Sold to Bastard Alpha after My Divorce!-Chapter 190

Aria’s POV

I didn’t think.

My body just moved—sideways, fast, crashing into the wall as the next projectile tore through the doorway. A lamp. Heavy base. It hit the opposite wall and shattered, sending ceramic shards skittering across the floor like shrapnel.

I pressed flat against the plaster. Breathing.

*Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Keep moving.*

My legs were shaking. I needed them to stop shaking. I pressed my palms against the wall and forced one foot in front of the other, inching down the corridor, keeping my back to the wall and my eyes on that ruined doorway.

Another roar from inside the room.

Something else crashed. Glass this time. A mirror maybe. A hundred tiny explosions.

I kept going.

The door at the end of the corridor—the one I was pretty sure Selene had locked herself behind—was getting closer. Twelve feet. Ten.

*Don’t look at the open door. Don’t—*

I looked.

A mistake.

Lucian was inside, and he was barely recognizable.

Not because he’d shifted—he couldn’t, not anymore. But because whatever was left of the man had been burned away by whatever was running through his system right now, and what remained was just rage. Pure. Animal. Senseless.

He was tearing the room apart with his bare hands. Upending furniture. Ripping shelves from walls. His eyes were red. Bloodshot and burning with something that didn’t track. Didn’t focus. Like he was looking at something none of us could see.

He hadn’t seen me yet.

I yanked my gaze away.

*Eight feet. Just eight more feet.*

I made it five before his head snapped toward me.

The sound he made wasn’t human.

Neither was the speed.

He crossed the room and hit the doorframe in the time it took me to process that he’d turned. Claws out—how, with no wolf, I didn’t understand, except that whatever was in his system had pushed something animal to the surface that shouldn’t have been possible—and he swiped.

I threw myself backward.

The claws caught my leg. Left side, just below the knee. A bright line of fire that cut through the fabric of my slacks and through skin beneath it.

I gasped. Hit the wall. Slid down two inches before I caught myself.

*Go. GO.*

I pushed off from the wall and ran. Not gracefully. Not fast enough. Half-stumbling, one leg stinging, heart in my throat, every nerve in my body screaming that I was prey and there was a predator behind me and I had nothing.

I had nothing.

I hit the door at the end of the corridor. Rattled the handle.

Locked.

"Selene!" I slapped the wood with an open palm. "Selene, it’s Aria. Open the door."

A sound from inside. Muffled. Frightened.

"SELENE—"

Behind me, something dragged. Heavy. Deliberate.

I turned slowly.

Lucian had stopped in the middle of the corridor. He wasn’t rushing. He didn’t need to. His chest was heaving. His eyes were doing that wrong thing—that flickering, burning thing that said no one was home. A low sound came out of him continuously. Not quite a growl. More like something that had forgotten the words for anything else.

The cut on my leg was throbbing. Bleeding. I could feel it soaking into my sock.

I pressed myself against the door.

*Think. Think. He’s between you and the exit. Selene is behind you and can’t get out if you’re here. You need to move him. You need to—*

*Think, Aria.*

"Lucian." My voice came out steadier than I had any right to. "Lucian. Can you hear me?"

The growl shifted pitch.

Not good.

"I’m not going to hurt you." I took one careful step sideways, away from the door, giving him a clear line to nothing. Trying to look like something that wasn’t worth the effort. "I’m just here to help your mom. She’s worried about you."

His head tracked me. Followed the movement.

But he didn’t rush.

*Okay. Okay, that’s something.*

"She called for Kael." Another step. Testing. Slow. "Kael’s coming. He’s going to be here soon. You just have to hold on a little—"

He lunged.

Not at me.

Past me.

At the door.

I threw myself to the side—hit the floor hard, one knee and both palms—and scrambled, and his claws raked the door where my head had just been, and the wood splintered under the force of it and I could hear Selene screaming on the other side.

"SELENE DON’T OPEN IT—"

I rolled. Got my feet under me. Pushed upright.

Lucian’s back was to me now. His hands working at the damaged door. Tearing at it. He wanted in.

I didn’t let myself think about it.

I just grabbed his arm.

Both hands. Yanking. Pulling him back.

He turned on me so fast I didn’t see it happen. One second he was facing the door. The next he was facing me, teeth bared, red eyes without anything behind them, and he was so much bigger than me up close, so much stronger, a grown man running on rage and drugs and something that shouldn’t have been physically possible.

I stumbled backward.

He followed. Step by step. Pushing me down the corridor.

*Okay. Okay this is fine. As long as he’s focused on me, he’s not going through that door.*

"Lucian." My voice cracked. I steadied it. "Hey. Look at me. I’m right here."

He swiped again. I ducked under it. The air moved against my cheek.

*Too close.*

I backed around the corner into the main corridor, and he followed, and somewhere in the back of my head I was dimly aware that I was leading him away from Selene’s door and toward the ruined room and the entrance hall beyond, and if I could get him far enough away then maybe—

Another roar.

He charged.

I ran.

There’s no other word for it. I ran. Full out. Legs burning, the cut screaming with every stride, down the corridor and into the entrance hall and around the edge of the grand staircase.

He was right behind me.

I could hear him. Feel the shift in the air every time he moved.

I cut sideways into a room—a sitting room, pale furniture, a fireplace, no other exit—and then I realized my mistake.

Dead end.

I spun around.

He was in the doorway.

Filling it. Chest heaving. Eyes burning red. That sound coming out of him—that low, endless sound that wasn’t words and wasn’t quite an animal but was something between them, something lost in the gap.

Nowhere to go.

He took one step inside.

Then another.

I pressed back against the far wall until I hit it. Nowhere left.

He raised his hand. Claws catching the light.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

I threw my arm up.

Pure instinct. The same thing you do when something falls at your face. When you’re not thinking about it. When your body decides before your brain can stop it.

I threw my arm up between us with my palm out, and I braced for impact, and—

Nothing.

Silence.

I didn’t open my eyes right away. My heart was slamming so hard I could feel it in my fingertips. My breath was coming in ragged pulls. My arm was still up, hand extended, like it could actually stop anything.

Slowly.

I opened my eyes.

Lucian was standing two feet away.

Not moving.

The rage on his face—that terrible, burning, absent expression—had gone somewhere. Smoothed out. His jaw went slack. His shoulders dropped.

His red eyes blinked.

Once.

Twice.

And then they started to close.

The claws retracted. Like whatever had been holding them out simply let go.

His knees buckled.

He went down slowly—not crashing, not violent, just... down, like a very large tree deciding it had finally had enough—and he hit the floor in sections, knees first, then side, and then he was just lying there in the middle of the sitting room with his chest rising and falling and his face finally, finally empty of everything it had been holding.

Peaceful.

Like something had simply switched off the part of him that was burning.

I stood there.

My arm was still up. I was still braced. My entire body was ready for impact that wasn’t coming.

I stared at him.

At the floor. At his still hands. At the slow steady rise and fall of his chest.

He was unconscious.

He was completely, entirely unconscious.

I lowered my arm.