Chapter 433
“He is bleeding for me!” she cried, her eyes blazing with defiant, unyielding fire. “And all you care about is your own jealousy! You’re acting like a jailer!”
Her words struck deeper than any physical blow. I looked into her eyes — the eyes of my wife — and saw only resentment. She looked at me as though I were the monster, while the true serpent lay upstairs basking in her devotion.
Something inside me, something vital and warm, simply snapped. The volcanic rage evaporated, replaced by a glacial, numbing void. I couldn’t fight a ghost. I couldn’t fight her guilt. And to protect myself from this agonizing rejection, I had to become the villain she already believed I was.
I released her abruptly and stepped back. The sudden absence of my grip made her stumble.
“You’re right,” I said. My voice was dead, stripped of every inflection and trace of warmth. “This was all a mistake.”
The elevator chimed, and the doors slid open to the expansive, empty hospital lobby.
Adella froze, her breath hitching, her face pale with sudden, terrified confusion. She reached out — but I was already turning my back on her.
I walked out, leaving her standing alone in the steel box. Every step on my ruined leg felt like grinding glass, but it was nothing compared to the hollow cavern widening in my chest.
Vance stood by the idling black SUV at the curb. He opened the door, his eyes briefly darting toward the lobby before settling on my face.
“Home,” I rasped, the word shattering like dry bone as I climbed into the dark.
The cab ride back to Marshall Tower was a blur of neon lights and unshed tears. Dallas’s dead, hollow voice — This was all a mistake — echoed relentlessly in my skull, pulling at the fragile thread of our connection until it felt as though it might snap.
When I stepped into the penthouse living room, the air was thick with suffocating tension. Dallas stood by the sofa, his cane gripped tightly in his hand. His nostrils flared, catching the sterile hospital antiseptic and the faint, sour scent of another Alpha clinging to my clothes.
He was vibrating with possessive fury.
“You’re letting him play you, Adella,” Dallas growled, his voice a low, dangerous rumble that reverberated in my chest.
“He is alone, Dallas! He’s broken because of me!” I shot back, the guilt gnawing at my insides.
“Where is Katherine Parrish, then?” he demanded, his eyes flashing with a predatory gleam. “Where is his devoted fiancée?”
“Because he doesn’t love her!” The words tore from my throat before I could stop them.
The room went dead silent. Dallas’s expression hardened into a mask of pure ice. “No,” he said, his voice cruelly soft. “He loves you. And you’re enjoying the sick thrill of being his savior.”
I gasped, stepping back as if he had struck me.
“I’ve arranged for the Pack’s best Healer,” Dallas continued, the heavy, undeniable weight of an Alpha’s Command lacing his words. “You will visit him for exactly one hour a day. No more.”