Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
ADDIE
The darkness wasn't absolute, but it was heavy.
It pressed against my chest like all the mediocre male managers I'd dealt with over the years.
As a wolf, the shadows should have been my playground, a map of grayscale and motion.
Instead, everything was a blurred, suffocating fog.
My head throbbed as if my brain was trying to push out of my skull. My skin felt too tight for my bones.
It wasn't my first experience with wolfsbane, unfortunately. I'd been introduced to it as a child when I misbehaved. It didn't just dampen the wolf; it severed the connection entirely, leaving me trapped in a human frame that felt fragile and dangerously weak.
Whoever had taken me assumed that because my wolf was sidelined, I was helpless.
They didn't realize I had experience with the drug, or that I'd spent the last ten years of my life perfecting the art of being just human.
While other shifters relied on their heightened reflexes and brute strength to navigate the world, I had spent my time in lecture halls and boardrooms, meticulously suppressing my own nature to blend in.
I was used to the dullness. I had lived in the gray for a decade, pretending my nose couldn't track a scent from three blocks away or that my ears couldn't hear a heartbeat across a room. I had trained my human mind to be twice as sharp because I couldn't rely on my claws.
The wolfsbane made me sluggish, yes. It made my muscles ache. But it didn't make me entirely defenseless. I still had my mind. And I knew I had to get out of here.
I reached out, my fingers brushing cold stone and rough velvet. I wasn't tied up. My hands were free. It didn't matter. I couldn't even summon the strength to stand, let alone shift and fight my way out of whatever hole I’d been dropped into.
A flickering fluorescent light hummed to life, stinging my eyes.
As the spots cleared, I saw them. Men. Rough, older men with the hard, hungry eyes of predators who had spent too long in the shadows of moonlight.
They leaned against the damp walls of what looked like a converted cellar, their leers barely concealed.
The scent-dampening drugs made the world smell like wet cardboard, but the primal vibration in the room was unmistakable. They were all wolves.
The heavy iron door at the end of the room groaned open. A man walked in, his heels clicking sharply against the stone. I recognized that gait before I even saw his face.
Dante Lupetto.
I had seen him once, ten years ago, on the night my father had tried to hand me over like a piece of livestock. I had looked into Dante’s cold, calculating eyes, felt the rot behind his smile, and I had run.
Today he looked impeccable. His suit was dark, tailored to a sharp silhouette that screamed old-world authority.
But as he stepped into the light, the facade crumbled.
The lapels were slightly frayed. The silk of his tie was from a collection five seasons old.
Like my father, Dante was a ghost clinging to a throne made of dust. If memory served, his sons were infamous for their absence, ghosts in their own right who refused to bolster their father’s failing legacy.
Dante stopped a few feet from me. His gaze swept over my body with a clinical focus. He didn't look at my face; he looked at my throat.
"Adolpha, you’ve grown into quite the prize." He wasn't looking me in the eye. He was looking at my breasts.
"My husband won't take kindly to his wife being kidnapped."
Dante stepped closer, reaching out with a gloved hand to hook the neckline of my plum dress, yanking it down just enough to expose my collarbone.
"The skin is unmarred. No tooth marks. No scarring.
" He leaned in, his scent—stale tobacco and sour wine—filling my dampened senses.
"A contract was signed a decade ago, little runaway.
You were promised to a Lupetto. You rejected my eldest, that you were unfit for our line.
And yet, here you are, carrying a Blackwood's scent. "
He let go of my dress, his eyes flashing with a yellow, predatory light. "His scent, but not his bite. Which makes you fair game."
My stomach turned, a cold, oily wave of nausea rolling over me.
This was why I had left. This was why I had clawed my way into the human world and buried my wolf under layers of logic and academia and spreadsheets.
Wolves like Dante and my father treated their children like pawns in a never-ending game of chess, sacrificed for a square of territory or a percentage of a shipping lane.
"You know the Blackwoods will come for their property," I said, forcing my voice to remain steady even as my pulse thundered in my ears. "If you provide me with an escort back to Blackwood Holdings right now, I won't tell them where I’ve been. We can call this a misunderstanding of the Old Laws."
Dante’s smile didn't reach his eyes. "Oh, but I want them to know where you’ve been, Adolpha. I want them to know with whom you’ve been.
I can smell your heat coming. By the time Vidar realizes you’re gone, you’ll be carrying the next generation of Lupettos.
And your father will finally have the alliance he was promised. "
The mention of my father—the confirmation of his betrayal—snapped something inside me. The fear didn't vanish. It was eclipsed by a white-hot flash of defiance. I didn't wait for Dante to lean in again. I lunged.
Even with the wolfsbane screaming in my veins, I moved faster than they would've expected. I swung my hand, my palm flat and aimed for his throat, intending to crush his windpipe. But I was human-slow, and he was an Alpha, fueled by the very nature I had been robbed of.
Dante’s hand shot out, his fingers hooking into a clawed grip. He caught my wrist mid-air with a strength that made my bones groan. Before I could pull away, his thick, yellowed nails lengthened, slicing deep across my fingers.
I gasped as four jagged lines of crimson bloomed across my index finger. It was a paper cut, but it still hurt. Mainly because I didn't want this creature’s touch.
Dante didn't let go. He jerked me closer, his eyes glowing with a sickening, triumphant light.
Around the room, the other wolves shifted, their leers widening.
I could hear the low, rhythmic thumping of their hearts, the sound of predators scenting blood in the water.
They weren't going to stop him. They were going to watch. They were going to enjoy it.
I looked at the open wound on my hand. The room was full of wolves; the air was thick with the scent of my own blood and my rising heat, and I realized that being the smartest person in the room wouldn't be enough to save me.