Chosen by the Beast Alpha

Chapter 178: Chapter 178

Lena’s POV

Anna and I both rushed forward to help her up.

The girl’s palm had scraped hard against the ground. The skin was torn open, and blood was already welling from the cut. Guilt slammed into me so fast my stomach twisted. “I’m so sorry. This was completely my fault.”

“It’s okay.” She looked down at her hand like it barely mattered, then took the crutch Anna handed back to her. She tucked it under her arm, steadied herself, and gave us a small smile. “I wasn’t watching either.”

“Wait here. I’m going to get something to clean that up.”

There was no way I was just walking off. She was on crutches, and I was the one who knocked her over. I hurried across the street to a pharmacy and bought disinfectant and bandages.

I cleaned her hands for her, spread ointment over the wound, and wrapped the worst scrape. I asked her twice if anything else hurt.

“Really, I’m fine.” She kept waving us off, like we were making too much of it.

Once I finished tending to her hand, she thanked us, adjusted her crutches, and clicked away down the sidewalk.

I watched her leave and finally let out a long breath.

"Oh my God, that seriously scared me to death," Anna said, one hand pressed to her chest. "If she’d hit her head when she fell, or twisted something, we’d be stuck in a hospital filling out forms right now."

I knew exactly what Anna meant. Knocking a girl with a crutch flat onto the ground? That kind of accident could go sideways real fast. If she had decided to report us or ask for compensation like some people would, we’d be in deep trouble.

"She was actually pretty nice," I said.

"Yeah. You do not run into people like that every day."

The mood dropped right after that. We went to Anna’s new place and spent the whole afternoon moving furniture around, hanging curtains, and sorting through the mountain of stuff I’d bought.

By the time we were done, it was already dark outside.

Daniel came home, and Anna waved me over. "Tell Dominic not to come upstairs. Let’s all go get dinner together."

I called Dominic. He had just stepped out of the elevator in our apartment building, but after hearing me, he turned right around and came back down.

We met in the parking lot, then drove to a restaurant together.

During dinner, Anna told them about all the things I’d bought, and I told Daniel to take good care of Anna and make their new place feel like an actual home.

Anna also brought up the girl with the crutch, and we laughed about how guilty we’d felt at the time, while also being relieved she hadn’t made a scene over it.

After dinner, we all went our separate ways. I took a shower, did my skincare, then headed over to the bed.

Dominic was already lying there, watching me, his eyes following every little move I made. The second I sat down, his arm wrapped around my waist and tugged me onto the mattress.

"You—"

Before I could finish, the phone on the nightstand started vibrating. Celeste’s name lit up on the screen.

At this hour, a call from his mother could only mean one thing. Something was wrong.

Dominic let go of me and answered.

"Mom."

"Come home. Now." Celeste’s voice was sharp and rushed, all the usual warmth gone.

Dominic frowned. "What happened?"

"I’ll explain when you get here. It’s urgent." Celeste paused, then added, "Come alone."

She had never said that before. Every other time, it had been both of us. But this time, she was making it crystal clear—I wasn’t included.

"Get some sleep." Dominic stood up and grabbed his jacket. "I’m going to see what’s going on."

I nodded. Celeste said she wanted him there alone, and I respected that.

Then he left.

I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, wide awake no matter how hard I tried. My mind kept looping around the same question—what could possibly make Celeste shut me out like that?

She had always been warm with me, always pulling me closer, always making me feel like I belonged, like I mattered to her.

That shift in her tone sent a weird chill through me. It made my chest feel tight. I couldn’t make sense of it no matter how much I turned it over in my head. All I could do was wait for Dominic to come back and ask him.

So I waited. I texted him, asking if he was coming home tonight. No reply.

I stayed up until two in the morning, barely hanging on, and eventually passed out with my phone still in my hand.

The next morning, the bed beside me was cold. He hadn’t come back.

I got up and walked out of the bedroom, only to find him standing by the window, staring outside like his mind was somewhere else entirely.

"When did you get back?" I asked, walking over to him.

