Chapter 518

I stood there, frozen, the truth settling over me like a cold shroud. He had used me. He had used my compassion, my fear for Dallas, my desperation to save the Pack—all of it—to drive the final wedge between me and the only man who had ever truly loved me.

And I had let him.

I backed away from the bed, my hands still shaking. “You’re a monster,” I whispered.

Braydon’s smirk widened, the fever in his eyes replaced by something far colder. “No, Adella. I’m a survivor. Just like you.”

I turned and walked out of the room, leaving him there in the ruins of his own making. But as I stepped into the hallway, I knew one thing for certain: the war was far from over. And I had just chosen my side.

Dallas

Later that day, the metallic taste of my own rotting blood still coated my tongue.

I lay in the sterile, dim fortress of Dr. Alistair Vance’s private clinic, the rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor the only sound in the room. The silver poison was carving its way through my veins, a slow, agonizing fire that threatened to extinguish my Lycan healing. But the physical agony was nothing compared to the violent, clawing rage of my beast, Ragnar.

She chose him, Ragnar snarled in my mind, pacing against the bars of my ribs. She nursed the enemy. She signed her legacy away to a Hyde.

I stared at the encrypted tablet mounted over my hospital bed. On the screen, a live feed played from the Council Chamber at Hyde Manor.

Marcus Hyde—confined to the estate, his image flickering on a secondary screen—and his pathetic son, Braydon, were standing by a long mahogany table. Braydon raised a crystal flute of champagne, his arm freshly bandaged, his face pale but triumphant. He looked remarkably healthy for a man who had been “bleeding out” yesterday.

Standing a few feet away from their celebration was Adella. Her face was pale, her posture rigid. She knew now that Braydon had played her, but she was still trapped in their web.

It was time to burn the web down.

On the screen, the heavy oak doors of the chamber swung open. My Beta, Duncan Whitaker, strode into the room, his presence instantly suffocating their celebratory joy.

“You are trespassing on Hyde territory, Whitaker!” Marcus barked from the screen, his voice crackling with impotent fury. “Guards!”

Duncan ignored him. He walked straight to the mahogany table and set down a sleek, black tablet, angling it so the camera captured all three of them.

I leaned forward in my hospital bed, ignoring the sharp, tearing pain in my chest. I pressed the transmission button.

“Enjoying the champagne, Braydon?” my voice rasped through the speakers in the chamber, cold and hollow.

Braydon flinched, his eyes darting to the screen. Adella’s breath hitched. Even through the digital feed, I could see the exact moment her heart dropped.

“Marshall,” Marcus snarled from his screen. “You have no power here. We secured the funding. The Hyde Pack is saved.”