Vengeance in His Bed

Dorrent’s head snapped up, his eyes narrowing into dangerous slits as he stared at the intruder. His arm didn’t loosen its possessive hold on Jannah’s waist; instead, he instinctively pulled her small, fragile frame closer to his broad torso, shielding her behind his heavy shoulder.

"Who the hell are you?" Dorrent demanded, his deep baritone dropping into a low, menacing growl .

The man stepped further inside, the rusted iron pipe in his dirt-stained hand trembling with rage. He had a deep, jagged scar cutting across his left cheekbone, his clothes threadbare and smelling of damp concrete and cheap alcohol. His bloodshot eyes locked onto Dorrent’s face, burning with a lethal hatred.

"Who am I?!" the man spat out, his voice cracking with a wild, hysterical edge as he took another aggressive step forward. "How dare you?! How dare you show your filthy, murderous face in these bogs after what you did to us nine years ago, Alpha Grefo?! Did you come back to slaughter the rest of us like you did my family?!"

Dorrent’s jaw clenched, his expression remaining a flawless mask of frost, though his pupils dilated slightly. "Calm down," Dorrent delivered flatly, his tone even and unbothered. "Put the weapon down and let us talk this out properly. I am here to find out the truth."

"Talk?!" The man let out a harsh, incredulous laugh, his chest heaving as he pointed the heavy iron pipe at Jannah. His eyes flared with disgust as he glared at her. "And you, Jannah! Get away from that imbecile right now! What is wrong with you, girl?! Has he seduced you with his handsome features and his multi-billion-credit name that you are so willing to embrace an enemy?! How can you collude with the monster who slaughtered your mother and father in cold blood?!"

He spat on the floor, his voice rising into a sharp, venomous shriek. "We could barely stand you in this neighborhood as a cursed omega, bringing bad luck to every man who looked your way... only for you to bring a thousand times worse disaster straight to our doorstep by bringing this butcher here!"

Jannah’s heart slammed against her ribs, her face flushing crimson under the heavy weight of the man’s accusation. The realization that her neighbors viewed her as a traitor who was embracing her parents’ killer pierced straight through her pride like a blade. With a sudden, forceful thrust of her hands against Dorrent’s chest, she managed to wrench herself out of his hold, stepping squarely between the two men.

"Mr. Dromote, please! Cool down and put the weapon away!" Jannah yelled, her voice trembling as she held her hands up in a desperate, pacifying gesture. "That is the reason Dorrent is here today! He came to find out what happened nine years ago... to investigate how he ended up murdering innocent people during that black-cycle blackout! I am not on his side! I am not colluding with anyone! I am only helping with the investigation so I can get justice for my parents!"

Mr. Dromote’s scarred face twisted into a look of chilling condescension. He looked at Jannah as if she were a naive, foolish child.

" justice?!" Mr. Dromote sneered, his voice dripping with bitterness. "You foolish, blind girl! These high-society imbeciles don’t care about us! We are nothing but bugs under their expensive shoes! They think that by tossing a few million credits at our feet as ’compensation,’ it eases the agony of our loss! Money can never bring back the dead, Jannah! How will my family ever come back from the grave?!"

The old Beta took a ragged, choked breath, his knuckles turning stark white around the iron pipe as tears of grief welled up in his bloodshot eyes. "My wife... my little boy... wiped out in a single night by his primal madness! Life has not been worth living in these gutters without them anyway! So to cool myself down... to erase all this fucking pain... I will die with Dorrent Grefo today!"

Dorrent took a slow, deliberate step forward, completely bypassing Jannah’s protective stance to place himself directly in front of the dangerous weapon. His eyes met the older Beta’s wild gaze, completely devoid of his usual arrogance.

"I am sorry," Dorrent said quietly, his deep voice carrying a strange, heavy sincerity. "I had no intention of causing the horror that happened to your family years ago. There had to be an external manipulation... a trigger that forced my system into that blackout. Put the weapon down, Mr. Dromote. I am not here to fight you, and I do not want to cause any more problems in your life."

"Your ’sorry’ won’t raise my wife from the dead!" Dromote screamed back, his control completely snapping. "And don’t you dare look down on me just because I am a Beta! I spent twenty years as an underground fighter in these slums!"

With a feral, animalistic roar, Dromote raised the pipe high above his head and lunged forward, bringing the solid metal bar down with full, lethal force directly toward Dorrent’s temple.

Dorrent didn’t even raise his arms to defend himself, standing immovable like a statue, fully prepared to take the hit if it meant easing the man’s rage.

"No!"

Before the iron could connect with Dorrent’s head, Jannah reacted on instinct. Without a single second of logical thought, her small frame darted forward, throwing herself directly into the weapon’s path, placing her own body as a human shield over Dorrent’s broad chest.

Mr. Dromote’s eyes widened in shock. With an agonizing, frantic jerk of his wrists, he managed to divert the iron pipe at the very last millisecond. The metal bar slammed heavily into the doorframe beside her head, shattering the wood with a deafening CRACK that echoed through the small house.

Dromote stumbled back, his hands trembling as he stared at Jannah in astonishment.

"Are you completely out of your mind, girl?!" Dromote gasped out, his voice shaking with horror and utter betrayal. "You blocked for him?! Has this murderer really confused your brain that much with his handsome looks and his touch?! Your mother and father must be rolling in their graves right now, regretting ever giving birth to a daughter like you!"