Chapter 18
Adea
The silence Ethan left behind was heavier than the music pulsing in the Hall.
I was rooted to the same spot he’d left me, my skin still humming where he’d touched me, my mind a mess.
I was wolfless—void where my soul should be—and yet, for those few minutes in his arms, I’d felt more alive than I had in years.
A force tackled me, squealing as I tried not to fall. Nikki’s arms wrapped around me, crushing.
“You lucky skank!” Nikki hissed, her eyes scanning my face with nothing but excitement. “We got split up and when I find you, you’re in the arms of the Desert Moon Alpha! And that mask? I don’t even care what’s under it—he is hot.”
Mavy stood beside me, her eyes round with shock. “He didn’t just dance with you. There was more, wasn’t there? Tell us.”
“It was. He had a situation… at the gates,” I managed to whisper, my heart still staggering. I looked around, desperate for Gabe, but the gray of his tux was nowhere. “Where’s Gabe?”
“Haven’t seen him since he disappeared with Lilith,” Nikki said as she waved a hand dismissively, already looking for more champagne. I looked around the room, the panic starting to claw at my throat. Gabe was gone. Ethan was… somewhere. And Shane.
My eyes swept the roiling sea of silk and muscle. Shane was nowhere in sight.
Usually, his presence was constant, a shadow I couldn’t shake. His absence felt worse.
Nikki waved a hand in front of my face. “He probably found a dark corner to break some furniture. Forget him—tell us what the Mad King said!”
“Mad King?” I murmured. My head had been in the clouds, but the title brought me crashing back to earth.
“That’s what they call him. We talked about him being new blood, remember? He hasn’t been Alpha long.” Something was off with Mavy, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“So? What did he say?” Nikki asked.
I couldn’t. “I need air,” I said, backing away from their frantic energy. “Just a minute. I’ll be right back, I promise.”
Mavy’s jaw tightened, her normal bubbly demeanor gone, but I brushed it off and slipped away from the heat of the ballroom.
“Fine. Don’t be long,” Nikki sighed. Her pout was the last thing I saw before I stepped out into the gardens.
I needed the cold night air to kill the heat Ethan had left on my skin. The moon hung heavy over the canyon. It was beautiful, lighting up the stone fountain and the manicured hedges, but I couldn’t appreciate it.
I’d never wanted to find my mate, but the Goddess didn’t listen. I was grappling with my future, the control I’d lose, but the way he’d looked at me left me breathless. He didn’t say anything about my wolf, or lack of wolf.
I walked toward the fountain, dabbing at a stray tear, careful not to ruin Nikki’s masterpiece.
If I had my wolf, I could ask her what to do, but there was only silence.
No matter how long I stayed out here, it wouldn’t make me any more ready for what was to come.
I lifted my chin, and moved toward the door.
That’s when the shadows moved.
Out from the darkness of the stone arches, a figure stepped into the light. My body went cold, the blood draining from my limbs as panic seized my chest. I couldn’t find my voice.
Shane stepped into the silver light, his tuxedo jacket discarded, his black shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest, his shadow stretching across the fountain like a bloodstain.
His jaw was set so tight I could see the muscle leaping in his cheek, and his eyes…
they weren’t human. They were pits of gold.
He slowly licked his lips, the motion deliberate, already tasting the fear rolling off me.
“Why?” Shane asked, his voice terrifyingly calm.
I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. I was powerless; a lamb alone with a wolf.
Shane was before me in a heartbeat. Gold, murderous intent held me still.
His Alpha aura surrounded me, encasing me.
Heat radiated off him and in the next second, his hand fisted my throat and slammed me against the cement wall.
I let out a gargled cry, my fingers clawing at the hand that was crushing my windpipe.
His shoulders shook, neck cracking, knuckles whitening.
I slid down the rough cement, my knees hitting the dirt as he momentarily loosened his grip to sneer at me.
I tried to gasp for air, but before I could even draw a full breath, Shane’s hand fisted in my hair to yank my head back.
His other arm looped around my middle, hoisting me up until I was dangling against him, trapped between his heat and the cold wall.
“How many times do I have to say it?” he hissed. His gaze traveled down my body, lingering on the curve of my chest before he let out a growl. “You’re mine.”
He yanked the silk of my dress. The spaghetti straps snapped with a violent pop, and the bodice fell, leaving me bare to the waist in the moonlight.
