Chapter 263: Him

It was terribly wrong, and I knew all too well that there truly was no way out. I would just have to submit, no matter how much I wanted things to be different. No matter how sick and agonizing it made me feel inside.

But for her sake, I would have to do it. Even if she grew to hate me in the end, I couldn’t allow her to suffer any more than she already had.

***

"Shock therapy."

The sharp, violent shatter of breaking glass, followed instantly by a guttural, terrifying roar, made everyone in the office shudder in raw horror.

"I. Will. Not. Do. This," the young man spat through clenched teeth, running his hand through his already wildly disheveled hair in sheer desperation.

The old man sitting behind the massive desk pressed his fingers heavily against his temples, casting a dark, burdened look at the middle-aged couple huddling together across from him. Husband and wife sat paler than chalk, trembling violently with fear. Never in their lives had they stood in the shadow of such concentrated, overwhelming terror.

"What the hell were you thinking, selling your own daughter off to human traffickers?!" Damian bellowed, kicking the heavy wooden table with such ferocious strength that it splintered against the far wall.

"Her bloodwork was getting worse every single year—what else were we supposed to do?!" the woman sobbed out, burying her face in her hands. "The physician who’s treated her since childhood threw his hands up in the air... He said if her breeder gene doesn’t awaken, she won’t even live to see next summer!

Shock therapy was our only option left! Those people sent us all her lab reports, and there was nothing—her stress levels were elevated, but not enough for her body to trigger survival mode at all costs! Her inner beast is dormant and dying! She’s weaker than a normal human right now..."

She hid her tear-stained face in her hands, rocking back and forth in frantic distress.

"Dey... you have to do this. You’ve felt her bond your entire life. I know that when I hid and swapped those vials, you still managed to track down the right one," the doctor said weary, looking straight into my eyes. "Don’t bother denying it. I know everything."

"Adam, snap out of it! How the fuck am I supposed to do that?!" Damian slumped helplessly into a chair, digging his trembling hands into his hair and tearing at the roots. "When I saw her photos, my heart nearly stopped dead in my chest! How am I supposed to be near her and not focus on the only thing I want—to wrap her in protection and care?! The only ’shock therapy’ I’ll give her is losing control of my wolf and tearing into her..."

"No, Dey. The stress needs to build gradually, escalating until it peaks—only then can we reintroduce the fluid back into her scent gland. You can do this," Adam said, pushing himself up heavily and limping forward with his crutch.

"There is no other way. Besides, with you beside her, there’s a huge chance her own primal instincts will begin to rouse. You don’t have to hold back your aura or your pheromones around her. It will only help her."

"How the hell does tormenting her help her?!" Damian snarled. "How am I supposed to look her in the eye after that?! There has to be another way!"

"There isn’t. We’ve tried everything," the older man said softly. "When they harvested the fluid from her, she was in such severe trauma that her mind blocked everything out. Everything. She couldn’t even process speech anymore, even though you know damn well how articulate she was for her age. You two were Dean’s most successful projects."

"And you bought that little girl from him, falling for the sweet lies of your bastard son!" Damian glared with lethal fury at the people who had raised his mate all these years.

They had hidden her using the blood money left behind by their criminal son’s dirty dealings. A human trafficker. It was he who had committed that horrific atrocity against his own fated mate, inflicting unspeakable agony before discarding her into the sea like worthless trash. He had drained the pheromones straight from her scent gland for astronomical profit. He showed no mercy, not even to a child.

And these two had stood by. They were right there and did nothing to stop him.

"We love her as if she were our own blood!" the woman shrieked hysterically. "We know we are guilty before her, but we tried—we tried in whatever way we could to atone for what our son did!"

"You could have reported her whereabouts, knowing damn well that her pack was searching for her!" the guy growled, stalking menacingly toward the terrified couple. "Instead, you played the martyrs, putting on a show of noble charity! And now that the traffickers predictably refused to hand Amelie back over to you, you come running here?!"

"Damian, stop terrifying them!" Adam barked with weary authority, though he knew full well it would have no effect on him.

"Pray to the Goddess that she’s alright," the Alpha slammed down coldly.

Snatching a face mask from the desk, he gave a sharp nod to his brother, who had watched the chaos unfolding in the office in silent detachment, deliberately refusing to intervene.

"Matthias. Keep an eye on him so he doesn’t tear the place down," Adam asked tiredly, watching the young men make their way toward the exit.

"Of course, Grandfather—what else did you expect?" Matthias smirked, giving a lazy wave of his hand. As he stepped into the hallway, he paused and glanced back. "Not a word to Mom about this, just like we agreed."

Left alone with Amelie’s adoptive parents in the wrecked office, Adam closed his eyes with a heavy sigh, praying everything would go smoothly. Yet, knowing how fiercely obsessed Damian was with his true mate, he had grave doubts.

After all, ever since Magnus’s pack had adopted him, Damian had never spent a single day away from the sealed glass vault holding his mate’s preserved gland.