Chapter 16

LEAH

I paced back and forth in the safe room, I could hear the chaos rumbling outside, but the paper in my hand had me trembling. Something was going on, and I didn't know what it was, but it was clear that it had something to do with me.

Dante asked me not to look from here and I knew too well that I shouldn't even if everything in my body screamed for me to go. I opened the paper for the tenth time in the last hour.

“I wish we had met, and this chaos wouldn't have happened to begin with, but I presume you know nothing and your husband is not saying anything and the portrait?”

My heart slammed against my chest as I remembered the portrait, I had refused to say anything about it, but who was this and this battle was all because I haven't met him?

My head was railing, yet I couldn't do about it, what was Dante hiding that I didn't know? I held on to the paper tightly waiting for anything and after two hours the door flew open reveal Dante covered in blood but not his.

“Are you ok?” He asked but I pulled away.

“You're the one I should be asking that. Is everyone ok as well”

“That depends on the medical report tomorrow”

“Let's get you washed up” He looked at me with gentle eyes, but my mind raced with questions I knew I needed to ask

I walked back and forth in the dimly lit room, the wooden floor creaking beneath my restless steps. The old portrait trembled in my fingers, its edges slightly frayed with time, yet the image itself hunting untouched by the years. My face stared back at me, frozen in an expression I didn't recognize.

Hearing the shower in the bathroom made me more nervous than I already was. If I wanted to ask questions I needed to do it now, I looked back at the picture.

The dress I wore in the picture was elegant, the kind of gown meant for royalty. But I had no memory of ever wearing it. No memory of ever standing in that place, beneath the towering silver trees that framed the background.

A shiver crawled down my spine.

The bathroom door flew open, and he stepped out with a towel wrapped around his waist while cleaning his face with another. I say on the bed and waited for him to finish. He looked anything but tired.

His shoulders, always squared with unshakable confidence, were slumped ever so slightly. He walked into the closet before I took a sit on the bed, and he returned dressed in sweatpants and a singlet.

“Where did you get this?” My voice was barely above a whisper, yet it carried through the silent room like a scream and he looked up.

He exhaled sharply, dragging a hand through his raven-black hair. “I… don’t know.”

A flicker of frustration tightened my chest. I stepped closer, gripping the portrait tighter. “You don’t know? That’s not an answer, Dante.”

His jaw clenched. The muscles in his forearms tensed as his hands curled into fists on his thighs. “I found it among my things years ago,” he admitted, his voice strained. “I never knew where it came from, but I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it.”

Something inside me twisted at his words. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Dante’s eyes, an impossibly deep blue that had always held the weight of secrets, darkened further. “Because I would rather not scare you away.”

His confession sent a shockwave through me. Not because of what he said, but because of what it meant. He had kept this from me, not out of malice, but out of fear. A man like Dante, who commanded armies, who stood unmoved in the face of war, had been afraid of losing me.

The thought should have reassured me. Instead, it terrified me.

I swallowed hard, my fingers trembling around the edges of the portrait. “I need to think,” I murmured.

Dante gave a stiff nod, but something flickered in his gaze before he looked away, doubt, hesitation… maybe even fear. And for the first time since marrying him, I wasn’t sure if I could trust him.

I held the paper tightly refusing to show him and walked out

DARREN

Rage boiled beneath my skin, an untamed fire threatening to consume me. My breath came in sharp, shallow bursts as I stormed into my quarters, my hands still trembling from the scene I had just witnessed.

My wife and my Beta.

The image seared itself into my mind, Sierra’s widened eyes, the sheets barely covering her tangled limbs, the sharp scent of betrayal thick in the air. My Beta had tried to stammer excuses, but I had no patience to hear.

I’d thrown them apart. Dragged Sierra to the dungeon myself and sentences my Beta to death.

Irritation filled my lungs at the mental image and now, standing in the dim candlelight of my office, the initial wave of fury began, leaving behind something else. Something colder.

Confusion.

Why the hell had I been so obsessed with her in the first place?

I ran a hand down my face, exhaling through gritted teeth. The more I thought about it, the more something felt… wrong. Like a fog was lifting from my mind, unraveling a thread I hadn’t even realized was tangled.

A sudden, violent twisted my stomach. I staggered, gripping the edge of my desk as nausea swept over me. My pulse thundered in my ears, my vision blurring for a split second before sharpening again, clearer than before.

Then it hit me.

Something truly wasn't right. I looked down at the food on my table, particularly the untouched glass of wine. My mind reeled, connecting pieces of a puzzle I hadn’t even known existed.

She has always brought my food since she arrived here, and I felt a sickening feeling in my stomach. Poison? No. Not poison. Something more insidious. A herb. A drug.

A shudder ran through me.

How long?

How long had I been under its influence? How long had my choices been manipulated, my desires bent to someone else’s will?

My heart pounded in my chest as the realization settled like ice in my veins and I picked the glass out wine, channeling my senses and I perceived something strange like a damn herb

Sierra.

A bloodcurdling scream tore through the castle walls.

My head snapped up. The dungeon.

I didn’t hesitate. I bolted from my office. The guards at the dungeon entrance stiffened at my approach.

“Alpha—” one of them started, but I didn’t stop. I threw the heavy iron door open, stepping into the damp, torch-lit chamber.

She was curled on the cold stone floor, her body trembling violently. Her golden hair clung to her damp forehead, her skin deathly pale. Her eyes, once filled with seduction, with false promises now brimmed with something far more raw.

Fear.

She looked up at me, her lips parting. “Darren.”

My name was a whisper, hoarse, broken.

I loomed over her, my voice like steel. She murmured, “I didn’t mean for you to find out this way.”

My blood ran cold. “Find out what?”

A bitter laugh escaped her lips as she lifted her gaze, meeting mine head-on. “I’ve been drugging you.”

The air was sucked from the room.

My vision pulsed with red, my fists clenching, so tightly my nails dug into my palms. “What?”

She flinched, but there was no more use in pretending. “You weren’t supposed to question it,” she said, voice barely above a whisper. “I needed you to stay obsessed with me. To never look anywhere else… especially not at her.”

My breath hitched.

“Her?” My voice dropped, low and dangerous. “You mean Leah.”

She nodded weakly, her eyes filled with something I couldn’t quite name. “She’s not who you think she is. None of this is.”

My heart slammed against my ribs. The dungeon walls seemed to close in, the torches flickering like shadows dancing in mockery.

I stepped closer, towering over her, my voice deathly quiet. “Then tell me.”

She let out a hollow, humorless laugh. “I’ll tell you everything, Darren.” She tilted her head back, eyes gleaming with something almost… pitying. “But by the time you understand the truth, it might already be too late.”

A chill ran down my spine, colder than anything I had ever felt before.

Because deep inside, I knew she wasn’t lying.

And if she was telling the truth…

Then everything I thought I knew about Leah, about Dante, about myself, was about to unravel.a

The storm had only just begun.