Chapter 414
“Azalea? What’s wrong?”
“That’s… that’s Seraphina,” she whispered, her voice trembling with a mixture of terror and absolute rage. “The woman who framed Dallas when he was ten. The lies she told got him exiled to Siberia.” She looked up at me, eyes wide with panic. “Adella, that girl at the door — Cassia is Seraphina’s daughter. She’s Dallas’s half-sister. She’s a walking curse.”
The pieces clicked together with sickening clarity. Cassia hadn’t come to deliver a file. She had come to plant a psychological bomb.
“I’m going to his study,” Azalea snarled, already marching toward the hallway. “I’m going to show him this.”
“No! Stop and think, Azalea!” I grabbed her arm, digging my heels into the floor.
She whirled on me, ready to fight, but I held firm. “Look at the timing,” I urged, keeping my voice low. “Dallas is severely injured. He is drowning in PTSD and guilt. If he sees this — if he knows Seraphina’s blood is lurking in his company, calling him Dally — he will lose his mind. He’ll tear his broken leg apart trying to get to her.”
Azalea blinked, the blind rage in her eyes dimming into a horrifying realization.
“That’s exactly what they want,” I continued, relying on cold logic. “They want the Elders to see a broken, unhinged Alpha King. They want him to act like a monster so they can strip him of his title. We cannot let him see this.”
Without hesitation, I ripped the Polaroid in half. Then into quarters. I walked to the sleek metal trash can and dropped the shredded pieces into the dark.
“We don’t tell him,” I said, meeting Azalea’s shocked gaze. “We ignore the bait, and we watch her every move.”
Azalea swallowed hard and nodded slowly as we formed a silent, unbreakable pact. We were no longer just bystanders waiting for a King to heal. I might be a fragile human in their eyes — but I was the only line of defense he had left.
Adelia
The silent pact Azalea and I had forged hung heavy in my mind as I sat in the opulent, velvet-draped tea room at The Pierre. It was exactly three o’clock.
The air around my small table was thick, suffocating under the sheer weight of Eleanor “Gigi” Marshall’s presence. The delicate scent of Earl Grey and warm scones was entirely obliterated by her expensive Chanel perfume and the undeniable, crushing aura of a Lycan Matriarch. Even without an inner wolf to compel my submission, every human survival instinct I possessed screamed at me to lower my eyes. I gripped the edge of the table and forced my spine to stay perfectly straight.
“Seraphina is making her move,” Gigi said, her voice as smooth and cold as polished ice. She took a meticulous sip of her tea. “My informants have confirmed she is coordinating with Braydon Hyde and Elder Malcolm. They are planning a spectacle at the upcoming Luna’s Hope Charity Gala.”