Chapter 562
I stood alone on the cobblestones, watching his retreating back. Words and pleas were useless against his stubborn pride. If he wanted to play dirty to keep his mask on, I would have to force it off another way. I thought of the heavy sedatives sitting in the safe house medical kit, and as I followed him back through the fog, my mind was already calculating the dosage.
Adella POV
The heavy silence of the safe house swallowed us the moment we crossed the threshold. Kieran didn’t look at me. He gave a stiff, jerky nod, his broad shoulders rigid, and immediately limped toward the garage.
Click.
The heavy steel door shut behind him, the electronic lock engaging with a finality that made my chest ache. He was locking himself away, rebuilding the walls I had just cracked. But my tears were gone, replaced by a cold, desperate resolve.
I walked straight to the kitchen and pulled the medical kit onto the marble counter. My hands were steady as I extracted two heavy-duty herbal sedatives — pills designed to drop a fully shifted, feral Warrior. Using the back of a spoon, I crushed them into a fine, odorless white powder, then brewed the darkest, most bitter espresso I could find and dumped the powder into a steel thermos, filling it to the brim.
As I sealed the lid, I glanced out the kitchen window. The mountain fog was rolling in thick and heavy. Through the gray haze, a vague silhouette moved near the tree line — a hunched scavenger pushing a rusted shopping cart. I paid the vagrant no mind. My entire world had narrowed down to the man hiding behind that steel door.
Dallas POV
Fire chewed through my nerve endings. The silver poison from my old wounds flared with a vengeance, aggravated by the sudden, violent movement in town. I leaned heavily against the garage workbench, gasping as Ragnar, my Inner Wolf, howled in agony at our self-imposed isolation from our Mate.
“Your ‘Shield and Pivot’ gave you away, boss,” Weston’s voice crackled through the secure earpiece. “She knows. You need to drop the Ghost Protocol.”
“No!” I slammed my fist onto the metal table, the sound ringing through the concrete room. I pointed a trembling finger at the carbon-fiber brace locking my ruined leg in place. “She deserves a whole Alpha. A Mate who can Mark her, protect her, and give her pups. Not this.” My voice broke into a ragged, hollow growl. “Not a cripple who can barely stand.”
Weston fell silent.
Before he could argue, a red light began flashing on the tactical monitor.
Proximity Alert. Unauthorized movement near the perimeter.
I swallowed the pain instantly, my spine snapping straight. The broken husband vanished, replaced by the lethal commander. But before I could pull up the external cameras, the keypad on the steel door beeped.
Adella POV
The steel door hissed open. Kieran stood in the frame, his tactical mask firmly in place, his posture defensive.
I held up the steaming thermos and let my exhaustion show. “I can’t breathe in here,” I whispered, my voice trembling with genuine anxiety. “The walls are closing in. I need to walk to the park at the end of the street. Just ten minutes. Please.”
“Ma’am, the fog compromises visibility. It is highly inadvisable—”