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CHAPTER 56
公開日:
2026-03-29 23:32:16
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THE REJECTED BETA CHAPTER 60
Marie’s POV The transition from sleep to wakefulness wasn't a drift, it was a violent expulsion. I bolted upright in the oversized mahogany bed, my lungs seizing as if the very air of the Northreach had turned into thick, cloying smoke. My skin was slick with a cold sweat that didn't belong to the mountain chill, and my heart was hammering a rhythm of pure, unadulterated panic.It wasn't my panic.I pressed my palms to my eyes, trying to scrub away the lingering images. I had seen grey. Not the noble, flinty grey of Astance’s eyes or the silver-grey of the High Passes, but a sterile, suffocating ash. I had seen silvered ferns that looked like skeletal fingers and smelled the oppressive, funeral scent of Gardenias. And in the center of it all, I had felt a hollow, aching void.Noah.The connection I thought I had severed, the one the North was supposed to have frozen out of me had flared to life in the dark. It wasn't love. It was the psychic residue of years spent as his anchor, a
THE REJECTED BETA CHAPTER 59
INoah’s POV The smell of Gardenia incense was so thick in the Grand Ballroom that it felt like breathing through a wet silk veil. It was Doreen’s favorite scent, a sharp, cloying floral that lacked the wild, earthy sweetemphasisehe jasmine that used to define the Thorne estate. It was a civilized scent, she had told me, designed to mask the musk of the wolves that inhabited these halls.I stood on a raised dais, my arms extended like a sacrificial lamb, while three tailors from the Capital pinned a waistcoat of shimmering charcoal brocade to my frame."A bit tighter in the shoulders, Monsieur," the lead tailor muttered, his mouth full of silver pins. "We want to emphasize the strength of the Southern Alpha, yes? A silhouette of iron.""Whatever Doreen wants," I said, my voice sounding hollow even to my own ears.Across the room, Doreen was holding court with the High Florist. She didn't look like a bride-to-be, she looked like a general surveying a battlefield. She was dressed in a
THE REJECTED BETA CHAPTER 58
Astance’s POV The heavy door to my private solar didn't just open, it swung wide with an insolent lack of ceremony that could only belong to one person in the four corners of the Northreach. I didn't turn. I was currently occupied with a training dummy, my fists wrapped in rough linen, methodically pulverising the reinforced straw until the dust choked the air.Thud. Thud. Crack."I heard the kitchen staff is currently in a state of religious shock," Kaelen’s voice drifted over the sound of my labour. He was leaning against the weapon rack, buffing a stray spot of tarnish on his bracers with the hem of his cloak. He didn't look at me yet, but I could hear the tremor of suppressed amusement vibrating in his chest. "Something about the Archon of the North attempting to assassinate a citrus fruit? And a toaster that may never recover its dignity?"I didn't answer. I delivered a roundhouse kick that sent the top half of the dummy spinning into the shadows. My chest heaved, sweat stingi
THE REJECTED BETA CHAPTER 57
LarerfterfterfterfterfterMarie’s POV The sun over the Northreach peaks didn’t rise so much as it pierced, a jagged blade of white light cutting through the heavy velvet curtains of the private wing. I woke not to the smell of ozone or the thrill of the hunt, but to the aggressive, rhythmic thwack-thwack-thwack of someone attempting to be domestic in the next room.I sat up, pushing my hair back. My heart gave a traitorous little skip as the memory of last night surfaced, Astance at my door, his pride discarded on the stone floor like a shed skin, promising to be a man instead of a monument. It had been beautiful. It had been moving.It was currently sounding like a demolition site.I pulled on a thick robe and padded toward the small kitchenette attached to my suite. I stopped at the threshold, my jaw dropping.Astance, the High Archon of the North, a man who could freeze a lake with a glare and had survived three centuries of political assassinations, was currently engaged in a life
THE REJECTED BETA CHAPTER 56
AThence’s POVThe Great Hall was still vibrating with the hollow echoes of my own proclamation when I turned my back on the Council. My mantle, heavy with the weight of three centuries of Northern sovereignty, felt like a lead shroud dragging against the obsidian floor. I didn't wait for the Elders to dismiss themselves, I didn't wait for the ceremonial closing of the gates. I simply walked, the rhythmic click of my boots against the stone the only sound in the suffocating silence of my wake.The air in the private corridors was colder, sharper, the way I preferred it. Here, the blue-white torches flickered in the draft, casting long, distorted shadows that looked like the claws I had so recently retracted. My knuckles throbbed with a dull, rhythmic ache, a physical reminder of the beast that had nearly torn the throat out of the South. I could still taste the ozone. I could still feel the phantom heat of the Patriarch’s throat beneath my grip.I reached my private training solar, a
THE REJECTED BETA CHAPTER 54
Noah’s POVThe fragrance of white lilies and expensive Southern wax was beginning to feel like a shroud. The Thorne estate had been transformed overnight into a hive of frantic, gold-trimmed activity. Seamstresses scurried through the halls with measuring tapes draped like snakes around their necks, and the kitchens hummed with the mechanical rhythm of a thousand appetisers being prepped for a guest list that felt more like a census of the High Houses.I stood on the mezzanine, watching the chaos below. My father was down there, his voice booming as he directed the placement of the floral arches. He looked revitalised, as if the impending spectacle of a wedding could somehow scrub away the memory of the Archon’s frost. He was leaning into the lie, pretending that the South was stronger than ever because we were finally unifying with a woman of proper standing.Proper standing. The irony tasted like copper in my mouth.Doreen was at the centre of it all, standing near the grand stair
THE REJECTED BETA CHAPTER 20
Marie’s PovThe door to Room 412 might as well have been a vault made of reinforced titanium. Even through the heavy wood and the hiss of the hospital’s ventilation, I could sense him. The air in my room had changed, it had become charged, thick with the scent of cedarwood, rain, and the lingering,
最終更新日 : 2026-03-23THE REJECTED BETA CHAPTER 14
Valerie’s POVThe silence that followed Astance’s departure was more deafening than the roar of the engines in the parking lot. I watched from the shadows of the hospital room as the black SUVs, the only wall standing between us and a shallow grave began to peel away, one by one. The silver crests
最終更新日 : 2026-03-20THE REJECTED BETA CHAPTER 32
Astance’s POVThe air in the courtroom didn't just thicken; it curdled.The silence that followed Hakan’s declaration wasn’t the respectful quiet of a council, it was the breathless, predatory stillness of a pack that had just scented a much larger, much older beast in the tall grass. I looked at
最終更新日 : 2026-03-30THE REJECTED BETA CHAPTER 19
Astance’s POVThe hallway didn’t just grow quiet, it died.Every step I took toward Noah felt like the grinding of tectonic plates. I could feel the heat radiating off my skin, a physical manifestation of the black, oily rage that had been brewing in my chest since I saw the blood on Marie’s temple
最終更新日 : 2026-03-23
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