Chapter 514
“I paid for you,” he growled, his voice dropping into a guttural register. “The loan, the trust… you’re mine now. I’ll mark what’s mine.”
Panic flared, but I forced it down. I was wolfless. I had no supernatural strength. If I panicked, I would lose. I went entirely still, my expression freezing into a mask of ice as he bared his teeth, aiming for the spot at the base of my neck.
I waited for the exact second his weight shifted forward.
With every ounce of strength I possessed, I drove my knee upward, slamming it brutally into his supporting thigh.
Braydon’s balance shattered. He let out a startled gasp as he toppled off the bed, crashing heavily onto the polished hardwood floor. The sickening sound of tearing flesh echoed in the room as his injured arm took the brunt of the fall.
A blood-curdling scream ripped from his throat.
I scrambled off the bed, my chest heaving. Fresh, bright red blood was already soaking through the thick bandages on his arm, pooling on the floorboards. The stitches had completely ruptured.
The wild look vanished from his eyes, replaced by tears of agony. He curled into a fetal position, clutching his bleeding arm. “Adella… please,” he sobbed, his voice suddenly small and pathetic. “It was the fever. My wolf… he lost control. I didn’t mean it. Help me.”
It was a masterclass in manipulation. The predator instantly playing the victim.
I stared down at him, feeling nothing but absolute disgust. I wanted to walk out that door and never look back. But the cold, hard reality anchored my feet to the floor. I needed him alive. He was the signatory on the two-hundred-million-dollar loan. He was my only weapon against Dallas.
Without a word, I walked into his lavish en-suite bathroom, grabbed a thick white towel, and tossed it onto the floor beside him.
“Stop the bleeding yourself,” I said, my voice devoid of any emotion.
He looked up at me, his face pale, begging me with his eyes.
I took a step back, ensuring I was out of his reach, and delivered my terms. “If you ever lay a hand on me again, Braydon, I won’t just let you bleed out. I’ll call the Elders and tell them you tried to force a Mark on a wolfless. You’ll be exiled, a Rogue for the rest of your pathetic life.”
He flinched as if I had struck him, pressing the towel to his arm as he wept. I stood in the shadows of the room, waiting for the morning to come.
The morning sun did nothing to burn away the suffocating tension at Hyde Manor. I had spent the night in a chair in the corner of Braydon’s suite, watching him drift in and out of a feverish sleep. By dawn, the worst had passed—his skin was cooler, the bleeding had stopped—but I hadn’t closed my eyes once.