Chapter: Chapter 400Scarlett POVI watched him disappear behind the door, then turned back to my work.A little later, one of my subordinates came over and placed a document on my desk.“Ms. Ravencroft, this is time-sensitive and needs Mr. Parker’s signature. Please take it to him.”Before today, I would have reviewed the document myself, checked its contents and purpose, and then directed my subordinate to take it straight to Ryan.He’d made it obvious that he wanted distance between us.I wasn’t about to embarrass myself by forcing my way into his space.But after the conversation with Jaxen last night, things felt different.“Come back and pick it up in a little while,” I told her.“Of course, Ms. Ravencroft.”I carefully reviewed the document before getting up and walking to Ryan’s office.Once I reached the door, I knocked politely.A mome
Last Updated: 2026-10-15
Chapter: Chapter 399Scarlett POVI could tell he wanted to avoid talking about his past behavior, and I was more than happy to let him.I’d had enough of this conversation.I gave him a pointed look to clarify that I wanted some quiet, then turned back to the movie.He got the hint and stopped talking.A moment later, he started watching, too.I couldn’t have told anyone what the movie was about.My mind had wandered far away from the screen.Jaxen wasn’t comfortable living with people he barely knew.In a way, that meant I’d finally found a simple solution.Maybe I didn’t need to resign from Borisen Group after all.I could finally stop overthinking everything and give Ryan Parker a real chance.After talking to Jaxen, I realized that some of my worries had been entirely self-inflicted.I’d spent so much time imagining the worst probable outcomes that I’
Last Updated: 2026-10-15
Chapter: Chapter 398Jaxen POVWhen I learned Scarlett was planning to move back into the Hale family home, I considered moving back there myself.But my relationship with my aunt had never been close.Growing up, I’d only visited the Hale family home on holidays and special occasions.It had never really felt like my home.The thought of staying there made me instinctively uncomfortable.Scarlett had been in an awful place emotionally lately, and she clearly wanted little to do with me.After a few seconds of hesitation, I finally asked, “When my aunt gets better, will you come back here to live?”“Maybe.” She sounded uncertain, and I couldn’t tell whether she genuinely hadn’t decided or simply didn’t want to give me an answer.“Okay. I understand.”I added, “In that case, I’ll move back home, too.”Scarlett’s eyes widened in a
Last Updated: 2026-10-14
Chapter: Chapter 397Scarlett POVJaxen had kept his promise not to stay at my apartment during the following days.On the eighth day, he returned to live with me again.“Honey, are you feeling any better?”The moment he walked in and saw me, he asked the question.I didn’t even bother looking him in the eye. I simply ignored him.I’d already planned to make the resignation next week, but I hadn’t told Ryan yet.And just because I hadn’t chosen Ryan in the dilemma he’d presented me with didn’t mean I’d chosen Jaxen.When I didn’t answer, Jaxen walked over to me.He reviewed me carefully from head to toe before asking, “Judging by your expression, I’m guessing you’re still in a bad mood?”“Does it even matter to you whether I’m in a good mood or a bad one?” I rolled my eyes at him.“Stay away from me and s
Last Updated: 2026-10-14
Chapter: Chapter 396Scarlett POV“I was hoping you’d tell me your ex-husband had moved out.”Ryan’s words were direct.My eyes widened slightly.I hadn’t expected him to be waiting for that piece of news.For a moment, my mind went strangely blank.“You and I have made no kind of commitment to each other,” Ryan continued.“I have no right to demand anything from you. But I want to be honest. As long as you haven’t fully separated yourself from your ex-husband, anything between us would be ambiguous at best. And if we started something under these circumstances, I think we’d end up just as confused about how to end it.”His voice remained steady and firm.I felt increasingly uncomfortable as I listened.I even felt as though I’d wronged him.I wasn’t sure whether he’d finished speaking, so I pressed my lips together and said not
Last Updated: 2026-10-14
Chapter: Chapter 395Scarlett POVBeing asleep didn’t mean I was completely unaware of my surroundings.I wasn’t sleeping deeply enough to be oblivious to everything around me.After a while, I sensed someone watching me.My eyes opened before I could stop them.And the moment I saw him, I was startled.A tall, broad-shouldered man was standing beside my bed!My eyes widened.“Jaxen Hale! Why the hell are you standing here in the middle of the night instead of sleeping? Are you insane? You nearly scared me to death!”He’d done things like this before, but that didn’t mean I’d ever get used to it.“I was worried you’d had too much to drink and might get hurt if nobody was here to look after you.”“Are you hoping something bad will happen to me?”“Of course not.”He started towards the door.“I won&rsquo
Last Updated: 2026-10-14
Chapter: Chapter 251Looking BackI found the drawing book two days later.Not because I was looking for it. Alaric had left it on the kitchen table when he went out to his morning session with Aldric, and I came in to refill my coffee. There it was, open, the pages spread the way a book spreads when it's recently been used, and the spine was still warm from a hand.I didn't mean to look. I looked anyway.The page it was open to was not the view from the wall, which I'd seen him working on two nights ago. This was something different. Something I hadn't seen him work on, which meant he'd done it this morning before the session or last night after I'd gone to bed, in whatever hours he occupies when the rest of the house is quiet. His particular way of seeing the world doesn't have to accommodate anyone else's.It was a figure.Not detailed—he doesn't draw people with much detail, preferring the shape of things to their surfaces. But the outline was clear enough. Someone is sta
