Chapter 727:

🍙 🍙 🍙 🍙 🍙

Adella’s POV

The heavy blast doors of the underground garage groaned open, vomiting a suffocating cloud of cordite, Lycan blood, and the sickening, acrid stench of burnt flesh.

Dallas dragged his massive frame through the shadows. His black trench coat was shredded, soaked in a horrifying amount of blood. When his storm-gray eyes locked onto me standing in the corridor, they instantly bled into the pure, abyssal black of his Lycan, Ragnar. He was teetering on the absolute edge of a feral bloodbath.

A low, warning growl tore from his throat. He stumbled, leaning heavily against the concrete wall. His Lycan senses, normally sharp enough to detect a lie on the wind, were completely overwhelmed by the excruciating burn of the silver in his veins and the suffocating stench of his own blood.

𝖩𝗼𝗂𝗻 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘤o𝘮𝘮𝘶𝗻ity o𝗇 g𝖺𝘭𝗇о𝗏e𝗅s.𝘤оm

“Stay back, Adella,” he rasped, his voice vibrating with a weak but desperate Alpha’s Command. “I’m covered in silver. I’m too dirty… too dangerous right now.”

I didn’t flinch. I marched straight into the crushing weight of his erratic aura and wrapped my arms tightly around his trembling waist. I used my entire body weight as a fulcrum, guiding my exhausted King away from the cold garage and into the warm sitting area of the inner sanctuary.

I eased him down onto the dark leather sofa. Without asking for permission, I ripped open his ruined tactical vest.

I gasped. A deep, jagged laceration tore across his left ribcage, a brutal strike from a silver blade. The edges of the wound were already blackened, the lethal metal poisoning his bloodstream.

I grabbed the Vanguard tactical medical kit from the coffee table. “Hold still,” I whispered, my hands shaking as I uncapped the neutralizing solution.

Because of his accelerated werewolf metabolism and the silver’s violent rejection of foreign chemicals, anesthesia was completely useless. I had to suture him raw.

I poured the solution directly into the wound. Dallas’s entire body went rigid. The veins in his neck bulged as he fought a soul-tearing scream, but he remained completely silent. I threaded the sterile needle and began to stitch the torn flesh together.

“Keep looking at me,” Dallas choked out, his massive hand gripping the armrest until the leather tore. “Just let me smell you. Your scent… it blocks the pain.”

I leaned in close, letting my natural scent of moonflowers and rain envelop him, holding his gaze as I tied off the final suture. The rigid, feral tension in his muscles slowly began to settle under my touch.

Once the wound was bound, I wrapped his arm over my shoulder and helped him walk the few agonizing steps to the king-sized bed. He collapsed onto the mattress, his chest heaving.

I pulled the heavy blanket over him, but the moment the fabric touched his skin, his body violently convulsed.

His eyes lost all focus. The adrenaline of the fight was crashing, allowing the silver toxin to violently hijack his nervous system. He was instantly dragged back into the horrific PTSD loop of Level 9.

“No,” Dallas muttered frantically, thrashing against the sheets. His massive hand shot under the pillow, his fingers wrapping around the steel grip of his loaded tactical pistol.

I kicked off my shoes and scrambled onto the mattress. I threw myself over his broad back, wrapping my arms tightly around his chest and using both hands to pry his fingers off the gun. I kicked the weapon to the floor.

“Dallas, you’re safe!” I pleaded, reaching out to tap the smart speaker on the nightstand. A low, steady hum of white noise filled the room.

.

.

.