Chapter 713:

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I didn’t let his chaotic Lycan aura push me away. I stepped forward, moving behind him as he slumped heavily against the cold metal door. I wrapped my arms tightly around his massive, trembling torso, pressing my cheek flat against the center of his back. I pushed every ounce of my scent — a soothing, heavy wave of moonflowers and rain — into the air, wrapping it around his fractured soul.

“Dallas,” I whispered, my voice carrying the gentle, unyielding authority of a Luna. “You are fighting a poison, not a curse. Your strength isn’t gone; it’s just recalibrating. Let me be your balance until the tremors stop. We aren’t just partners in war, but in this recovery too.”

For a long, agonizing moment, the only sound in the kitchen was his ragged breathing.

Then, slowly, the rigid tension in his muscles began to melt. He reached back, his large hand wrapping over mine where it rested on his stomach. He squeezed my fingers with a bone-crushing, desperate grip. A muffled, broken apology vibrated through his chest. We stood there in the quiet kitchen, a silent vow passing between us, preparing for the long road of healing that lay ahead.

Adella’s POV

B𝖾 𝘁h𝖾 𝘧𝗶rst 𝘁𝘰 𝗿е𝖺d o𝗇 𝘨a𝗅𝗻𝗼𝗏𝘦𝗹𝘴.cо𝗆

Later that evening, the sharp, sterile scent of the underground transit hub was masked by the rich aroma of seared meat. Dallas had insisted on searing the steaks himself, his jaw set in a grim line as he forced his trembling hands into temporary, white-knuckled submission — a desperate, quiet attempt to carve out a sliver of normalcy for us amidst the chaos of his failing body and the impending war.

We sat across from each other at the small dining table in the inner sanctuary. The recessed lighting overhead cast a warm, soft glow, making the reinforced concrete walls feel a little less like a tomb. On the porcelain plates between us rested roasted vegetables and steaks he’d managed to sear to a perfect pink center, though the unevenly scattered salt betrayed the lingering tremors.

I cut a small piece of meat, but my appetite was overshadowed by the lingering ghosts of the morning.

“Dallas,” I started softly, setting my fork down. “This morning in the operations room… when you held the gun to Alistair’s chest, he wasn’t afraid to die. He looked almost relieved. Why?”

Dallas’s movements halted. His massive hands tightened around his silverware. A guarded, impenetrable shadow crossed his storm-gray eyes. Through our mate-bond, I could feel Ragnar bristling, his Inner Wolf deeply uneasy about spilling the Vanguard’s darkest, most classified secrets. He wanted to protect me from the blood that stained his ledger.

I didn’t push with words. I simply held his gaze, offering a steady, unyielding warmth.

Dallas let out a heavy, defeated sigh, the tension draining from his broad shoulders. “About fifteen years ago, the Syndicate operated a black-site lab in Eastern Europe,” he began, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. “They were funded by the dark web to create the ultimate infiltration tools — ghost assassins. They kidnapped lone-wolf orphans and rogue teens, subjecting them to brutal blood-magic bone reconstruction and silver-toxin skin grafts to permanently erase their natural scents.”

A cold chill washed over my skin.

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