Chapter 6

• Dallas’s POV
• The first crack of bone was not mine.
• It was the old rusted water pipe.
• Eveline Ashforde, my so-called pack sister and Frostclaw’s pampered jewel, had her claws in my hair, yanking my head back so hard that stars exploded across my vision. Before I could breathe, she slammed my skull into the pipe again. And again. And again.
• Warm blood ran past my lashes, down my cheek, beading on the filthy concrete. The scent of my own blood, Frostclaw blood, cold and metallic, filled my nostrils.
• “You filthy impostor!” Eveline snarled. Her wolf bled through her words. “You dared to live the life that belonged to me? Dallas Ashforde, you should have died at birth.”
• Her voice cracked with madness and illness. The Moon-rot cancer eating away at her life had made her vicious, sharpened her cruelty into something she could no longer control.
• She slammed my head into the pipe again.
• My body folded like a broken rag doll. Every wound on my back screamed, the raw flesh from her whip opening with every strike. She raised the whip again, a cruel hiss of leather through the stale air.
• “Die. Just die already!”
• Her strike cut through the air.
• “Ah!” I screamed. Pain shot through my spine like lightning. My wolf whimpered inside me, frantic and trying to heal me, but healing could not keep up with the next blow.
• I dragged myself forward on trembling elbows, leaving red streaks on the stone floor. My fingers clawed toward the embroidered hem of Luna Sophia’s dress, the woman who had raised me for eighteen years.
• “Mom, please. Save me. You raised me eighteen years. Raised bonds are stronger than birth bonds, right? I will honor you all my life. Please.”
• My tears fell warm, my blood hotter.
• The woman I begged only frowned and stepped back, letting my bloody fingers slide off her silk. She touched her jade prayer beads as if the incense could drown out my suffering.
• “Dallas,” she said coldly, “if not for you, our true daughter would not have been left outside for eighteen years. She suffered because of you. If you care about me, let Eveline vent her pain.”
• Vent. As if I were a sandbag, as if my body existed only to hold their rage.
• “But I will die,” I whispered. “Mom, she will kill me.”
• “Then you die,” she said, indifferent. “Your life is your misfortune. I care only about my real daughter’s happiness.”
• My wolf whimpered. I swallowed the sound.
• She looked at Eveline with a softness she never gave me. “Eveline, enough for now. We have a family portrait later. Do not exhaust yourself.”
• Only then did Eveline toss the whip aside, scoffing. “Fine. I will finish with her after the picture.”
• But she paused and smiled cruelly. “Actually, saltwater disinfects wounds.” She glanced at the butler. “Bring a bucket of sea-salt water. Pour it on her. That way she will not die yet, and her wounds will scar. I want her to remember that she is only fit to be my outlet.”
• “No, please do not, Mom, please.”
• Terror ripped through me. I was too weak, too broken to run.
• The butler held me down. The bucket tipped.
• Saltwater crashed onto my open wounds. My scream did not sound human. It tore through the underground room and through any dignity I had left. It echoed like a wolf being skinned alive. The sound vibrated through the pipes, through stone, through my bones.
• I thrashed as the salt bit into my gashes. My vision blurred to white, then black, then the wavering red of pain and madness.
• Somewhere far away, someone gasped.
• But the girl on the floor in the video was still me, crawling and screaming.
• I heard a choked sound.
• Damian.
• Years ago, he had found me like this—broken, bleeding, barely breathing. He had never known who did it. Now he did.
• His aura snapped. The sound of his breath hitched. He felt my pain as if it were his own. Shock and fury surged through the bond he denied but could never sever.
• He jerked free of Eveline’s hold, eyes on her as if she were prey.
• “It was you?”
• “No, that video is fake!” Eveline faltered. Panic clawed her throat. This was not in her script. She expected sympathy, not exposure.
• “There were no cameras in that basement. You fabricated this to slander me and my mother,” she screamed.
• “Yes.” Luna Sophia rushed forward, venom in her voice. “Dallas, I raised you for eighteen years. Even when I learned you were not truly an Ashforde, I let you stay as our second daughter. But you could not stop corrupting yourself, so we had to throw you out. And now you use this video to vilify us?”
• The crowd murmured judgment.
• I had learned to let pressure sharpen me. I laughed quietly, bleakly.
• “Luna Sophia,” I said, “it is true. There was no surveillance at first.”
• I lifted my eyes. Frostclaw blue, steady.
• “But one night, you went to the basement alone. You slipped. No one found you. I rescued you.”
• Her pupils contracted.
• “I feared it might happen again. I secretly installed a pinhole camera to protect you. I never imagined it would record this.”
• Whispers spread.
• Luna Sophia’s face drained of color.
• Eveline sensed her mother’s hesitation and squeezed her hand. “Mom, she is lying. Right? You never went to the basement alone.”
• Like always, her mother bent. “Yes. Dallas is lying. I have never stepped foot in that basement.”
• I curled my fingers into fists. The sting grounded me as rage climbed my throat.
• A low voice cut through the room. “Is that so?”
• The crowd parted.
• A man walked through the sea of bodies. Tall, lethal, his presence like a predator. His eyes were dark, wolf-cold. My breath hitched. Serena lifted her head, sensing danger older than language.
• He saw the whip marks on my shoulder. His jaw twitched. His eyes locked on mine with recognition. He brushed a stray strand of hair from my dress with a motion so precise it drew every camera’s attention.
• This was the same dangerous man I had met in panic before, the one I had accidentally looked into, the one whose presence made even wolves pause.
• “Since the Madam claims innocence,” he said softly, voice deep as a winter river, “let the butler speak. He was there.”
• The room fell into frozen silence. This was an Alpha whose very presence split worlds.
• And he had spoken for me.