Semua Bab Rejected by My Mate, Fated to the Lycan King: Bab 501 - Bab 510

ChrisIt’s quiet. The good kind of quiet.No danger humming in the corners, no sense of someone watching, no magic crackling in the air.Just the sun filtering through the windows of the inn, and Elliott beside me, one leg bouncing under the table like he’s trying not to explode.“Stop doing that,” I murmur.He glares at me, but he stops.I grin and nudge him with my knee. He nudges back.We’re pressed together hip to knee, close enough to share warmth, close enough that I can feel the buzz of nerves radiating off him like electricity.“They’re going to be fine,” I say.“You don’t know that.”“I do.”“You’re too confident.”“And you’re too beautiful to be this stressed.”Elliott chokes on a laugh and his cheeks go pink. “That’s not how this works.”“It should be.”He looks at me, eyes softening. “Are you scared?”I consider it.“No,” I say honestly. “Not of them.”And I’m not.I’ve seen what the world looks like when it’s falling apart. I’ve stood on broken streets with blood on my ha

ScarlettThe first thing I do when I wake up is sniff the air.Not for danger, for coffee. But I can’t smell any, which should be classified as a crime. A terrible violation of basic werewolf hospitality.I fling the blanket off and stalk out of bed. Erik’s not here. His boots are gone, and so is his scarf. The one that smells like pine and citrus and him. My favorite one to steal.How dare he?I throw on his hoodie in revenge and make my way toward the kitchen, half-expecting to catch my mom wrestling a coffee pot into submission.Instead, I find Chris perched on the counter, shirtless and smirking, eyeballing the apple in his hand like it’s plotting something.“Why is there no coffee? And stop looking so smug,” I say.He lifts the apple in a lazy salute. “You look like you lost a fight with a storm cloud, I’ll stick with smug, thank you very much.”“Your face looks like it lost a fight with evolution,” I tell him, staring balefully at the cold, empty coffee pot.“Aw. I missed this.”

ChrisIlsa shows up late, as always. We hear her before we see her.Heavy boots clomping down the gravel path like she’s auditioning for a role as a particularly aggressive horse, swearing at something under her breath, and muttering about “idiot border glyphs” and “tripping hazards.”Then she rounds the corner with three bags slung across her body, a weatherproof pack banging against her hip, and her blond hair piled on top of her head like it gave up on gravity halfway through.She looks exactly the same as she always does. Like she couldn’t give a damn about what anyone thinks, while still managing to be the most gloriously attractive single female in the vicinity.She grins when she sees me. “Hey, Chris.”“Ilsa.” I smirk. “Still dragging around ten kilos of cryptid teeth and conspiracy notebooks, I see.”“Shut up. One of those notebooks helped me survive a three-day detour through fog that whispered. Whispered, Chris. I don’t care what Soren says, that was not weather.”Elliott, b

ElliottIt’s the quiet that wakes me.Not a noise, not a crash. Just… absence. The kind of silence that makes your skin itch. Where even the insects seem to be holding their breath.Chris is still asleep beside me, his face half-buried in the pillow, hair a mess, mouth parted slightly.I stare at him for a second longer than I should. There’s something holy about the way he relaxes in sleep. Completely unguarded, as if he’s never known fear.Which is hilarious, because he definitely has. Just ask the raccoon that got into our room last spring.I slide out of bed without waking him, grab a hoodie, and step outside.The woods feel wrong.I don’t have the kind of magic that lets me feel shifts in the veil or ley lines or whatever my mom would say is happening, but I have instinct. Wolf instinct. And right now it’s screaming at me.There’s no wind. No birdsong. No movement at all.Just me and the trees, and something behind them I can’t see.I walk slowly toward the tree line, and every h

ChrisWe don’t talk much after the meeting. Everyone has too many thoughts. There are too many pieces not adding up.Scarlett’s worried, which makes me worried, which makes me edgy, and that’s never a good thing when your body can break bones by accident.Elliott sticks close. He doesn’t try to fix it, he just… stays. And gods, that’s everything.It’s nearly midnight when we finally head back to the cabin. The forest’s quiet again, but it’s the wrong kind of quiet. The wrong kind of still.I double-check the wards my dad put in place. Elliott watches me from the porch, arms folded tight across his chest, like he’s trying to hold something inside.I don’t ask what, because I already know.He’s scared. And he’s not used to being scared anymore.Inside, we move around each other in silence. Shedding boots, jackets, and layers of tension.I head toward the sink to splash water on my face. He’s so quiet, I don’t even hear him come up behind me.His hands slide under my shirt. Flat palms ag