Chapter 616

A guttural, beastly roar tore from my throat—not a human sound, but the pure, unadulterated wrath of a Lycan King. Fueled by a massive surge of adrenaline, I shoved my hands against the armrests. For one impossible, gravity-defying second, the dead muscles in my legs fired. I forced myself into a trembling, half-standing position.

I swung my right fist. My knuckles grazed Anson’s cheekbone, snapping his head to the side.

But the exertion drained everything I had. The crystallized silver toxicity wrapped around my spine flared with blinding, white-hot agony. My legs instantly gave out.

I crashed heavily onto the unforgiving stone patio, the impact knocking the breath from my lungs.

“Dallas!”

Adella’s terrified scream shattered the air. She burst through the glass doors, her face pale with horror.

I lay there on the hard stone, gasping, my face burning with a humiliation so profound it felt like acid in my veins. I had fallen at the feet of my enemy.

Anson slowly stood, wiping a drop of blood from his grazed cheek. He didn’t look angry. He looked triumphant.

“You see?” Anson said, his voice carrying across the patio. “The beast is still in there. Just trapped in a broken cage.”

The words struck me differently than he intended. My legs had contracted. The nerves weren’t completely dead.

“I’ve arranged a private jet to the clinic in Switzerland,” Anson said coldly, tossing a sleek black card onto the table. “Don’t disappoint your Luna again.” He turned and walked away, Sloane hurrying after him.

Adella dropped to her knees beside me, her hands trembling as she reached for my shoulders. “Dallas, please—let me help you up. You see what he meant? You moved. There is still hope—”

I froze. The realization washed over me, colder than the silver lodged in my spine. She wasn’t surprised by Anson’s cruelty. She had orchestrated it. My Mate had conspired with my rival to put me on display—to humiliate me into fighting.

“Was I that pathetic to you, Adella?” I asked, my voice a dead, hollow rasp.

“No!” she sobbed, tears streaming down her face. “I did it to save you. I did it because I love you.”

I stared into her weeping eyes and felt nothing but the crushing weight of betrayal and my own inadequacy. I pushed her hands away.

Ignoring the agonizing pain, I dragged my heavy, useless body back into the wheelchair. I didn’t look at her as I turned the wheels and rolled myself back into the suffocating darkness of my study, pulling the heavy oak door shut behind me and leaving her alone on the patio.

Dallas POV

The suffocating darkness of my study bled into the next morning. When I finally forced myself to wheel into the master suite, the lingering scent of Moonflower and rain-washed grass hit me like a physical blow.

Adella was throwing her clothes into an open leather suitcase in the center of the room. Her movements were sharp, mechanical, and completely devoid of her usual warmth.

“Adella,” I rasped, the sound scraping against my dry throat.

She didn’t stop. She didn’t even look at me. “I am leaving for the neutral Pack’s clinic in Switzerland,” she said, her voice terrifyingly cold and hollow. “I will wait there for exactly three days, Dallas.”

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