All Chapters of Alpha’s regret : The return of his rejected mate: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

HELEN’S P.O.V.Thirty thousand feet is a bad place to realize you are traveling with a living black hole.The cargo plane was a rattling metal tube, vibrating with the roar of twin turboprops. Itsmelled of hydraulic fluid and stale coffee. Inside the unpressurized hold, the cold wasbiting, seeping through my layers of thermal gear, but it wasn't the atmospherictemperature that had me shivering.It was the silence in the electrical systems.I sat strapped into the webbing of the jump seat, watching the overhead cabin lights.They weren't flickering anymore. They were dimming. Slowly, steadily, like a candlerunning out of oxygen.Across from me, Leo was asleep.He was strapped into a five-point harness next to Damian. His head lolled against hisfather’s shoulder. He looked peaceful, angelic even, but the air around him wasdistorted. It shimmered with a heat haze, bending the light.He was feeding in his sleep.He wasn't taking big gulps like he did at the school. He was sipping. S

HELEN’S P.O.V.Time operates differently underground.On the surface, time is dictated by the sun. It is a rhyt 1hm of dawn, noon, and dusk.Down here, in the bowels of the earth, time was measured only by the rhythmic pulse ofthe Star Core.Thrum... thrum... thrum.It was a heartbeat made of sound and light. Every ten seconds, the massive crackedsphere in the center of the cavern flared bright blue, sending a wave of bioluminescentlight washing over the ancient stone ruins where we had made our camp.I stood in what used to be a mess hall for the Shadow Claw warriors.It was a long, rectangular room carved directly into the cavern wall. Stone tables rosefrom the floor, seamless and immovable. The air smelled of ozone from the Core andthe heated MRE beef stew I was stirring in a pot on a portable camping stove."It feels like living inside a lung," Kai said, walking in.He was carrying a stack of thermal blankets. His voice echoed slightly off the vaultedceiling."A lung?" I ask

HELEN’S P.O.V.The math of dying is simple.We were five people in a sealed room roughly forty feet in diameter with a twelve-footceiling. That gave us approximately 15,000 cubic feet of air.An average human consumes about 15 cubic feet of air per hour.We had days of air. In theory.But in practice, we had less. Because fear makes you breathe faster. It spikes your heartrate, forcing your lungs to gulp down oxygen greedily. And we were terrified.I sat with my back against the cold stone wall, watching the blue chemical light of theglow stick flicker on the faces of my family.Damian was pacing the perimeter, testing the walls for weak points, though he knewthere were none. Wulfric was sitting on a stone bench, his eyes closed, conservingenergy. Kai was checking his weapons, a compulsive tic.And Leo...Leo was sitting in the center of the room on the pile of ancient rugs. He wasn't breathingfast. He was breathing in sync with the mountain.In... Out...With every exhalation,

HELEN’S P.O.V.Seraphina’s estate was not a house. It was a statement.While the Crescent Moon estate was built of timber and stone, designed to blend intothe forest, the Silver River stronghold was a sprawling modernist sculpture of glass,steel, and white concrete perched on a cliff overlooking the roaring river.It screamed money. It screamed power. And, as we walked into the pristine white foyer,dripping with mud, soot, and ancient cave dust, it screamed that we did not belong here."Shoes," Seraphina commanded, pointing a manicured finger at the marble floor. "Off.Immediately. That represents Italian marble imported from a quarry that no longerexists."I kicked off my heavy tactical boots. My socks were gray wool, holey at the toe.Kai unlaced his combat boots, grimacing. "You got any guest slippers, Sera? Or do wejust slide around in our socks like Risky Business?""The guest wing has heated floors," Seraphina said, tossing her fur coat to a silentattendant who appeared fr

*Continuing the ultra-detailed, slow-burn style.This chapter explores the brutal methodology of the Witch’s training, the terrifyingadaptability of a Prime, and the heartache of parents watching their child evolve intosomething they can no longer protect.HELEN’S P.O.V.The swamp didn't wake up like the forest. The forest woke up with birdsong and light.The swamp woke up with a gurgle.I opened my eyes to the smell of sulfur and chicory coffee. The light filtering through thegaps in the driftwood walls was a sickly, bruised purple.I sat up on the pile of cushions. The space next to me was empty.Damian was gone. Leo was gone.Panic, my constant companion for the last week, spiked in my chest. I scrambled up,grabbing my gun from under the pillow, and ran out onto the porch of the shack.The morning mist was thick, clinging to the water like wet wool.I saw them.They were fifty yards out, standing on a series of rotting wooden pylons that jutted outof the black water.Elena sto