Chapter 524
A dark, mottled flush of absolute shame crept up his pale neck. His jaw clenched so hard I thought his teeth would shatter. To an Alpha, physical dominance was everything. To a Lycan King, this was the ultimate, degrading defeat.
“Get out,” he roared, unleashing the full, crushing weight of his Alpha’s Command. The sheer force of it vibrated the glass windows and drove the breath from my lungs. “Get out before I have the Dire Guard drag you out!”
He spun his wheelchair around, turning his back to me, hiding his face in the shadows of the study.
I scrambled to my feet, grabbed my coat, and fled.
I didn’t stop until the private elevator deposited me into the cavernous marble lobby of Marshall Tower. The cold air bit into my skin, but it couldn’t numb the devastating reality settling over me. Dallas was a dead end. I couldn’t save the Everett Trust through him.
I leaned against a massive marble pillar, my hands shaking violently as I pulled out my new burner phone. I scrolled past the blocked numbers and Pack contacts until I found a name I hadn’t looked at since my parents’ funeral.
Julian Thorne. My father had called him a friend. After the fire, he had sent flowers—once—and then nothing but silence. Gigi had mentioned him only once: “Thorne keeps to his mountains. He doesn’t play Pack politics. But he has deep pockets and no love for the Marshalls.”
If there was anyone who could match Dallas’s money without being in his pocket, it was Julian.
I pressed dial and lifted the phone to my ear, listening to the dial tone echo through the empty lobby.
The dial tone clicked, instantly replaced by the smooth, predatory drawl of Julian Thorne.
I had spent the entire elevator ride down staring at my ruined reflection in the brushed steel walls. The tears that had stained my cheeks were gone now, replaced by a cold, terrifying clarity. Dallas had reduced me to a bargaining chip—a piece of flesh he couldn’t even claim because of his silver-induced impotence. He had called my sacrifice pity.
Fine. If tears and loyalty were worthless in a world ruled by Alphas, I would play their game of money and power. I was done being the victim. I would build my own throne, even if I had to forge it from lies and ashes.
“Julian,” I said, my voice devoid of the trembling girl I had been minutes ago. “I have a proposition.”
An hour later, I sat in a dimly lit VIP room at The Onyx Club. The heavy bass of the music below vibrated through the velvet sofa. Julian Thorne sat across from me, swirling a crystal glass of amber liquid over a massive ice sphere.
“Two hundred million,” Julian mused, his dark eyes studying me. “To buy back the Everett Trust from the Hyde debt. In exchange, you become my Luna for two years so the Elders will unlock my three-billion-dollar trust fund.”
“A mutually beneficial contract,” I said, keeping my chin high.