Semua Bab Rejected by My Mate, Fated to the Lycan King: Bab 571 - Bab 580

ElliottThe air hangs thick with moisture and secrets as I sift through the pages of the journal Chris found.Each symbol, every rune, feels like a fragment of a shattered language. One I’ve only just begun to piece together.The forest around us hums faintly, almost impatient, as if it’s aware we’re drawing closer to something and it wants us to hurry the hell up.After my mom told me about the Ash-born, I couldn’t stop thinking about them.Back at the pack library, beneath flickering candlelight and shelves heavy with forgotten tomes, I spread out every scrap of information I could find and studied them carefully.Thank the gods I have a good memory.The sigils from the journal match the carvings on the trees we’ve seen.Some jagged, others fluid and twisting. Each rune is a word. A name. A story. And all of it points to the Ash-born.These wolves weren’t just exiled, not like the others sent beyond the Veil for crimes or weaknesses. They were erased.Stripped from histories, erased

ChrisThere were no runes on this tree yesterday. I’m sure of it.The bark of the massive tree at the center of the grove was unbroken.It was just another ancient, gnarled sentinel in a forest full of secrets.No carvings. No glow. No hum of power. But now it thrums like a heartbeat, low and steady, pulsing beneath the moss.Gold and green light coils between the fresh markings, spiraling up the trunk in a pattern that doesn’t make sense to my human eyes, but something in my wolf bristles in recognition.A single deep crack splits the bark where the runes meet, just wide enough to form a hollow. A doorway.“This is a bad idea,” Elliott mutters beside me, his voice tight.I glance over. He’s pale, jaw tense. But he hasn’t stepped back.“You don’t have to come,” I tell him softly. “You can keep watch.”He snorts. “Like I’m letting you walk into a whispering tree alone. You’re reckless, not invincible.”That earns a grin from me. Gods, I love him.I squeeze his hand. “Then let’s be stup

ElliottThere’s blood in the air.Not fresh. Not wet. Old. Baked into the bark and roots like something the forest refused to forget.Chris crouches low beside me, fingers splayed in the dirt, nostrils flaring. “It was here.”“Whatever it is,” I mutter.Because I still don’t know what we’re tracking.The scent twists in on itself, loops and doubles back like it’s leading us in a circle.But it feels like a trail. Like we’re meant to follow it. Like something wants to be found.Or wants us lost. That possibility shouldn’t be discounted.The others fan out across the clearing.Scarlett brushes her hand along a twisted trunk etched with runes I don’t recognize.Erik murmurs under his breath, casting a spell to see beneath the surface.Ilsa stands apart from us, her shoulders tense. Caelan is beside her, unreadable as always. But it’s clear something’s changed between them. They’re no longer just fuck buddies.I hate how the forest watches.Not looks. Watches. Like a predator crouched jus

ErikThe forest is louder than it should be. There's an undertone that brushes against the limits of sound. One that buzzes in the hollow of my throat and coils behind my eyes.I keep walking anyway, one step after the other, even as the weight of it presses in like a storm about to break.Scarlett walks ahead of me. Her blue eyes flick left and right, sharp as ever, her shoulders tense beneath the sweep of her coat.The others are fanned out among the trees, forming a loose semicircle.Chris and Elliott stick close together. Just as they always do.Ilsa stalks further left, Caelan attached like a shadow beside her.And me? I’m human. Mortal. The weakest link. The only one who can’t physically challenge any threats.But I’m only useless if I let myself be.The trail narrows and becomes choked with roots.The moment I step between two leaning stones, something presses against my chest like a hand.Foreign magic that doesn’t belong to anyone in our group.Scarlett turns as I stumble. “E

Scarlett & CaelanSCARLETTThe trees thin too quickly.One moment, the forest crowds in, thick with shadow and scent and memory. The next, we stumble into a clearing that doesn’t feel like it belongs to this world at all.The air is thinner. The light is off. The space between things feels stretched, like the edges of a dream fraying just before waking.Caelan slows beside me. His silver eyes scan the ground, the trees, the sky.I follow his gaze to the tear in the earth ahead. A jagged wound, maybe four feet wide, snaking through the clearing like a scar.Light rises from it. It’s not moonlight or fire, but something far stranger.“That’s not a sinkhole,” I murmur.“No,” he agrees. “That’s the Veil. Or what’s left of it.”Magic hums under my skin. Not mine. Not Erik’s. The forest’s. The other thing’s.I inch closer to the fissure, heat prickling up my spine.“It’s far too thin here,” I say.He nods in agreement. “This is one of the seams. Where the world gives way.”I crouch at the e