Chapter 530
A deafening, possessive growl ripped from his throat. Before I could take a breath, his mouth crashed down on mine.
It wasn’t a kiss of love—it was a collision of desperation and fury. His lips were bruising, demanding, consuming me whole. My hands flew up to push him away, but the moment my fingers tangled in his lapels, the sparks short-circuited my brain. I melted against him, my lips parting, surrendering to the intoxicating taste of rain and cedar that I had craved for so long.
But as I pressed my body flush against his, the illusion shattered.
The sparks were there, the desperate kiss was there—but beneath the tailored suit, there was nothing. His body was entirely unresponsive. No heat, no physical reaction. He felt cold, rigid, and terrifyingly hollow.
The realization hit me like a bucket of ice water.
I tore my mouth away, gasping for air, my chest aching with a fresh, humiliating agony. I stared up at his pale face, tears blurring my vision.
“You don’t want me,” I whispered, my voice cracking under the weight of the ultimate rejection.
Dallas froze. A flash of unspeakable agony and deep, suffocating shame crossed his eyes. His hands, still resting against the wall, trembled violently. He couldn’t tell me the truth—that his organs were failing, that the silver toxin was killing him, that his body was too broken to respond to the mate his soul was screaming for.
Instead, he swallowed hard, his jaw locking as he delivered the final, fatal blow.
“I don’t,” he lied, his voice barely a whisper.
Before the tears could fall, the heavy metal door creaked open.
Gamma Vance Decker stepped in, his keys dangling from his hand, his new mate Serena right behind him. They froze, taking in the scene—Dallas caging me against the wall, my swollen lips, the devastating tension suffocating the small space.
Vance blinked, his eyes darting between us, and let out a low whistle, a mix of concern and forced amusement coloring his tone. “Well, well. Looks like the Marking ceremony isn’t the only reunion happening tonight.”
The interruption hit like a bucket of cold water. Dallas stepped back immediately, shoving his trembling hands deep into his trouser pockets. In a fraction of a second, the broken man vanished, replaced by the impenetrable, ice-cold Alpha King. I wiped my eyes frantically, my cheeks burning with mortification. The silence that followed was deafening—a heavy prelude to the storm that was about to break.
Twenty minutes later, the freezing concrete of the parking garage had been replaced by the suffocating atmosphere of The Onyx Club.
I sat rigidly in the semi-circular, deep crimson velvet booth, the exclusive Pack club buzzing around us. The air was thick with the smell of expensive cigars, polished leather, and the overwhelming energy of high-ranking wolves. Beside me, Dallas sat like a statue carved from ice, his storm-gray eyes fixed on the mahogany table.
Across from us, Vance Decker and Serena exchanged a loaded look. Vance, ever the ruthless Gamma, clearly had no patience for the suffocating tension bleeding from his Alpha.