Last Updated: 2026-05-24
Chapter: Chapter 250 Ancient Things Do Not Become CuriousThe channel took until mid-morning to establish.I sat through the preparation without useful occupation, which is its own particular difficulty. There are things I am better at than I was two years ago: delegation, patience with ambiguity, and the recognition that not every problem benefits from my direct intervention. Sitting in a chair while Aldric made fine adjustments to instruments whose function I only partially understood, doing nothing, is not one of them.Kael brought coffee at some point. He set it beside me without comment and sat down on the low bench near the door, where he stayed for the next hour, requiring nothing from me. The coffee was excellent. I drank it and watched Aldric work and tried not to think about what three weeks of increasing signal might mean.You should eat something, my wolf said.I ignored her.I'm noting that for the record.She has developed over the past year a dry quality that I find both useful and a
Last Updated: 2026-05-23
Chapter: Chapter 249The signal came back at 4:47 in the morning.I knew the exact time because I was already awake, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea that had gone cold somewhere between the second and third hour of not sleeping. The window above the sink faces east. I wasn't watching it deliberately. I was looking at the grain of the wood on the tabletop, following one dark line where the tree had curved around something in its growth. Then the light caught the edge of my vision, and I looked up without meaning to.Silver. Clean and brief, just above the treeline.Gone before I could be certain I'd seen it.I put the cup down carefully.You saw it, my wolf said. She is not excitable. When she says something directly like that, without qualification, I have learned to trust it.I sat still for another moment, then I got up, rinsed the cup, and went to find Aldric.He was already in his workspace.This did not surprise me the way it on
Last Updated: 2026-05-22
Chapter: Chapter 248 Recovery CompleteAldric was presented as the anchor and interpreter for the parts that required translation. A thirty-minute window. Cassius was somewhere in the deeper realm, in whatever configuration Cassius occupied when not in full physical presence.I sat in on the first four and then stopped because I understood that my presence was changing what happened. Alaric said things to Cassius that he might not have said with me there—not secrets, not anything I needed to be protected from knowing, but things that were his to have.A relationship that was his own, not mediated through me.What I did instead was wait in the hallway and talk to him afterward.He always came out and sat on the bench across from my room's door and told me the relevant parts. The updates on Cassius's research into Vael—ongoing, without urgency, but ongoing. The state of the deeper realm, which Cassius monitored with the patience of someone who had been doing it for centuries. Occasional obse
Last Updated: 2026-05-21
Chapter: Chapter 247 RemembranceThere was nothing. He offered two possible explanations: that Vael, having lost the vehicle he'd spent years developing, had retreated to assess and plan, or that the work's disruption of his presence in the Realm had cost him more than we'd realized, and he was recovering.“Which do you think it is?” I asked.“The second,” Aldric said. “He is old, but the work was thorough. What we did there was not small.”“But he's not gone.”“No, he is not gone.” He met my eyes. “There will be more. That threat exists, and it has not been resolved. But the immediate vector through Alaric is closed, and Alaric himself is no longer vulnerable in the way Vael needed him to be.”“So we have time.”“We have time. And we should use it
Last Updated: 2026-05-21
Chapter: Chapter 246 The StreamsA wolf in the outer settlement, older, established, someone who had been at Black River since before I arrived, who saw Alaric in the market square and whose wolf-sense produced an instinctive alarm.He didn't act on it. He stood still and then removed himself from the situation with the self-possession of someone who understood that his instinct was not the same as the truth. But Alaric felt it. He came and found me an hour later with the contained expression of someone working through something.“Someone feared me,” he said.“Yes.”“I felt it.”“I know. You have a sensitivity to people's states that you didn't have before.”He thought about that.“Is it going to happen often?”“Probably yes, for a while. Fewer people
Last Updated: 2026-05-20
The Hybrid’s Forced Bond
Margot Sinclair, a quiet rare-earth materials engineer, wants only to pay off her grandmother’s crushing medical debt and stay free of entanglement. When her long-absent biological father, Gerald Hargrave, reappears, he forces a brutal choice: take her half-sister Melanie’s place in a five-year blood-oath marriage to the Vanderbilt heir, or watch her grandmother lose everything. Margot signs the contract with cold clarity, intending to be nothing more than a temporary political solution.
The man waiting for her is Rhett Vanderbilt—the same untouchable heir who once pulled her from a laboratory explosion three years earlier, the man she had silently admired from afar. Rhett views her strictly as a tool to stabilize his family’s crumbling mining empire. He sets rigid rules: no emotional claims, no public weakness, absolute obedience.
Yet the mate bond between them proves too powerful. Under the full moon, instinct overrides control, and an irreversible marking binds them far beyond the contract’s terms. For a brief time, Rhett’s cold distance softens; he protects and claims her, making her believe she might mean more than a political arrangement.
