All Chapters of Rejected by My Mate, Fated to the Lycan King: Chapter 511 - Chapter 516

ScarlettSomething wakes me up. It’s not Erik shifting beside me. Or the low groan of the cabin settling.It’s the trees. Or rather the silence between them.I sit up slowly, my heart already beating too fast. I don’t know exactly what I heard, only that it doesn’t belong.Erik’s arm is draped across my waist. He stirs when I move and murmurs my name with sleep roughening his voice.“I’m fine,” I whisper, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. “Go back to sleep.”He doesn’t, but he lets me go.Outside, the night is pale and cold.The moon hangs heavy and watchful, casting long silver shadows across the clearing. Everything smells like pine and dirt and frost. The way it should.But underneath it, I can smell ash.Not a fire burning, not woodsmoke or heat, just dead ash.I follow the scent toward the edge of the woods.I don’t shift and I don’t call for backup. I just keep walking.Because I need to know if what I feel in my spine is real. If this thing pressing at the edges of my senses is

ErikIt’s early, too early for anyone else to be awake.Scarlett’s still sleeping, curled into the blankets, hair a wild tangle across the pillow, mouth parted just slightly.I should stay in bed with her. I should roll back into her arms and pretend this feeling isn’t crawling up my spine like cold fingers.But I don’t. Like an idiot, I slide out of bed without waking her, pull on pants and boots, and step out into the woods alone.It’s not far to the clearing behind the old millstone ruins.I follow the path we’ve walked a hundred times. My breath fogs in the morning chill and dew clings to the hem of my shirt.Everything feels different though. Askew. As if the world shifted by one degree and no one else noticed.The trees seem taller. Shadows drag where they shouldn’t. The scent in the air is old, like books and wet stone and bone dust.And the deeper I go, the less noise there is.There are no birds, no insects. Just the sound of my heartbeat and the leaves crunching loudly benea

IlsaThe wards are dying.Not all at once. Not dramatically. Just slowly unraveling.Like thread pulled from the hem of something ancient.It starts in the north-east quadrant, where the grove bends away from the natural leyline.The boundary stones there have been solid for years.Drawn with salt, anchored with blood, reinforced with sun-baked sigils and even a little of my own sweat. But this morning, two of them have cracked.There are no animal scents in the vicinity and I know it wasn’t caused by wind.There’s a faint scorch mark at the base of the standing pine, like something leaned against it from the other side and sighed.And then slipped through.I run my fingers over the stone, searching for residue. The way Cerelia taught me.There’s no magical backlash or residual heat. But I feel the echo of something. A kind of pressure under my skin, a faint hum along my spine, like I’ve brushed too close to lightning without getting struck.Whatever crossed here didn’t want to be not