Chapter 462
I flinched. Anson Fowler stepped out from the shadows of a velvet armchair near the window. His heavy Alpha scent — pine and copper — filled the VIP suite, pressing against my skin like an unwanted weight.
“Where am I?” My voice was a dry, broken rasp.
“My private clinic,” Anson said smoothly, walking to the edge of my bed. “You went into severe shock, Adella. Dehydration and trauma from the severed bond. You nearly died on that bridge.”
Panic spiked through my sluggish veins. “Azalea — where is Azalea?”
Anson’s expression hardened into a mask of faux sympathy. “I had my Warriors escort her home. She was hysterical, yelling at my medical staff. You need peace right now, not her unnecessary drama.”
He had sent her away. He had isolated me.
I looked past him, staring at the heavy oak door of the suite. I waited for the handle to turn. I waited for the familiar, intoxicating scent of rain and cedar. I waited for Dallas to burst through and tear this room apart to reach me.
But there was nothing. Only the cold, hard truth. Dallas had thrown me away, and he wasn’t coming back.
A tear slipped down my cheek and soaked into the Egyptian cotton pillowcase.
Anson leaned in, his hand hovering over mine. “I stayed by your side all night, Adella. I care about what happens to you. You are safe here.”
He was playing the protector, but my wolfless instincts screamed that I was locked in a cage with a predator. I was entirely alone, physically drained, and emotionally shattered. I didn’t have the strength to fight him. Not today.
I pulled my hand away from his reach and turned my face toward the wall.
“Please,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “I just want to be alone.”
The echo of my command had barely settled in the damp, rusted belly of Container 409 when Estevan began to scream.
Two of my Warriors stepped forward from the shadows, iron bars gripped in their hands. The reality of what was about to happen to his limbs finally broke through Estevan’s pathetic delusion of survival.
“Wait! Wait, please!” Estevan shrieked, thrashing so violently the steel chair rattled against the floorboards. “I know more! I know about the Siberian camp! I know why Kaelen exiled you!”
I raised a single hand. The Warriors froze instantly.
Ragnar snarled in my mind, demanding blood, but the mention of my father and that frozen hellhole made my blood run ice-cold. I dragged my hydraulic-braced leg forward, grabbed Estevan by the throat, and slammed his head back against the chair.
“Speak,” I growled, my voice vibrating with a lethal frequency.
“It was Seraphina!” Estevan choked out, his eyes rolling with terror. “She was never pregnant! When you had your first Shift, she provoked your wolf and staged the attack. She faked the miscarriage so Kaelen Marshall would think you were a feral monster! She orchestrated your exile to get you out of the way!”
A suffocating silence fell over the container. Decades of abuse, the freezing cages, the torture that had forged me into a monster — all of it built on a lie spun by my stepmother.