Then betrayal shatters everything. On the eve of a critical corporate battle, Rhett loses control. Evidence—a device hidden in Margot’s phone—points to her as the traitor. In his eyes, she becomes the enemy who used the bond against him. The permanent mark turns from safety into a brand of shame. Rhett declares he will sever the bond by any means and end the marriage early. Left with a ruined reputation and a forced bond that refuses to die, Margot must prove her innocence while the man who marked her now treats her as the enemy.
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Chapter: Chapter 102Margot POVThe engine roared to life, and suddenly, I felt as if my heart had been suspended in midair. Perhaps it wasn’t until that moment that I truly understood what I was about to do. I was going to terminate my pregnancy. I was going to give up my child. My heart pounded so hard that I could feel every beat in my throat.Sweat gathered along my forehead, and I couldn’t find a comfortable position in my seat. The connection between our scents made it difficult to hide my emotions from Rhett. He sensed the shift almost immediately. My grief and fear seemed to reach him before I could stop them. “What’s wrong?” he asked quietly. Helena, sitting in the front passenger seat, turned to look at us. She exchanged a glance with Rhett, then gave a subtle shake of her head. She was warning him not to enga
Last Updated: 2026-10-12
Chapter: Chapter 101Rhett POVI kept stealing glances at Margot. All she gave me was the back of her head and the slender, pale line of her neck. Two faint pink marks were visible there: the bite marks I’d left when I marked her.They were a permanent reminder of what had happened between us, a mark that could never be erased simply because we no longer wanted it there. My gaze kept returning to them. There was an irritating, persistent itch beneath my skin. I wanted to look more closely, to study the marks that represented how completely I’d claimed her. I’d been so busy dealing with one problem after another that it had been a long time since I’d sat this close to Margot. Now, in the enclosed space of the car, her scent filled my lungs. The faint fragrance of the night-blooming cereus was impossible to ignore.Since I’d marked her, her o
Last Updated: 2026-10-12
Chapter: Chapter 100Margot POVWhy had I mistaken the tenderness Rhett sometimes showed me for signs that he wanted me? AndI treated the things he’d said during his rut as promises? I’d wanted to believe in him so badly that I’d turned every small kindness into something meaningful. But what had I actually done wrong? I’d been foolish enough to fall in love with the wrong man. I’d hoped for something I had no right to expect. That wasn’t the same as doing something cruel. Why should I have to pay for it like this? What gave Rhett the right to treat me this way? It had to end. My original plan had been simple. I’d enter a contractual marriage with a man I’d never met, receive the payment I needed, and pay off my debts.If that man hadn’t been Rhett, none of this would have happened.There wouldn&r
Last Updated: 2026-10-12
Chapter: Chapter 99Rhett POVMargot’s desperate gaze unsettled me. The more clearly I felt how deeply she affected me, the harder I fought against it.That an Omega could influence me through a mark or through emotion was repulsive. No one was going to control me or force my hand. I made myself look directly into Margot’s eyes. I let my Alpha scent rise, using its familiar strength to armor my emotions until I could push aside the uncertainty and make my decision. “Sign the papers,” I said in a low voice. “Do what I’ve asked, and I’ll make sure you’re financially compensated.” Margot’s body swayed slightly as she approached the desk. She didn’t hesitate. She picked up the pen. Margot POVI spent the entire night sitting by the window.It wa
Last Updated: 2026-10-12
Chapter: Chapter 98Rhett POVA strange, heavy ache settled deep in my gut, as if my insides were dropping through the floor. I forced myself to breathe steadily and refused to meet Margot’s eyes. Helena Price was good at reading a room. It was part of her job to anticipate problems and find solutions for her clients. After a brief cough, she spoke in a formal, practiced tone. “Ms. Sinclair, I drafted your prenuptial agreement with Alpha Rhett Vanderbilt. I’m sure we both remember the terms clearly. The contract explicitly states that you are not permitted to conceive a child with Alpha Rhett Vanderbilt. You have breached that agreement.” I watched Margot slowly clench her fists.Tears gathered in her eyes as she stared at me. “Was this only my responsibility?” “That’s not what we’re here to discuss,” Helena replied.&ldquo
Last Updated: 2026-10-11
Chapter: Chapter 97Margot POVNot long after my call with Professor Cole ended, Rhett’s personal physician arrived to draw my blood. I sat quietly and held out my arm while he worked.I didn’t ask any questions until he was packing up his medical kit. “When will the results be ready?” The doctor glanced at me, but he didn’t answer.He gave me a polite nod, picked up his bag, and left. I watched the door close before picking up the financial news I’d been reading earlier. The article covered the recent power struggle over Vanderbilt Dominion’s shares, along with an analysis of the company’s position in the industry. The rare-earth market had been struggling for years, and the enormous amount of capital required for research and development had only made things more difficult.Arian’s ambition to redirect the group’s long-term strategy had gained the support of several shareholders. Ever since Hugo’s death, the battle for control between the brothers had grown increasingly vicious. During t
Last Updated: 2026-10-11
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