Forbidden Mate

Chapter 25

Silas hit the back hall red with blood and breath. Leah was first to reach him. He seized her arm.

“Go to your room,” he said, urgent and low. “It happened again. The Alpha lost control. Lock the door.”

Her eyes widened. She ran without asking.

Silas turned to Cordelia. He softened his voice, let it shake. “There’s a fight,” he said. “Daniel is wounded by Dante. He’s barely standing. Only you can stop him. The great hall—go, please.”

Her legs began to run. She caught an unsettling feeling of deja vu - she had already run to him like this in this house. Panic began to grip her chest - no one would die in this house tonight.

The hall lay bright with light. A long table cut the space in two. Daniel stood at its end, covered in blood. He leaned on the column, breath rough, eyes trying to focus.

“Daniel,” she said, rushing to him. “Sit—let me—”

She reached for his shoulder. The touch made his knees loosen. He tipped toward her by instinct, seeking balance. She slid an arm under his and braced him, palm flat to warm skin slick with blood.

The door at the far end opened hard. Dante strode in, fast from the yard, eyes on her first, then on Daniel bent toward her. The scene leapt at him: her hands on Daniel, Daniel half-dressed and leaning close.

Everything he had fought in his head flared like dry straw.

“Get away from him.” His voice was like a threatening roar.

“Dante—” Cordelia started.

He didn’t wait for the end of the word. He crossed the distance in hard strides, pushed Cordelia aside with one light movement, and hit Daniel with his shoulder, ripping him off the table and driving him back. Wood scraped. Daniel grunted and came up, hands open.

“Alpha—” he began.

Dante struck again. Again and again. Daniel covered, took one, and answered with a clean body blow that said stop without saying it. It didn’t stop. Dante’s fear had found a shape to wear. It called itself anger and would not listen.

“Dante, enough!” Cordelia cried, grabbing his arm. He shook free without looking at her and drove Daniel sideways into a chair. The chair went over. Daniel rolled, came up low, and set his feet.

“I don’t want to fight you,” Daniel said, breath tight.

“Then you should not have run to her,” Dante said, and swung.

They moved. It was old training turned cruel by doubt. Daniel took the hits that would cripple a man who wasn’t like them and defended himself, but did not strike back. Blood flecked the floor. The sound pulled servants to the door; they froze at the threshold.

Cordelia darted between them and tried to wedge her body in the space the men kept making. “Stop,” she begged. “Both of you, stop! Dante, look at me.”

They didn’t.

Dante pushed Cordelia again, but this time harder, so that she almost lost her balance, if not for Silas, who barely managed to hold on to her feet, caught her. Alpha He grabbed Daniel by the back of the head and slammed him hard against the tabletop. Cordelia seemed to hear the crunch and turned around in horror, burying her face in her hands. Dante threw him away two steps with a roar that tore the room. The sound shocked the servants into motion. Two ran for the side door; another snatched a cloth and stood useless with it.

Silas assessed the situation, pleased with his work. His wounds would heal, but what had formed between these three would gape and ache. He lifted his hands as if to calm a crowd. “Too many people,” he said, careful and soft. “Not here.”

Dante didn’t hear him.

Cordelia saw the moment and stepped between the two men, covering Daniel with her. Her breath shivered; she did not move.

“Dante,” she said with a trembling voice. “Look at me.”

He looked. He saw her body between them like a shield and felt the last hinge give way. The thing he feared most stood in front of him wearing his wife’s face. The servants’ gasps turned into a single shape in his head: proof.

“You choose him,” Dante said. The words hurt his mouth.

“That’s not—” she began.

“Enough.” He cut the word in half. He reached for Cordelia’s wrist and gripped too hard.

“Dante—don’t—” Daniel tried to get up, there was no place on him that would not be affected by the blows.

Dante bared his teeth without turning. “Move, and I break you.”

Daniel froze. He watched Dante haul Cordelia across the hall. She did not fight him on the steps; she saved the fight for a place where there were fewer eyes.

Silas exhaled like a man who had put down a weight. He turned his face so the servants would see concern, not satisfaction. “Back to work,” he told them. “Now.” They scattered.

Dante dragged the door to their room with a slam that shook the lintel. He released her wrist only to wheel on her. The scream ripped out of him before he knew what it would be.

“After everything—after what it cost—this?” His chest heaved.

“I saw a wounded friend,” she said, breath breaking. “I held him up so he didn’t fall. That is all.”

“He was half naked against you,” he snapped. “I'm not a fool, human. I saw him lean towards you!”

“Because his shirt was torn,” she said, as if reason could hold the floor against a storm. “Because someone hurt him. Because—”

“If I had come in a moment later, I would have seen you kissing! Or maybe he was undressing you right in the hall?” Dante shouted. He took a step at her; his hand came up without his consent, fingers curved, the old answer of a man who had only force left.

He saw it. He stopped.

The pause was thin and terrible. It gave her the space to move.

Cordelia slipped sideways, fast and sure, past the chest, past the chair, through the door he had not had time to bar. She ran into the corridor, hair loose, breath high. She didn’t look back.

Dante stood alone in the room with his breath and the echo of his own voice. His raised hand hung there a moment more, open now, not a fist. He lowered it slowly, as if it were heavy.

Through the bond, he felt the tail of her fear like cold water. Through the same bond, she would feel the shape of his rage collapse into shame. It did not fix what had just happened.

He set both palms on the edge of the table and bowed his head to the wood. Outside, feet ran. Somewhere downstairs, a door slammed. The house, which had been simple all morning, had learned a new noise.

In the hall below, Silas’s voice moved like a knife wrapped in cloth. “Clear the shards,” he said. “Hot water. Cloths.” He did not hurry. He did not need to. The main work was done.