Chapter 188
Ellie’s POV
A crimson river of blood flowed down Dominic’s side, staining his shirt in a red blossom. For a moment, he just stood there, staring down at the knife embedded into his waist.
Then, slowly, his eyes moved up to meet mine.
Pain and betrayal shone at me.
“Ellie… What have you done?”
I tried to speak. I tried to tell him that I hadn’t meant to do it, that it had been a primal instinct caused by fear, but when I opened my mouth, the words wouldn’t come. What was I supposed to say? That in those moments, when he was holding the knife, I didn’t see myself standing at our wedding reception, but rather in a past life? That for a moment, I saw a version of him from a previous reality, wielding that very knife to bring about my end?
I couldn’t say that. I couldn’t say anything. All I could do was stand there, slack-jawed, unable to believe what I had just done just as much as he couldn’t.
It didn’t matter, anyway. The room erupted into chaos. Women screamed and jumped up from their tables, spilling champagne across the floor. Men moved toward me. Guards.
Dominic didn’t stop them from grabbing me by the arms and hauling me from the room. He just continued to stand there, one hand pressed against his side, staring at me like I had betrayed him.
Which I had.
Across the expanse, I saw Lucas pushing his way toward me through the crowd, his eyes wild with fear and shock. But it was too late. The guards dragged me out of the room, and I didn’t fight it.
My body trembled as they dragged me down the hall, away from the chaos, toward the half-open door of Dominic’s study. The sounds of shouts faded, or maybe that was just the blood rushing through my ears, blocking out everything else.
I had stabbed him. I’d stabbed my husband, the man that, despite everything, a part of me had grown to love.
And the worst part was that I didn’t entirely regret it.
I kept thinking about Lucas’s words. That Dominic had trapped me with his vow. That there had been a loophole in our contract
that I hadn’t considered before.
How could Dominic do this to me? After all of the trust I’d given him, he was trying to trap me again, just as he had in my past
life.
Bitterness washed over me like a cold wave as the guards shoved me into the room, making me fall to my knees. I pressed my hands into the carpet and bit back tears.
He hadn’t changed as much as I thought.
And I was a fool for believing that he could.
“You’re lucky you’re not being taken straight to the cells,” one of the guards snarled. “But Alpha Dominic made it clear you were to be questioned here first.”
I looked up at him. He was a large male, filling the doorway with his broad frame. Everything about him screamed intimidation, but I refused to be cowed.
“It was an accident,” I said.
“An accident.” It wasn’t a question. “You stabbed the Alpha with a knife you had hidden under your dress.”
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“I thought…” My throat bobbed. “I thought he was going to hurt me. So I reacted.”
“I don’t believe it. Alpha Dominic has never indicated an intention to hurt you.”
My chest panged at the guard’s words. Of course he would say that. They were all looking at me now like I was a fucking liar, but they had no idea what Dominic had done to me in my past life. What he and Vivian had caused.
“It’s true,” I said simply.
The guards exchanged glances. I could tell they didn’t believe me. I couldn’t blame them; I was a contract bride who had just stabbed her husband right after the wedding. For all intents and purposes, it would look like I had waited until the very moment our marriage had been legalized, and then I’d tried to take him down.
But I maintained my stance. It really was an accident.
After a moment, the guards seemed to receive a mindlink, and they turned away. “Wait here until the Alpha comes,” the large one said. “And no funny business.”
They walked out after that, shutting the door behind them. I heard the lock click, and I saw a shadow under the door, indicating that someone was standing right there.
For a moment, I kept kneeling there, staring at the carpet. Lucas’s warning kept swirling in my mind, combined with Dominic’s
vows.
He would heal me for every day we stood together.
I shook my head, pushing myself up. My feet carried me over to his desk, where I began pulling drawers open, searching for our contract. I needed to see it for myself before I jumped to conclusions, not that it mattered much now.
It didn’t take me long to find the contract. It was sealed in a large yellow envelope. I unwrapped the string and slid the papers out, scattering them across the desk.
My breath hitched painfully when I saw it.
There it was. Written clearly on the fourth page of the contract, slipped in amongst the other clauses.
“Upon being marked by Alpha Dominic, I understand that my symptoms will improve only for each day we stand together. Any breach of contract will result in immediate regression of symptoms. I understand that only Alpha Dominic may decide when the contract will officially terminate.”
I pressed my hand to my mouth as tears blurred the words on the page.
How could I have been so stupid? How could I have just… glossed over something so obvious? It was written here, plain as day: if I tried to back out of the contract on my own, then my symptoms would worsen.
Worst of all, only Dominic could decide to divorce me. I was powerless.
I felt sick. When I signed this contract, I’d been so certain that I was protecting myself, that I wouldn’t make the same mistakes I’d made in my past life. And in those moments, I had been so blinded by the idea that Dominic might be different now, that we could actually have a happy marriage, that I’d completely ignored the glaring red signs.
He hadn’t changed at all.
He’d just gotten better at manipulating me.
Suddenly, everything we’d been through together, all of the tender moments and the passion and the sweet words, felt like ashes in the wind. It was all fake. All of it was designed to manipulate me, to drag me right back into the same situation I had been in before, even if he didn’t remember it.
But I wouldn’t roll over and die like I had done in my past life. I knew that now. There had to be some way to get out of this contract. Something I could do to make Dominic divorce me…
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Just then, the door crashed open, slamming against the wall behind it hard enough to make a painting fall Dominic stood in the doorway, shirtless, his waist now wrapped in white bandages. His chest heaved, his nostrils flared. He was looking at me like t was a stranger to him. No, worse than a stranger: an assassin.
I supposed I was looking at him the same way.
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