Chapter 634
Behind me, Dallas took a deep, steadying breath. I felt his large hand reach out, his fingers intertwining with mine. When he spoke, the broken, terrified man was gone. The Alpha King had returned, his voice a low, vibrating rumble of absolute authority.
“Sterling,” Dallas greeted coldly, refusing to show a single ounce of weakness to a rival Alpha. “We were just admiring the spectacle. I am perfectly fine.”
Lance’s eyes flicked from Dallas’s rigid posture to our tightly clasped hands. A flicker of old, competitive resentment sparked in his gaze — a remnant of his known reputation for seeking powerful alliances through marriage contracts. But as his eyes lingered on the fierce, protective fire in mine, his posture shifted.
His Inner Wolf whined softly, acknowledging total defeat. Lance finally understood that the mate-bond between Dallas and me was a fortress he could never breach.
“Thank you, Luna Adella,” Lance said, his tone settling into genuine, respectful surrender. He pulled Cynthia closer. “Cynthia and I are very fortunate.”
We exchanged a few more guarded pleasantries before Lance and his new fiancée walked away and disappeared into the crowd.
The moment they were out of sight, Dallas’s grip on my hand tightened until it almost hurt. He didn’t say a word, but the lingering terror in his aura was deafening.
As Cole wheeled us toward the exit, a cold, heavy dread settled in the pit of my stomach. Seeing Dallas reduced to a trembling shell by a mere flash of light was a brutal wake-up call. The silver wasn’t just killing his body — it was torturing his soul. But as I thought about the surgery in Switzerland tomorrow, and the fifty percent chance that the scalpel might permanently sever his connection to Ragnar, a new and paralyzing nightmare began to take root in my mind.
Adella POV
The paralyzing dread from the mall clung to me like a second skin, following us all the way back to the Marshall Estate. By 3:00 AM — the night before our departure to Switzerland — that lingering terror had mutated into a suffocating nightmare.
In the dream, the air was sterile and freezing. Dallas lay motionless on a steel operating table. Dr. Alistair Vance stood over him, slowly shaking his head. When Dallas finally opened his storm-gray eyes, the molten gold of his Inner Wolf, Ragnar, was completely extinguished. There was no beast. No warmth. Just a dead, hollow void.
“No!” I screamed, waking as my limbs thrashed violently in the dark.
My fist collided hard with Dallas’s solid chest. Instantly, massive arms caged me, pulling me flush against him. The comforting scent of violent storms and cedar enveloped me, grounding my frantic senses.
“I’ve got you, little moon. You’re safe,” Dallas murmured, his voice a low, soothing rumble in the dim master suite.
I buried my face in his neck, my body trembling uncontrollably. “The fifty percent chance… Dallas, I saw your eyes in the dream. Ragnar was gone.” I choked on a sob, my fingers digging into his shoulders. “In our world, losing your Inner Wolf is a soul death. I’d rather you die fighting on that table than wake up as an empty shell.”