?Chapter 336:

    It was a message.

    And whoever sent it?

    They were going to pay.

    Seeing Jasmine lying so still and pale on the bed in the room the Vipers had provided made something inside me snap. My chest burned with a fury I could barely contain. She was too damn strong, too damn vibrant to look like this—helpless, vulnerable. It wasn’t her. And it sure as hell wasn’t okay.

    I stood there, staring at her, my hands clenched into fists at my sides. Her arm was wrapped in bandages, her face too pale against the stark white pillow. My mate. My wife. My everything.

    The room felt suffocating. Her mother sat at one end of the bed, dabbing her eyes with a tissue, while her father perched stiffly at the other, his face carved out of stone. No one said a word. Just silence, thick and heavy, choking the air. I wanted to scream. To break something. To break someone.

    Ace was pacing in my head, his growls echoing through my mind. “This is on them,” he snarled. “On that fucking father of hers. He should’ve protected her!”

    And he was right. This was all on him.

    Her father had known the dangers of her position, the trouble of being the Viper bloodline’s first-born daughter. He knew she would be a target the second he paraded her in front of all those people. And yet, he’d gone ahead and done it anyway. Without warning me. Without fucking informing me.

    Instead, I was presented with a fucking invitation—the same invitation they gave to other Alphas. Fuck them. I knew Jasmine and I still had our disputes, but the fact that they took leverage and dishonored my position as her husband…

    I was her mate. Her husband. Thest time I checked, that still fucking mattered.

    I should have been aware of every decision they made, but they acted as if I didn’t fucking matter. And now… she’s lying helplessly on the bed. Tell me why I shouldn’t snap someone’s head off.

    Keep reading g?lnσν???s

    My jaw clenched so hard it felt like my teeth might crack. I wanted to grab that smug bastard by the cor and m him against the wall. I wanted to squeeze his neck until he couldn’t fucking breathe.

    The rage bubbled up, hot and uncontroble. I was fucking furious. Furious at her father for putting her in this situation. Furious at her mother for sitting there like tears would solve anything. Furious at myself for not being there to protect her.

    The silence broke with her father’s voice, low and heavy. “I should have known,” he said, his eyes locked on Jasmine. “This was bound to happen. I had all my enemies…”

    “In one room, and I still thought it was a good idea.” That was it. That was the breaking point.

    Ace snapped inside me, his growls turning into a deafening roar. Before I knew it, I had the bastard by the cor, mming him against the nearest wall with an impact that shook the room.

    “You should have fucking thought about this before you paraded her in front of every damn threat in the room!” I snarled, my voice low and dangerous. “You should have fucking informed me! She’s my mate! My wife! You don’t get to make decisions that put her life on the line without me!”

    Fuck the fact that he was my father-inw. He should have thought of that before making all of this happen.

    “Ryder, stop!” Jasmine’s mother cried, standing abruptly. “This isn’t helping! Violence won’t solve anything!”

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