Chapter 184
Chapter 184:
“Never arrange a date for me with a man again p>
He didn’t wait for a response. He turned on his heel and walked straight to his bedroom. The heavy oak door slammed shut behind him, the lock clicking with a definitive, echoing thud.
I collapsed back onto the velvet sofa and pulled my knees to my chest, pressing my trembling fingers to my bruised lips. My mind was a chaotic, spinning wreck.
This wasn’t the kiss of a man who liked men. The raw, undeniable hunger in his touch had been terrifyingly real.
But I couldn’t let myself believe it. I squeezed my eyes shut and forced my fragile walls back up. He was just humiliated. I had embarrassed him in front of his Pack, and his Lycan pride had lashed out to punish me. That was all it was.
I sat alone in the dim light, completely unaware that the heavy silence settling over the penthouse was just the beginning of a freezing, agonizing war.
Jase POV
The red line on my laptop screen wasn’t just a stock ticker — it was a bleeding artery. Davenport Tech was plummeting, the numbers flashing like a neon sign broadcasting my absolute failure to the entire continent.
The heavy doors of my Alpha office burst open. Kira rushed in, her cloying jasmine scent flooding the room. Today it didn’t smell sweet; it smelled sickening, laced with the sour stench of her desperate lies.
“Jase, baby, please!” Kira cried, reaching across the desk to grab my arm. “You have to listen to me. Adelina set me up! She manipulated the police p>
I ripped my arm out of her grasp, my Inner Wolf snarling with a humiliated, metallic-scented rage. “Stop lying, Kira. The police report is public. They traced the offshore accounts. You knew Zack Rutledge in Ibiza years ago. You used my resources to fund a Rogue’s attack on an allied Pack p>
𝗜𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗼𝗻
Her face drained of color. “I did it for us! To protect our reputation p>
“You made me the laughingstock of the werewolf world,” I said, my voice a dead, hollow void. I grabbed my keys from the desk. “I’m going to the Hamptons for a few days. Alone. Do not follow me p>
I walked out of the office, ignoring her panicked sobs. I needed to escape the suffocating ruins of my own pride.
Adelina POV
Two hours later, I sat behind the massive mahogany desk in my Alpha office, staring at a quarterly budget. The numbers were a meaningless blur of black ink.
It had been two days since Friday night. Two days since Kain Blackwell had stormed into the penthouse, completely soaked in freezing rain, and crushed his lips against mine in a brutal, punishing claim.
Since that moment, he had subjected me to the most agonizing punishment a Lycan could inflict: absolute, freezing silence.