“Shane,” I choked through the pain. There was no reprieve as my lungs ballooned with air.
Shane’s arm around my waist lifted me. He was a violation, his mouth a hot, bruising weight on my breast. My thighs clenched at the familiar touch and I cried out as teeth bit with the need for blood.
He hauled my leg over his waist, and the sound of my palm cracking against his jaw echoed off the stone.
I froze as his eyes found mine and he smirked.
“There she is.” He exhaled the words and I bit my lip, shoving against his chest.
He slapped me—an explosion of light that sent my head reeling. “I can hurt you too, Princess.”
When I turned my head to look at him, his shoulders rose with each breath.
He struck me again, harder this time. My skull met the cement, and the world blurred.
My vision went dark at the edges, and my strength vanished.
I felt myself crumpling, but he caught me—not with a hand, but with a clawed grip that pierced my skin.
Shane had snapped. A low, distorted rattle vibrated in his chest, a rattle that wasn’t human.
The scent of rain and wet fur exploded off him, suffocatingly thick.
Something shifted beneath his skin as he rolled his head, his face contorting as his beast fought to tear through the skin.
There were no limits now; the restraint he’d worn had been shredded by a feral, white-hot hate.
He didn’t want to possess me anymore—he wanted to break me so no one else could have me.
“I’ve played your games. But watching you with him? I can only be patient for so long. I have nothing left to give. It’s time I take,” he bit out, his voice thick with delirious grief.
The air in the garden seemed to thicken, turning into lead in my lungs. When he spoke, he projected a wave of raw, undeniable authority that slammed into my bones.
“Submit.”
My body wasn’t mine anymore. Despite the screaming in my head, my knees dropped as he released me. My spine curved and my head bowed. I collapsed further into the dirt, my head tilting to offer my bare neck in a forced, agonizing surrender.
He used the moment to shred the rest of my dignity; his gaze was a rot on my skin. I stared at the ground, praying for the darkness to take me.
“I’ve waited for this day,” he murmured, his voice thick with greed.
Then, the world shattered.
A roar filled the garden, violent enough to drown out the screaming in my head. The crushing weight of the submission snapped as a dark blur exploded from the shadows.
Ethan didn’t just strike him; he collided with Shane like celestial vengeance.
It was a brutal, full-body tackle that sent them both careening across the courtyard. Shane was ripped off me, his body hitting the stone arches hard enough to split the mortar.
I scrambled back, covering my chest, my breath hitching as my eyes found the two beast-like men.
Ethan was a blur, a shadow made of iron spikes and silent rage as he straddled Shane. He didn’t look back at me. His eyes were locked on his prey, and in them, I saw a death sentence.
Ethan’s fist met Shane’s face—a sickening crunch of bone meeting bone.
Again and again. Shane snarled, a wet crack, his mouth full of blood as his own beast rose to the surface.
He threw a right hook, catching a spike and Ethan’s head jerked when it connected.
They rolled across the gravel, a blur of tuxedos and muscles.
The two Alphas collided in a brutal, bone-snapping brawl.
To my horror, it wasn’t a one-sided slaughter—they were evenly matched in their ferocity, two beasts tearing at each other’s throats.
I heard the literal spitting and snarling of their wolves, canines tearing flesh, and a guttural noise that made the hair on my arms stand.
They traded blows that echoed off stone.
Shane caught Ethan’s collar, driving his knee into Ethan’s midsection.
Ethan reached out and his fingers sank into the meat of Shane’s shoulder.
There was a sickening rip as he tore through silk and muscle.
I caught a flash of white—bone exposed to the moonlight—before the blood spread.
Ethan’s silence was more terrifying than Shane’s roars.
Shane fought like a man possessed; Ethan fought like a god exacting vengeance.
Shane turned his head, gold eyes on me. It wasn’t pain I found there, but desperation.
My breath hitched seconds before Ethan caught him with a final hook, sending him crashing into the stone fountain.
Marble shattered under the impact, water spraying into the air in a glittering arc.
Enforcers swarmed from the shadows, their silver-plated rifles leveled as they pinned Shane to the wet floor.
He fought against six before they were able to detain him, his face bloodied, his breath coming in ragged gasps, but his eyes never left mine—fixed on me.
I couldn’t make sense of the pain I felt. Tears finally broke, streaming down my cheeks as I curled into myself, clutching my chest, my hands shaking uncontrollably.