Chosen by the Beast Alpha

Chapter 169: Chapter 169

Lena’s POV

Dominic came back from the shower and slid into bed. His hand settled on her waist, light and warm even through the thin fabric of her shirt.

"Still hurting?"

She glanced back at him and smacked his hand away. "Move it."

"I thought I earned a reward." He didn’t move it. Instead, his thumb kept circling the sore muscle just above her hip, slow and shameless.

She turned to face him fully. "You left Eliza at that party drinking by herself. Aren’t you worried something could happen to her?"

He looked at her. "You wanted me to stay?"

Yeah, right. She wasn’t some saint. There was no way she was generous enough to send him back to Eliza. If he’d stayed behind to look after her, he definitely wouldn’t be in this bed now.

"Oh please, obviously not. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t gonna switch up on me at two in the morning."

"Then we’re good." He took her hand. "She’s an adult. What she drinks, where she goes—that’s on her."

Dominic really had changed. Back then, if Eliza called, he’d drop everything and go running. Now? He wouldn’t even cross a parking lot for her.

"Why don’t you care about her anymore?" she asked quietly. "What changed?"

"What she wants, I can’t give her." His voice stayed flat, almost too calm.

Lena lifted her hand and traced her fingers down the line of his throat. "I thought you were gonna say you fell for me, and you wanted me to feel secure, so you cut her off."

His Adam’s apple bobbed under her fingertips. She grinned and pressed lightly at the hollow of his throat. "Relax. I’m kidding. I don’t need that much."

He caught her hand and slowly guided it down across his chest, over the hard ridges of his stomach. "You can ask for more."

She raised a brow. "If I ask, will you give it?"

"Try me." His gaze turned dark, hot enough to make her pulse skip.

She knew his body by now. Knew every shift in his breathing, every look in his eyes. Right now, he wanted her. Badly.

She smiled. "I’m not fishing."

"Why?"

"Because if something only comes when you ask for it, then it’s not really worth having." Lena pushed herself up, about to climb off him.

Dominic’s hands locked around her waist at once, holding her right where she was. His throat worked, voice rough. "What if I’m the one asking for it?"

She knew exactly what he meant. No way she could pretend otherwise. Her fingers closed around his wrist. "My back still hurts."

"We’ll take it slow."

If she hadn’t been sitting on top of him, maybe he could’ve kept it together. Maybe. But she’d already hit every raw nerve he had, and at this point, there was no hiding it anymore.

She didn’t trust him. They hadn’t had sex in days, and any promise about self-control would 100% fall apart the second she gave in.

"No." She pressed a hand to his chest and tried to push away.

"Don’t move." His voice came out strained, almost painful. Every tiny shift in her balance made her hips move with it, and yeah, that was making everything way worse.

She bit her lip. "You did this to yourself."

"You’re the one who started it." He sounded like he was hanging on by a thread. She could hear it in the way his breathing kept changing.

"Let me down."

He let out a long, hard breath. Then his fingers loosened at her waist.

Lena wasted zero time. She rolled off the bed fast and scooted to the other side like she was escaping a disaster zone.

Dominic sat up, then headed back into the bathroom.

She finally let out a deep breath, the kind she’d been holding in her lungs for way too long.

She hadn’t meant to get him worked up. For a second, the idea had crossed her mind, quick and reckless. But then she’d remembered the hospital—how the doctor had pressed along her spine while Dominic stood nearby and confirmed, out loud, that she’d definitely been active. The memory hit like secondhand embarrassment on steroids. It had been humiliating, and the thought died on the spot.

For that exact same reason, she was never setting foot in that hospital again.

While Dominic was in the shower, the phone on the nightstand lit up.

Lena leaned over and glanced at the screen.

Eliza.

Lena seriously could not get over the nerve of that woman. How thick-skinned did someone have to be to keep calling a man who had already told her, right in front of everyone, to stop bothering him?

She declined the call.

A second later, Eliza called again. Lena cut it off again. Then came the third call. Same result.

Dominic came out of the bathroom with a towel slung low around his waist, damp hair dripping onto his shoulders.

"Eliza called you three times," Lena said. "I hung up on all of them."

The phone started ringing again.

Lena glanced at the screen, let out a quiet scoff, then held it out to him. "Yep. There she goes again."

He took the phone, looked at it, but didn’t answer. His thumb moved across the screen a few times before he set it back down.

"You’re not picking up?" Lena asked. "She keeps calling. What if something actually happened?"

"She’s drunk," he said, like it was no big deal, then climbed into bed and switched off the light.

Lena lay there in the dark, eyes open, thoughts running wild. Drunk dialing was the oldest excuse in the book. You called whoever you wanted, said whatever crossed your mind, and the next morning dumped the whole mess on alcohol. Classic. Seriously classic.

The phone didn’t ring again.

Eventually, she fell asleep.

The next morning, Daniel knocked on the bedroom door.

Dominic got up and opened it. Daniel looked past him toward Lena, who was sitting by the small table eating breakfast. His gaze flickered, like he was bracing himself.

"Eliza was attacked last night."

Lena froze with a bite halfway to her mouth.

