Unraveling Delilah 2

I jumped to my feet fast.

Grabbing my clothes as fast as I could, I pulled them on in silence, fingers fumbling with buttons, not bothering with anything I couldn't find in under ten seconds. Maggie remained at the door, head turned toward the bed.

Zedd shifted.

We both went completely still.

He released a long exhale. His arm stretched across the sheets — across the space where my body had been — and then stayed there. His breathing evened back out.

Maggie grabbed my wrist, and we moved.

Cool morning air hit my face the moment we stepped out of the hotel. It was only when the cab door closed behind us that I breathed again.

The cab door had barely closed before I turned to Maggie.

"How did I get there?"

She looked at me for a long moment, like she was deciding how much to say. Then she exhaled.

"You would not stop drinking. I tried, goddess knows I tried, but you were somewhere else entirely by the time he walked into your line of sight." She paused. "You spotted him across the room and just… went like something pulled you. I tried to get between you twice, and you moved around me both times like I wasn't even there."

I stared at her, eyes wide. "I approached him?"

"Approached is generous." She pressed her lips together. "You walked straight up to the most powerful Alpha in the room, looked him dead in the eye, and said — and I am quoting directly — 'you have sexy eyes for someone so terrifying.'"

I closed my eyes.

"He laughed," Maggie continued, and I could hear her fighting a smile even now. "Actually laughed. And then he just… kept you. His people tried to redirect things twice, and he waved them off both times. Whatever happened after that, I only have pieces of it because you were in his car before I could catch up.”

I opened my eyes and looked out the window.

He had waved his own people off. He had chosen to keep me close when he could have had me removed without a second thought. An Alpha like Zedd did not do that by accident.

Why?

The question settled into my chest and stayed there.

The ride was silent after that except for the low hum of the engine. Maggie paid the driver without a word, and we walked into the house together.

The ride home had given me twenty minutes to convince myself I was fine.

The empty house destroyed that in seconds.

That was when the flashbacks came.

My own voice, breathless and shameless in the dark. "Please, Zedd, please—" His stormy blue eyes were watching me like I was something precious and sinful. His hands spread me open while city lights blurred past the windows. The low growl against my ear. "That's it, little storm. Come for me."

I pressed my back against the closed front door and stayed like that until the heat passed.

Why had he allowed it? The question refused to leave me. 

I pushed off the door.

I looked around at everything I had built, and all I saw was Layla in that silver gown. Karyk's name on the toast. The way they had constructed a whole life behind my back while I poured everything into ours. I had introduced him to his first major investors through my own network. I had stayed late at his office, believing in him when no one else did. I had called Layla after every cold, silent night in our bed, crying quietly into the phone while she comforted me.

Both of them.

At the same time.

For how long?

The grief didn't come with tears. I don't cry anymore. It came like a heavy shadow waiting for light to dismiss it. Everything I thought I had built, my marriage, my closest friendship, was rotten at the core. I had been the ladder, and they had climbed it together, then kicked me away.

My jaw tightened. The grief folded into something colder.

"Bring me my car keys. I'm going to see Karyk," I ordered.

Maggie studied me for a long moment. "You sure?"

I met her eyes. "Yes."

I hated driving. The loss of control, the vulnerability of it, but I needed to feel something I chose today. I took the wheel myself.

My knuckles whitened, and I drove like the devil himself was behind me. Maggie sat in the passenger seat, silent for once.

Karyk's assistant jumped up when I stormed past her desk. "Mrs. Moonbane, wait! He's about to start a critical meeting. You can't—"

I didn't slow down. I pushed open the door to his office.

Karyk looked up from his laptop, surprise flickering across his face before he smoothed it into irritation. "Delilah. This isn't a good time."

I stepped inside. Maggie followed and took her place by the door without a word.

"You're engaged to Layla," I said.

He leaned back slowly. "What are you talking about?"

I held out my hand to Maggie without looking at her. She placed the phone in my palm. I crossed the room, set it on his desk, hit play, and stepped back.

The video filled the silence between us. Applause and the toast rang out like a bell I could never unhear.

"To Layla and Karyk!"

He watched it without flinching; not a single muscle moved in his face. When it ended, he looked up at me, and his eyes were flat and completely empty of anything that had ever resembled love.

"The marriage has been dead for years, Delilah." His voice was almost bored. "You know it. I know it. There's no child. No heir. What exactly did you think this was going to be?"

Each word twisted something in my chest.

Then he reached into his desk drawer and set a single document in front of him. He slid it across the desk toward me without standing up without even the decency of meeting my eyes properly.

"I had these drawn up last month," he said. "Divorce papers. Sign them or don't, my lawyers will handle it either way." He glanced at his watch. "I am also rejecting you and your cursed womb. It's done, Delilah. It has been done for a long time."

I stared at the papers.

Something inside me cracked open. It was a slow, definitive breaking of something that had been holding on far past its time. My wolf whimpered in a place so deep and private I hadn't known she was still waiting for something to change. All those years. All those silent mornings and hollow nights and meals eaten across from a man who had already left while his body was still present. I had known. Some part of me had always known. And still I had stayed and built and given and hoped.

I had loved him.

That was the part that hurt most. It was not the betrayal or Layla or even the papers sitting between us. It was the fact that I had genuinely, foolishly loved this man, and he had looked at that love and seen nothing worth keeping.

Three seconds.

I gave myself three seconds.

Then I breathed out and stepped forward. When my voice came out, it was oddly composed and not broken like I was inside.

"You dare." I leaned slightly forward. "After every door I opened for you. Every investor I handed to you through my own network, while you had nothing but hunger and no way to feed it. Every late night, I sat in your office believing in you when the whole world had written you off. I built you, Karyk. I laid every single stone you are standing on." I held his gaze. "And you slide papers across a desk at me like I am an inconvenience to be processed."

The room had gone very still.

Karyk's jaw tightened. His eyes moved past me to the door. "Leave, Delilah."

I turned.

And there he was.

Zedd stood in the doorway, flanked by his people. He was tall, commanding, and radiating that same magnetic power that had pulled me apart last night. His stormy blue eyes locked onto mine. The air between us crackled. Shock, heat, shame, and something darker and hungrier filled me all at once. He knew exactly what we had done. And he wasn't surprised.

Karyk snapped, "I said leave."

I walked out.

Maggie and I stopped in the corridor just outside the glass wall of the meeting room. Through it, I watched Zedd settle into the head seat like a king claiming his throne. Karyk launched into his polished presentation. It was the version of himself I had helped create.

Maggie exhaled beside me. "What now, boss?"

I stared at Zedd. The memory hit me again, vivid and merciless.

His deep voice against my ear in the dark car. "I'm going to ruin you for anyone else, little storm." His fingers inside me, curling just right while his tongue worked over my clit. The way my back had arched off the seat, thighs shaking violently as the orgasm tore through me. It was harder, longer, and deeper than anything Karyk had given me in years of marriage. The way I had clenched around him later, sobbing his name as he drove me through wave after wave, growling low praises against my throat.

I pressed my fingers briefly to my lips and exhaled slowly.

My body was still sore and still craving.

I straightened, a vicious plan blooming in my chest.

"Maggie," I said, voice low and steady. "What do we know about Alpha Zedd?"