Owned By The Possessive Alpha, Bounded To My Mate novel Chapter 27

Chapter 27

Chapter 27

DENISE

The first thing I was aware of was the ceiling.

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White, institutional, with the particular texture of surfaces that had been painted over too many times. A fluorescent light somewhere to my left, dimmed or partially covered. The smell that was not quite antiseptic and not quite clean air but the specific combination of both that existed only in hospitals, the smell that had been present the last time I’d woken in a place like this, after the accident, after Dante had walked away.

I was beginning to develop a pattern.

The second thing I was aware of was that my head hurt with a thoroughness that suggested my body had been keeping an account of everything I’d put it through in the past week and had finally submitted the full bill.

The third thing was Dante.

He was sitting in the chair beside the bed-not slumped, not asleep, but with the particular controlled stillness of someone who had been there long enough to settle into it. His jacket was off, his shirt sleeves rolled to the forearm, and he was looking at me with an expression I needed a moment to parse because my vision was still resolving.

I looked at him for a long, silent moment.

“What are you doing here?” My voice came out rougher than I intended, scraped thin.

Something moved across his face. “You were unconscious for three hours.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

He leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees, and looked at me with an intensity that I was too tired to fully deflect. “How do you feel?”

“Like I hit someone with a marble sculpture and then my body decided to resign.” I shifted against the pillow and registered pain along my left side, my forearm, the particular deep ache of bruising that hadn’t finished declaring itself. “What happened? What time is it?”

“Just past nine.” He paused. “You have a laceration on your forearm-eight stitches. Bruising on your left shoulder and ribs. The concussion from last week was aggravated.” Another pause, heavier. “The doctor said you should have been resting. That you came back too soon after the accident.”

I said nothing.

“Denise-”

“Where is everyone else?” I asked.

The expression on his face shifted slightly. “They were treated here. Cyrus has a significant concussion and required stitches. The others had minor injuries.”

“Minor injuries they got trying to push me down a stairwell,” I said.

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Chapter 27

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His jaw tightened. He didn’t respond immediately, and the not-responding was its own response-the careful silence of someone managing information.

I looked at him. “What are they saying happened?”

The silence stretched another beat.

“Dante.” My voice was flat. “What are they saying happened?”

He stood up from the chair-not abruptly, but with the deliberate movement of someone who needed to not be sitting for what came next. He moved to the window, which looked out onto a hospital car park, and stood with his back partially to me.

“Lyra told the staff and the investors that you’ve been-” He stopped. Started again. “That you had become fixated. On me. That when the engagement was announced, you became unstable. That today you attacked them when they confronted you about your behavior.”

The room was very quiet.

I lay in the hospital bed and looked at the back of Dante’s head and felt the words arrange themselves in my understanding with the slow, terrible clarity of something you had half-anticipated and still weren’t prepared for.

Fixated. Unstable. Attacked them.

“She’s calling me a stalker,” I said.

He didn’t answer.

“A crazy omega who couldn’t accept that her Alpha didn’t want her i kept my voice level through an act of will that cost me considerably. “That’s the story.”

“Denise-”

“And Cyrus.” I pushed myself to sit up despite the protest from my ribs. “Elena’s brother. Who was there. Who put his hands on me first. Who is currently sporting a concussion that he earned by trying to throw me down a flight of stairs.” I held Dante’s gaze when he turned. “What is he saying?”

“His family is saying-” Dante stopped. Then, measured: “His father is here. He’s furious. He’s calling for-” Another stop.

“Charges,” I said. “He wants me charged.”

Dante said nothing, which was confirmation.

I laughed. The sound of it surprised me-thin and hollow, not really a laugh at all, more the sound that came out when something was too bleak for any other response.

“Fired isn’t enough,” I said, half to myself. “Of course it isn’t. Why would fired be enough when you can take it further.”

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