"After the party, she walked to her car alone. A group of rogues followed her and dragged her into an abandoned building on the east side."

Daniel paused. It was obvious he was choosing his words carefully because Lena was there.

"They beat her," he said quietly. "And they raped her."

The bread slipped from Lena’s fingers and dropped back onto the plate.

"This morning, a scavenger found her unconscious behind the building," Daniel said. "She’s in the hospital now."

Her mind went completely blank. It felt like the whole room had tilted sideways.

Dominic’s expression changed on the spot, his eyes turning hard and cold.

They went to the hospital. Eliza was in a private room. One side of her face still carried the dark outline of a bruised handprint. Her lip was split, crusted with dried blood.

Her skin looked ashen, her eyes swollen and red, like someone had reached inside her and ripped out every last thing keeping her together.

For months, Lena had resented this woman. She had watched Eliza circle around Dominic, pushing, scheming, pulling strings, doing everything she could. Lena had wanted her gone. Wanted all of it to stop.

She had never imagined this.

Dominic stepped up to the bed. His shadow fell across Eliza, and for the first time, her eyes moved.

She lifted her head and looked at him. Tears spilled out instantly, sliding down her bruised cheek in silent streams.

"Why?"

That was the first thing she said, straight like a knife.

"Why didn’t you answer my call?"

Dominic’s face locked up.

"Why?" she asked again, crying without a sound, her body trembling faintly under the hospital gown. "If you had answered, I wouldn’t have been alone. Why didn’t you pick up?"

A wave of nausea rolled through Lena. Guilt hit her chest so hard it felt brutal.

She had declined those calls.

Three times.

She had watched Eliza’s name flash across the screen, then pressed reject.

If she had answered... or handed the phone to Dominic... would someone have gone to get her? Would she have made it safely to the car? Would any of this still have happened?

She didn’t know.

And the worst part? She would never know.

Dominic turned to Daniel. "Did they catch them?"

Daniel shook his head. "No. There’s no surveillance in that area, so law enforcement can’t identify anyone. They questioned her, but she said she couldn’t remember their faces."

Every time they pushed for details, Eliza broke down all over again. The case had basically slammed into a dead end.

"I’ll find them," Dominic said, his voice low and steady.

Eliza looked up.

Tears soaked every inch of her, and she looked so drained, so wrecked, that Lena’s throat tightened.

She reached out, grabbed Dominic around the waist, pressed her face to his stomach, and held on like her life depended on it.

Dominic caught her wrist. Lena saw that first instinct clear as day—he wanted to pull her off him. But he stopped himself. Forced himself not to.

She stayed by the wall and watched, not stepping in. No matter what she thought of Eliza, no matter what Eliza had done, she had just gone through something no woman should ever have to survive.

If holding on to the one person she still trusted was the only thing keeping her from completely falling apart, Lena wasn’t going to take that from her.

The only thing that kept sticking in her chest was that phone call. God, she really wished she had answered it. Seriously.

Maybe Dominic felt the same way. She could read it all over him—in his face, in the stiffness of his shoulders, in the way he just stood there and let Eliza cling to him even though every part of him looked like it wanted to recoil.

Lena stepped out of the room and into the hallway. Her chest felt tight, her thoughts a total mess.

A minute later, Daniel came out too.

“You okay?” he asked.

She let out a breath. “I’m fine.”

“Law enforcement will handle it.”

“I know they will. She deserves justice. But justice doesn’t erase what was done to her.” Lena leaned back against the wall. “The damage is already there. She’s going to carry this for the rest of her life.”

“It happened. Nothing we think about now is going to change that.” Daniel’s voice stayed steady, calm. “She has to work through it herself. The rest of us can only stay close.”

“Yeah.” Lena got it.

That was why she didn’t make a scene over Eliza hanging on to Dominic so hard. Eliza needed something solid to hold on to, and right now, he was it.

Eliza refused to let go of Dominic’s hand. Every time he moved even a little, her fingers tightened, and her eyes snapped open. If he wasn’t in the room, she couldn’t even close them. That fear had sunk way too deep.

The doctor told them her psychological trauma was severe. She needed someone she trusted with her at all times. Without that anchor, her mind could spiral somewhere dark and never fully come back.

Law enforcement searched for days and came up with nothing. There were no surveillance cameras in that area, and aside from the old scavenger who had found her, there were no other witnesses.

Eliza couldn’t give them any description. Every time they pressed her, she shut down completely.

The case hit a dead end.

Eliza stayed in the hospital for three days. By the time she was discharged, the cuts had closed and the bruises had started to fade. That day, Lena went with Dominic to pick her up.

The second Lena stepped into the room, Eliza’s eyes went straight to Dominic like a magnet, like Lena wasn’t even there.

Eliza clutched his hand with both of hers, holding on tight, refusing to let go. Lena was used to it by now. She wasn’t about to compete with a she-wolf who had been assaulted just three days ago. That would be seriously messed up.

In the car, Daniel was driving. Lena sat in the front passenger seat, while Dominic and Eliza sat in the back.

"Dominic, I don’t want to go home." Her voice was low and rough, barely above a whisper, nothing like the proud she-wolf she used to be.

"Then where do you want to go?"

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