?Chapter 1031:


    Dominic exhaled a hollowugh, tilting his head away as though unwilling to meet my gaze.


    “What can we do?” he murmured, his wordsced with quiet surrender. “Can we save Jett?”


    Beside him, Bryan’s expression was like a storm barely held at bay. His forehead was taut with pulsing veins, his bloodshot eyes dark with fury.


    He did not speak. Instead, he spun abruptly and drove his fist into the wall beside him with a sickening thud.


    The impact reverberated through the hallway. His shoulders heaved, his breath ragged with frustration. “How did ite to this?” he growled under his breath. “Makenna was supposed to be ours. We chose her. She was meant for us. How could anyone elsee between us?”


    Dominic shut his eyes, his brows knitting together in a deep furrow. His face, usuallyposed, now bore the raw weight of despair. “After this…” he whispered, “Jett’s ce in Makenna’s heart will only grow stronger.”


    A sad smile ghosted across my lips. “Makenna is kind. She is grateful,” I said, my voice hollow. “Men who love her, men willing to die for her, will only continue to grow in number. When that happens… do you truly believe she will still love us the same?”


    Something dark stirred in me, rising from the depths of my soul like a monster long chained but never silenced. The violent urge I had fought to suppress threatened to consume me whole.


    How I longed to keep Makenna for myself—to lock her away where no one could reach her, where only I could have her. If she belonged to me alone, if her world revolved around nothing but my existence, would she finally see that I was enough?


    Dominic’s gaze flicked to me, sharp and knowing. For a fleeting moment, something unreadable shed in his eyes—pity, mockery, or perhaps both.


    g???????ν??????.??????,  ???????? ???????????????? ????


    “What are you still deluding yourself with?” His voice was quiet, but the weight of his words was crushing. “If nothing changes, Makenna will im the throne. She carries the true bloodline of the Lycan royal family. We—” He let out a slow, bitter breath. “We are only royal in name. Our father harmed the white wolves. The fact that Makenna has not cast us asidepletely is already a mercy. What right do we have to demand more from her? To expect her to belong to us alone?”


    His words shed through thest threads of my denial, leaving behind a silence so thick, so suffocating, that it was almost maddening.


    Then—A sound. Faint, barely audible beyond the room door.


    As werewolves, our hearing was far sharper than that of humans, and the soft noise reached us as clearly as if we were inside the room ourselves.


    Makenna. Was she finished with her task of saving Jett?


    Hope red in my chest, desperate and reckless. My fingers twitched as I reached for the door handle.


    “Ah… ah…”


    The sound that followed sent ice through my veins. Makenna’s moans. Soft, breathless. Rising in intensity.


    I froze. Every muscle in my body went rigid, my outstretched hand curling into a trembling fist.


    That voice—her voice—should have belonged to us. Those sounds should have been ours to hear, meant only for us. And yet, they spilled from her lips now in the arms of another man.


    .


    .


    .