Chapter 485
All the color drained from Yara’s face. Her eyes flashed with genuine, murderous rage. Her hand dropped instinctively to her thigh, fingers brushing the hidden sheath of a silver dagger.
Before she could draw the weapon, Anson moved with blinding speed. He clamped his hand around her wrist, his presence suddenly filling the space between them. “Careful, warrior,” he growled, his voice a lethal rumble. “You’re in my territory now.”
Yara yanked her arm free, her chest heaving. She fixed me with a gaze of pure venom. “You will regret this.” She spun on her heel and stormed out of the restaurant, her pride entirely shattered.
Anson chuckled, clearly impressed, as the heavy doors swung shut behind her. “You have claws, Adella. Imagine what we could do together. With my Pack and your bloodline, no one could touch us.”
I looked at the man who saw me as nothing more than a strategic asset. Then I picked up my purse and stood.
“The answer is no, Anson,” I said, my voice ringing with absolute resolve. “I will not be your weapon. I will be my own.”
I turned my back on him and his empty throne, walking out into the freezing New York night.
Duncan’s POV
The black armored SUV idled quietly in the deep shadows across the street from Le Coucou. I lowered my high-powered binoculars, the tension in my shoulders easing as I watched Adella walk away from Anson Fowler—entirely unharmed and fiercely independent.
I turned to the backseat. The interior was bathed in the faint, rhythmic green glow of a portable heart monitor. Dallas sat in the darkness, his massive frame hooked up to IV lines and a clear oxygen mask. He looked like a ghost, his skin ashen and slick with the cold sweat of silver rot.
I pressed the button on the privacy partition. “She rejected him, my King. And she broke Yara. Word for word, just as you predicted.”
Dallas slowly reached up with a trembling hand and pulled the oxygen mask down to his chin. His breathing came in wet, ragged wheezes, but the storm-gray eyes that met mine in the rearview mirror burned with fierce, agonizing pride. A weak, bloody smile touched his pale lips.
“That’s my Luna.”
Dallas
The sterile silence of Dr. Alistair Vance’s private clinic was broken only by the rhythmic, mechanical whir of the LVAD pump embedded in my chest. I sat bare-chested on the edge of the examination table, the harsh fluorescent lights illuminating the grotesque tapestry of old silver burn scars and fresh surgical bandages.
“I will not do it, Alpha,” Dr. Vance said, his hands trembling as he backed away from the metal tray holding a single loaded syringe. “Your white blood cell count is that of a dying human. This cocktail—a military-grade Lycan cell stabilizer mixed with pure adrenaline—will force your heart to work at a capacity it no longer has. It could cause your Lycan heart to stop right there on the podium.”