He turned around.

The look on his face made my heart drop. His jaw was tight, his eyes dark, like he was holding something heavy inside and trying not to let it show.

"What’s wrong? Did something happen?"

"I need to leave for a while."

I frowned. "Pack business?"

"Something like that."

"Something like that?" I didn’t get it, not really, but I could feel it—he was putting up a wall between us. And whatever this was, he had no intention of explaining it.

I didn’t push anymore. “When are you coming back?”

“I don’t know.”

Lena looked at him quietly. From Celeste’s phone call last night to the way he was acting now, every instinct she had was screaming that something had shifted. Something big.

She still had her pride. If Dominic didn’t want to tell her, she wasn’t going to stand there and beg for scraps.

Sooner or later, she’d find out.

“Okay. When are you leaving?”

“This afternoon.”

She gave a small nod. She really hadn’t expected it to be this soon.

“Daniel’s driving me.”

“All right. I’ve got a staff meeting this afternoon anyway.” Her voice stayed even, almost too calm. “Go pack. I’ll make breakfast.”

She turned toward the kitchen, but Dominic suddenly caught her hand.

She glanced back at him. His eyes were dark, restless, loaded with emotions she couldn’t read at all. It was like something was boiling under the surface, but he was forcing a lid on it.

“What is it?” she asked.

His fingers tightened hard around her hand, then slowly loosened. “Nothing.”

Yeah, something was definitely wrong. She knew it. He was hiding something, locking it away where no one else could touch it. Whatever Celeste had told him last night had changed the air around him completely. He’d shut everything down, and he wasn’t letting her in.

“Are you eating?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

She gave his hand a light tug, and he let go.

Lena ate a little, changed into different clothes, then headed for the door.

He insisted on driving me to work himself. The whole ride was dead quiet. I stared out the window at the buildings flashing by, and neither of us said a word.

He pulled up right in front of my office. I unbuckled my seatbelt, but I didn’t open the door.

"Dominic."

"Yeah?"

I looked at him. His profile was tight, stiff. His hands were still locked around the steering wheel, his knuckles pale.

"Come back soon."

"I will."

I got out of the car and walked into the building without looking back.

That feeling in my gut kept getting stronger. Whatever Dominic was hiding was big enough to change us.

But then I thought about us. What we had was solid. The bond between us was real, the pull between our bodies wasn’t fake, and somehow we’d fallen into a rhythm that fit.

But had we really opened up to each other? Truly laid ourselves bare? The deepest parts, the parts that actually mattered?

The fears. The truths. The words we’d swallowed and never said out loud.

I wasn’t sure we had.

So I braced myself. Whatever was coming, I’d deal with it.

Dominic texted me when he left. I didn’t answer.

I couldn’t explain it, but I had this weird, sinking feeling that when he came back, everything between us would be over.

"You’re overthinking it," Anna said when I started spiraling.

I didn’t argue. I knew when he was coming back.

And in the meantime, I stayed ready. The life we’d built on a curse that no longer even existed could fall apart overnight. Just like that.

For two days, Dominic kept texting me, sending his location, sending photos of everywhere he was. I sent him pictures too, little updates of what I was doing.

We didn’t say much to each other. Just images, little proof that we were still alive, a silent thread pulling tight between us no matter how far apart we were.

On the third day, Celeste called and asked me out for afternoon tea.

When I walked out of the office, she was already waiting downstairs. At that point, there was really no graceful way to turn her down.

We went to a quiet café. She looked the same as always—elegant, composed, greeting me with that soft, warm smile of hers.

And yet, underneath all that, something felt off.

The genuine warmth she usually carried had thinned out, little by little, replaced by a kind of careful restraint.

I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

We sat down. We made some small talk, the usual surface-level stuff, and she ordered our drinks. She asked about my job, my apartment, whether I’d been eating properly.

Then she lowered her eyes to her coffee cup. A second later, she looked back up at me, and every trace of warmth on her face was just... gone.

"Lena," she said, "I think you and Dominic should end things."

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