Chapter 83

Chapter 83:

I looked down at my oatmeal, my appetite gone. I had won a job, but I had lost the battle. He wasn’t just protecting me — he was hoarding me. And the most terrifying part was the shiver that ran down my spine: half fear, half a dark, twisted thrill at being wanted so violently that he wouldn’t allow anyone else to even look at me.

Dallas

The tinted glass of the armored Bentley acted as a barrier between my world and hers. Inside, the air was cool, recycled, and smelled of sterile leather. Outside, across the busy street, Adella sat in the window of a trendy coffee shop, bathed in sunlight that seemed to shy away from me.

“Sir?” My driver, a Beta named Cole, glanced nervously at me through the rearview mirror. “Should I intervene p>

Sа𝘷𝖾 у𝘰𝘂𝘳 f𝖺𝘃o𝗋𝘪𝘵𝗲 n𝗼𝘃𝖾𝘭ѕ o𝗻

“No,” I said, my voice a low rumble that vibrated against the reinforced door. “Wait p>

I watched her. She was laughing at something Dr. Liam Barber had said — a soft, genuine expression I had rarely seen directed at me. It grated against my nerves, a sharp friction against the mate-bond that tethered my soul to hers. My Gamma, Vance, had alerted me the moment she left the building, defying my implicit warning. She thought she was being independent. I saw it as walking straight into a trap.

Barber was leaning in too close. He was a decent doctor, perhaps, but as a male? Weak. Unworthy. Yet he looked at her with a hunger that made my claws ache to tear through the fine Italian leather of the armrest.

Then it happened.

Barber reached across the small table. His hand covered hers.

Time seemed to fracture. The sound of traffic faded into a dull roar, drowned out by the sudden, thunderous pounding of my own heart.

He touched her.

Ragnar slammed against the cage of my mind, a chaotic swirl of shadow and fury. Kill him, Ragnar roared, the sound echoing in my skull like a gunshot. Tear his throat out. She is ours.

I didn’t wait to see if Adella pulled away. I didn’t wait to see if she smiled or recoiled. The image of his skin against hers was branded into my retinas, blinding me with red.

My knuckles turned white as I gripped the door handle, the metal groaning under the pressure. If I stepped out of this car now, I wouldn’t just stop a date — I would start a massacre. The beast demanded blood, but the King needed to maintain order.

“Drive,” I commanded, the word slicing through the tension like a blade.

“Sir p>

“Back to the penthouse,” I snarled, my eyes never leaving the coffee shop window as the car began to move. “Now p>

I would not make a scene in public. I would not give Barber the satisfaction of knowing he had rattled the Alpha King. I would deal with this in my territory. In my den.

The hours that followed were an exercise in torture. I sat in the living room of the penthouse, the lights dimmed, a glass of whiskey untouched on the table beside me. The city lights twinkled mockingly through the glass walls, cold and distant.

When the elevator finally chimed, the sound was like a gavel striking a judge’s bench.