Semua Bab Rejected by My Mate, Fated to the Lycan King: Bab 411 - Bab 420

ErikScarlett is still asleep when the knock comes. Soft and deliberate. Too deliberate. The kind of knock that doesn’t want to wake a house but demands to be heard by someone. Which I am.Her head is tucked beneath my chin, her body curled tightly against mine, and for a moment I think about ignoring it. Just this once. Just this hour. But something about the knock sinks claws into my ribs.I ease out from beneath her, careful not to wake her. She stirs only slightly, fingers flexing in the space where my chest had been. I pull the blanket over her bare shoulders and whisper a spell under my breath. Just enough to keep the cold off her skin. Then I head downstairs.The inn creaks like it’s holding its breath. The hour is somewhere between night and dawn, where even magic seems to hesitate. The knock comes again, three slow beats. Only the family knows we stayed here last night. It has to be one of them.When I open the door, no one’s there. Just a gust of wind, and something resting

ScarlettI don’t summon him. I don’t have to. Loki knows the second I think about him.I find the rooftop empty when I step into the moonlight, but the shadows are wrong. Thicker, slower, like they’re waiting to be shaped. I lean against the railing and fold my arms.“I know you’re there.” The shadows shift and he steps out of them.Tall, refined, with that maddening half-smile and an aura that makes the air hum. His black coat flutters behind him, tailored and regal, and his midnight hair gleams in the starlight.“You called,” he says, voice silk-wrapped sin. “And I came. A girl could get used to this kind of obedience.”“I didn’t call you,” I say evenly. “I just stopped running.” His smile sharpens. “Even better.”He steps closer. Not enough to touch, but enough for me to feel the electric appeal of him. His presence is heat and shadow and the scent of something ancient and wrong and tempting. Like summer fruit left to ripen just past safe.“I received a message,” I say. “Mm. I thou

CereliaI’ve spent the last two hours elbow-deep in scrolls I promised myself I’d never touch again. Most of them were deemed too old, too damaged, or too cursed. I kept them anyway.And now I understand why I couldn’t throw them away. Scarlett’s magic isn’t just changing, it’s fracturing.That’s what the runes show me when I trace her magical signature. Not a clean line. Not the natural progression of power evolving. Splinters. Fragments of an identity being pulled in two directions.Light and shadow. Bloom and burn. Human and something else. We all knew that someday there might be more to deal with.Lilith was ancient when she died, a legend of twisted power. But even she had to start somewhere and we don’t know much about her origins.Underneath Scarlett’s power there’s something far older than even the Court of Fire. A resonance I’ve only ever read about before. Something divine. Or monstrous. Depending on your point of view.I press a palm to my forehead, trying to steady my puls

HildaSomething’s wrong. Not loud, fight-in-the-streets, blood running freely kind of wrong.No. This is the kind that comes creeping in on soft feet. The kind that makes the birds go silent and the wind too still. The kind that sets a wolf’s teeth on edge before the first drop of blood falls.Raventon is too quiet this morning.I sit on the edge of the inn’s balcony, legs swinging over empty air, eyes trained on the cobblestone street below. No carts. No chatter. Just the occasional flicker of movement behind curtains. The humans feel it too. They don’t know what’s coming, but their bones are whispering.Mine are howling.Arlo leans against the door frame behind me, arms crossed. “You’re watching again,” he comments. “I’m waiting,” I say. “For what?”“For the thing that’s making everything else wait.” He doesn’t argue. Just walks over and settles beside me, big and solid and steady. Like always.“Something’s shifted,” I add. “Scarlett smells like lightning and burnt earth. Signe look

ErikWhen Victoria returns, she’s different. It’s subtle, at first. Her shoulders are more relaxed. Her steps are lighter. She seems much more relaxed. Like something that had been straining beneath her ribs finally let go.She doesn’t meet my eyes and I don’t press her. But I watch her closely.The way her fingertips hover too long over the warding stones. The way her magic flickers just out of sync with mine. The way she smiles at Cerelia just a touch too sweetly.And later, when she tells me she’s ‘too tired to train,’ her voice is too smooth. The words seem rehearsed. And there’s no trace of the genuine exhaustion she normally feels by this time of the day.Loki’s been here. Not in body perhaps, but in influence most definitely. And I missed it again. He always seems to be at least one step ahead of me and it’s infuriating.I find her in the hallway after dinner, pretending to read one of my mother’s books on elemental attunement. She’s leaning against the wall, back straight, per