Chapter 578
Vance swallowed hard, his jaw tight. “When the silver first poisoned him, Dr. Alistair Vance gave a final diagnosis. The neurological damage is permanent. It didn’t just take his mobility.” He looked away, unable to meet my eyes. “He’s sterile, Adella. And worse — he will never be able to complete the Marking. He kept that Decree and pushed you away because he truly believed he was a broken King. He couldn’t bear to chain you to a mate who couldn’t even claim you properly.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. Every cruel rejection, the disguise as Kieran, the desperate attempts to drive me away — none of it had been a lack of love. It was a suffocating, agonizing shame. My chest ached with a profound, shattering tenderness for the man who had sacrificed his own soul to protect mine.
I didn’t hesitate. I turned and pushed open the heavy oak door to the suite.
Dallas sat by the floor-to-ceiling window, staring blankly at the Hudson River. Hearing my footsteps, his broad shoulders stiffened. He turned his head, his golden eyes guarded, already bracing for the pity he assumed Vance had just handed me.
“Adella, I—”
I didn’t let him finish. I crossed the room and dropped to my knees directly in front of his wheelchair, resting my cheek against his thigh, right over the cold, rigid carbon-fiber brace.
“You are the strongest man I have ever known,” I whispered fiercely, looking up into his shocked, vulnerable eyes. “I don’t care about a bite mark. I don’t care about what the silver took. I only want your heart, Dallas. I only want you.”
A ragged, broken sound tore from his chest. His trembling hands tangled in my hair, pulling me up until I was in his lap. His arms crushed me against him as though I were his lifeline, his face buried in my neck.
“I’m staying,” he breathed against my skin, his voice thick with unshed tears. “I already called Dr. Vance. We’re going to Switzerland for a new experimental treatment. I will fight this. For you. For our pup.”
I held my King and felt our souls finally, truly align. The war outside was over, and the war within him had at last found its peace. But as we prepared to return to the Marshall Estate that evening to finalize the legalities of our future, I had no idea that Dallas’s deep-seated protective instincts had already laid one final, desperate contingency plan in the paperwork waiting for me.
Adella POV
The dying sun bled through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Marshall Estate’s private study, casting heavy golden light across the mahogany desk. The room smelled of old leather and parchment, threaded with the faint cedar scent that always clung to Dallas. But the warmth in my chest turned to ice as I read the final page of the trust fund documents he had prepared.
The Luna’s Regency & Protectorate Clause.
My hands trembled. The legal language was dense, but the meaning was devastatingly clear. Upon his death, the trust would automatically initiate a protocol to find a new Alpha to act as the Pack Protector for me and our unborn pup.
He was still preparing to die. Worse, he fundamentally didn’t believe that a wolfless Luna could protect our child or his kingdom alone. It was the ultimate insult to my strength — and to our mate-bond.