Chapter 711:

🍙 🍙 🍙 🍙 🍙

Alistair Croft knelt on the cracked concrete floor. His Inner Wolf was completely suppressed in absolute, terrifying submission. Gamma Vance Decker leaned against the peeling wall, a silent, emotionless gargoyle ready to clean up the blood.

“You compromised operational security,” Dallas’s voice was a glacial whip, devoid of any mercy. “You brought my pregnant Luna into a crossfire. That is treason, Vanguard-003. Execute the sentence.”

Dallas racked the slide and held the gun out. Alistair bowed his head, reaching for the grip with a face of fatalistic acceptance.

“No!”

I didn’t think. I threw my wolfless body directly into the center of the room, planting myself firmly between the silver-loaded barrel and Alistair’s chest.

𝗙𝗂𝘯𝗱 𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦l 𝖯𝘋Fѕ о𝗇 g𝖺lnovе𝘭s.𝘤𝘰𝗺

Dallas’s storm-gray eyes blew wide. The abyssal black of his Lycan, Ragnar, instantly flared at the sight of his mate in the line of fire.

“Move, Adella,” Dallas growled, a lethal, vibrating warning rumbling deep in his chest. “He broke the absolute protocol.”

“He kept me alive!” I shot back, refusing to yield an inch to his crushing Alpha aura. “You taught me that a Vanguard operative must think independently. Blind obedience gets people killed. He made the right call when your suicide plan failed!”

Dallas’s jaw clenched tight enough to crack bone, his knuckles turning white around the gun.

I took a deliberate step forward, my chest almost brushing the muzzle. I channeled every ounce of our mate-bond, striking directly at his deepest psychological vulnerability. “Are you really punishing Alistair? Or are you punishing me for refusing to stay in New York and wait to become a widow?”

The words struck him like a physical blow.

The pure black in his eyes violently flickered. I could feel Ragnar tearing himself apart inside Dallas’s mind — agonizingly torn between the absolute necessity of Alpha discipline and the desperate, primal need to yield to his mate. The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating.

Finally, Dallas let out a ragged, defeated breath. He lowered the weapon, his thumb expertly ejecting the magazine. The silver bullets clattered onto the tactical table.

“Your life is spared,” Dallas addressed Alistair, his tone leaving no room for gratitude. “But your field status is permanently revoked. You are demoted to the intelligence division. You will never hold a weapon for the Vanguard again.”

Alistair kept his head bowed. “Thank you, Alpha. Thank you, Luna.”

But as Alistair briefly looked up at me, I didn’t see the devastation of a disgraced, elite soldier. In his eyes, there was a profound, overwhelming relief. He didn’t want the blood and the shadows anymore; he wanted the quiet life with Penny. It was a secret truth only I caught.

Before I could process Alistair’s hidden relief, Dallas’s massive hand clamped around my waist.

He yanked me forward, crushing me flush against his chest. His grip was iron-hard, his storm-and-cedar scent completely enveloping my senses, demanding absolute submission. He leaned down, his lips brushing my ear as he delivered a low, dangerously dark whisper.

“Last time you ever intervene in my command, little moon.”

Adella’s POV

.

.

.

Message from Noa: We’re in the final quarter of the year, my dear ones, hang in there! God loves you and Noa wishes you all the best. (ɔO‿=)ɔ ♥

.