber, the three men filed out of the suite.
The heavy door clicked shut. The oppressive tension bled from the room, replaced by the soothing, faint trace of my Moonflower mingling with Dallas’s cedar and rain.
I sank into the armchair beside his bed. Now that the adrenaline was fading, my hands had begun to tremble.
“When I couldn’t reach you,” I whispered, the fear finally catching up to me, “when your phone went straight to voicemail and no one would tell me where you were… I was so terrified, Dallas.”
Dallas’s eyes softened. The lethal Lycan receded, leaving only the man I loved. He reached out, his large, warm hand enveloping mine. The sparks danced across our skin — a comforting, electric hum that settled deep into my bones.
“Ragnar was blinded by jealousy,” Dallas murmured, his voice thick with regret. “But I am your mate. I should have trusted you, Adelia. I should have known.”
“It was Braydon,” I said, squeezing his fingers. “He orchestrated all of this to break us.”
Dallas drew my hand toward him and pressed my palm flat against his bandaged chest. Beneath the gauze, I felt the steady, powerful thud of his heart.
“I will never let you go again,” he vowed, his voice a raw, gravelly whisper filled with absolute devotion. “You are my heart, my soul — my everything.”
I leaned my head against the edge of his mattress and let the rhythm of his heartbeat anchor me. Braydon’s fire had tried to burn us to ash. Instead, it had forged us into something unbreakable.