Semua Bab His Rejected Mate: Bab 91 - Bab 100

Hearing his sob broke something in me. Every breath I took pressed against my ribs like I was inhaling memories instead of air. Shane walked beside me in silence, her presence comforting, but I couldn’t look at her. I didn’t know how I managed to stay still until we crossed the prison and came back to the packhouse. Lucas had some Alpha duties and he left to attend them. We had just returned from the prison.From him.Xavier.I still couldn’t say his name without it splintering something inside me. Not because I hated him. But because I didn’t. Because I still loved him in ways I shouldn’t. And because when he looked at me with those guilt-ridden eyes and trembled at the word son, I felt the last few months of pain crawl up my throat and settle there, like thorns.I had thought I’d be fine. I’d told Lucas I was strong enough. That I deserved closure. That I had a right to confront the man who had shattered and saved me in the same breath. But I had barely lasted a few minutes in that

The hall was colder than usual.Not because of the weather, but because of the silence — heavy and judging, thicker than the stone walls that surrounded us. Elders stood in a circle, their eyes flicking between each other, between Lucas, and most of all… me. I wasn’t just the Luna in this room. I was the reason they were hesitating. I was the reason Xavier wasn’t already executed.He sat in the dungeon beneath us. Hands bound. Fangs dulled. Powerless, but not harmless. That’s what the others kept saying. Over and over.Lucas stood at the center, his jaw tight, arms crossed. “Three days. He hasn’t tried to escape. He hasn’t spoken a word. Not even when we offered food.”“Perhaps he’s waiting for the right moment,” Elder Myra snapped. “Vampires are patient creatures.”“He is not just any vampire,” Another elder said, tone sharp. “He commanded armies. He murdered wolves.”“He saved us.” The words left before I could catch them, soft but echoing with weight. The room stilled.My hands curl

I had seen Ariana fight through wars. I had seen her collapse under grief. But I had never seen her like this.She stood by the council window now, her arms wrapped tightly around herself like she was barely holding her body together. The earlier fire in her voice — the one that demanded justice for Xavier, the one that stopped elders in their tracks — was gone. Replaced with something quieter. Sadder.Like she was at war with herself.I should have hated him.Xavier had returned from the dead a vampire. He had commanded their forces. He had slaughtered wolves in front of us. He had stolen the love I once turned away. And yet, as I stood here watching her, I realized something deeply unsettling — she had never looked that broken for me.

If I could find my way back to her, again and again, then I would relive this life the same way over and over…Just like her, I had thought of all the possibilities and what-ifs. Every day spent in that horrendous prison, where I was forced to change from what I was to what I became, I thought of all the what-ifs.What if we didn’t move here?What if we had not come back the second time?What if Lucas and Ariana had not mated?What if I had not been kidnapped?What if I was not a vampire by birth?Every possible scenario ran through my head already, a million times. But then, some things were fate. I was one of the luckiest people in the world to be loved by someone like Ariana. She was a blessing to me, and I would relive this entire thing over and over again just for her.Now she sat beside me, cross-legged on the floor of my cell, her hair slightly tangled, face pale and drawn from exhaustion, yet more ethereal than I had ever seen her. Her fingers trembled as they rested on my knee

The new space they’d moved me to wasn’t freedom. But it wasn’t a cell either.The air here didn’t stink of mildew and blood. It smelled like cedarwood and freshly laundered sheets. The sunlight filtered in through barred windows, and while the guards outside the room never left, they no longer looked at me like I was an animal waiting to snap. I had a mattress. A table. Books. Clean water. Warm food. It was more than I’d had in months.Still, the silence ached.Even when the wind brushed against the wooden walls, or the branches knocked gently against the windows, the silence inside me was louder. It was what I deserved. I had made peace with that. After everything — after the things I had done, the blood I had spilled, the lives I had ruined — this quiet was a mercy.