Chapter 7
Just past midnight, we were driving back from a banquet when we spotted Dylan standing beneath a streetlamp, cradling his usual bouquet of white roses.
The moment I stepped out of the car, rainbow–colored fireworks exploded across the night sky–an exact copy of the scene from years ago, when Dylan had proposed to me as his mate.
Lucas, like some masochistic lunatic, had watched that old proposal video on an endless loop–over and over again.
Back then, I was young, naive, completely swept away by the dazzling lights splintering across the sky. Giddy and starry–eyed, I had said yes without even thinking.
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Seeing the flicker of distraction in my eyes tonight, Lucas finally lost control. His jealousy boiled over and he lunged at Dylan like a rabid beast.
“You fucking bastard!”
His punch landed square on Dylan’s jaw.
“Thirty fucking years, and I’ve never met a bigger leech! Clinging to my fiancée like some goddamn parasite–don’t you ever make yourself sick?!”
Dylan spat a mouthful of blood… and smiled. That same cocky, infuriating smirk he always
wore.
“If I’m a parasite, Dylan sneered, “what does that make you? Elena and I were together for nine years. If it hadn’t been for that accident
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stealing her ability to carry pups, do you really think I’d have ever let Sophia have mine?”
His voice dropped, heavy and cruel.
“Elena only left because she thought I betrayed her.
Once she forgives me, she’ll drop your sorry ass and come running back.”
Lucas didn’t even hesitate.
He decked Dylan so hard‘ the bastard went sprawling to the ground.
The cruelest part?
Back when Host my pup, it wasn’t Dylan who showed up.
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It was Lucas–rushing to my side, holding me together through the worst days of my life.
And Dylan?
“Too busy with work, he’d said.
Too busy… yet somehow not too busy to fly Sophia off to Prague, wandering those cobblestone streets like he didn’t have a damn care in the world.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t pull Lucas off him-
until, by some shitty twist of fate, a patrol car from the Enforcer squad rolled up at the
corner.
The Enforcer locked eyes with Dylan through the windshield.
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Seconds later, they broke up the fight and hauled all three of us into the nearest pack hospital without so much as an explanation.
On the ride there, I was too busy tending to Lucas’s split lip to think too much about it.
But when we got to the hospital, instead of getting treated together, they shoved me straight into Dylan’s private room.
The second the door clicked shut behind me, it all clicked in my head.
The fireworks.
The fight.
The “perfectly timed” Enforcer arrival.
It had all been a fucking setup.
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Dylan’s setup–just for five goddamn minutes alone with me.
“Did you really have to go this far?” I asked, my voice cold enough to crack glass.
Dylan, who had two broken ribs from the brawl, looked up at me, his eyes bloodshot, a desperate, almost childlike smile pulling at his mouth.
“Elena… I miss you so fucking much.”
He paused, his voice dropping to a raw whisper.
“I’m losing my fucking mind without you.”
While the pack doctor checked him over, I caught sight of the tattoo sprawling across his chest–the sun, the moon, and the stars.
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It was the Blackwood family crest.
The one I had designed myself… back when I was pregnant.
But the pup was gone now.
And Dylan had buried our future right along with it.
I still remembered the way he used to mock that drawing.
“The moon? You? Don’t make me fucking laugh.”
While Lucas was briefly pulled away by the Enforcer, Dylan seized the chance.
He lunged forward, grabbing my wrist so tightly it felt like the bones might shatter.
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“Elena, listen to me. I have to say this.”
His voice cracked, rough with guilt.
“It was all my fault.
Our baby… I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.
Please–I’m begging you–just forgive me.”
Before I could even breathe a reply, his phone rang.
On the screen, one name flashed: Sophia.
Without a flicker of hesitation, Dylan answered–and put it on speaker.
“Dylan! Help me!” Sophia’s voice shrieked through the room, wild and hysterical.
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“Aiden–Aiden’s broken into my place! He’s dragging me to the pack hospital! They’re gonna take my pup away!”
Her broken, desperate screams filled the air like poison.
Dylan didn’t even blink.
Didn’t even fucking flinch.
He just stared at me, cold and merciless, a bitter smile curling his lips.
“Sophia,” he said, his voice colder than death, “I’ve known for a long time–you drugged me that night.”
He leaned back, tone glacial.
“That pup… will not be born.”
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“And all the bullshit you posted online? Smearing Elena’s name, calling her infertile?”
He let out a humorless chuckle.
“I wiped it all. Every last fucking word.”
“And for dragging my mate’s name through the mud,” he said, voice dropping to a lethal whisper,
“your punishment’s simple–no anesthesia during your abortion.”
“After today, you’ll never carry a pup again.”
Dead silence fell over the line.
Then-
Sophia’s soul–shattering scream:
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“Alpha Dylan! I–I was just confused! Punish me, beat me, whatever you want, just- please–please save my pup! Please- ahhhhhh!!!”
Her raw, gut–wrenching sobs tore through the air.
Dylan, looking like stone, ended the call without a second thought.
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