Chapter 411
“I was reckless because I was terrified of losing you,” he interrupted, his voice stripped of all warmth. “I am a liability now. I cannot protect you from Braydon, and clearly, I cannot protect you from myself.”
“Dallas, stop,” I begged, hot tears finally spilling over my lashes. “We can face this together.”
“No.” His jaw set into an unyielding line. “I will not drag a defenseless woman down with a crippled King. I am ending this.”
The oxygen vanished from the room.
“I am dissolving our Binding Protection Contract,” he declared. The legal, sterile words rolled off his tongue with terrifying, mechanical finality. “My lawyers will draw up the annulment papers by morning. You are free to go, Adella.”
It wasn’t magic. It wasn’t a supernatural severing. It was simply a man looking at the woman who loved him and coldly, systematically, throwing her away.
And somehow, that mundane human rejection broke my heart into a thousand irreparable pieces.
Dallas
The echo of my own words — dissolving our contract — clawed at the back of my throat, leaving a toxic residue that tasted like ash and copper. Ragnar was a thrashing, bleeding mess in the cage of my mind, howling into an endless void. The sheer mental trauma of pushing away the only light in my life was a crushing, physical weight, actively suppressing my Lycan healing.
I couldn’t breathe in this sterile hospital. I needed the high walls of my den. I needed absolute, impenetrable isolation — to keep her safe from the monster I was becoming.
“This is a colossal mistake, Alpha,” Dr. Liam Barber snapped. He stood blocking the open door of my armored SUV, the morning rain slicking the pavement of the hospital driveway. His eyes darted to Adella, an over-protective flicker crossing his features. “Your mental state is suppressing your cellular regeneration. If that tibia shows signs of infection, Dallas, not even your Lycan bloodline will save it. We will have to amputate.”
I stared at him, my eyes dead and hollow. “I need my own bed, Liam. Not this white cage.” I shifted my gaze to my Gamma in the driver’s seat. “Shut the door, Vance.”
Liam sighed in bitter defeat, stepping back as the heavy ballistic door slammed shut, sealing me in.
The air inside the moving SUV was thick with antiseptic and my own volatile aura — a heavy blend of thunder and cedar, now soured by paranoia. Adella sat across from me, her eyes red-rimmed, her face a ghostly pale. She remained painfully silent. She was only in the car because Vance had refused to let her travel back to the city alone.
I opened the mind-link, bypassing her entirely to speak directly to my Gamma. Vance. Lockdown the Tower. Tier One protocols. Double Adella’s security detail until the annulment is finalized and we can relocate her safely. No one breathes in that building without my direct authorization.
Adella must have read the shift in my posture. “Dallas, this is too much,” she whispered. She reached across the small space between us, her delicate fingers brushing the fabric over my forearm.