All Chapters of Mate Rebound : Chapter 161 - Chapter 170

Jasmine’s POV~What struck me initially was the sky. It hung below me, not above. A spiraling of stars, spreading away under my feet like a mirror folded inside out. The ground was spongy, but when I peered at it, I could see threads of rune glowing softly beneath the earth-like veins beneath the skin. This wasn’t a place. It was an idea. A memory.I stood and turned slowly, scared of breathing too hard. The silence here wasn’t empty. It was thick. Holding its breath. Then I saw him. A shape loomed a few paces ahead, towering and motionless, enshrouded in shadows. He was like a man — but not quite. His arms are too long, his eyes are too pale. There were no runes on his skin. They floated around him. Orbiting like moons. Runes I didn’t recognize. And beside him…The wolf. Its eyes bore into mine the instant I laid eyes on it. “Jasmine Vale,” the man said.My throat tightened. “Kaelen?” The figure nodded once. “Last of the first. Born of the source. Unmade by betrayal.”“And you’re awa

Jasmine's POv~I returned choking on the air. It tasted like cinders and sweat and something older than memory. I rose slowly from the ground, my hands wet with blood that wasn’t my own, my vision falling between the shades of light and darkness.Voices broke through first—familiar ones. Elara. Damien. Lyra. All of them yelling in pieces, all attempting to grab hold of something that I had not understood yet. And then I felt the burn in my other shoulder.It wasn’t just a mark. It was a door. One Kaelen seared into me before he’d vanished into that patchworked place. I pressed my hand to it as I rose, attempting to breathe through the agony. “Jasmine!” Elara’s voice sliced through everything. She was at my side a second later, but her eyes were reading mine for something—damage, perhaps. “Where did you go?”I shook my head. “Not a place. A warning. Kaelen’s awake.”Damien came up tight against him, face clenching. “He found you?”“He showed me what’s coming.”No one moved. I finally l

Jasmine’s POV~What I saw first was not Vira. It was the banners. Ours. Twisted. The Academy crest remained in the middle, its colors were all wrong — ashen gray and rusted bronze where they ought to have been deep blue and gold.My heart skipped, and I was unable to breathe as hard as it throbbed. The footsteps of boots beneath me were too steady, too soundless. Hundreds — no, more than hundreds—surged as though they possessed a single breath, a single ordered edict.“They’re all Hollowed,” Elara said, beside me, her voice strained.“No,” I whispered. “Worse. They’re rebranded. Reborn through her.” Damien stepped beside us. His sword was out, but he did not raise it. Not yet.“She has stolen their memory,” he said. “Their oaths.” Caspian’s boots scraped as he walked up behind me. “She’s giving them what they lost. Something to belong to.”“And making a weapon out of them,” Lyra muttered. I felt the fire flare up in my chest. Not magic. Not shard-born. Just fury. Vira, it turned out,

Jasmine's POV~It wasn’t the wind that hit us. It was weight. Pressure. The kind that felt as if my lungs were clapping shut and my bones had been turned inside out. I found myself on one knee without knowing how, and beside me, Damien grunted as he dragged me along behind him. Ilsa wasn’t screaming anymore.She was floating.Her feet hovered six or eight inches above the ground, her arms outstretched, her hair flying. Her eyes were open wide, but they weren’t looking at us. They were staring through everything. As if she were peering toward something in a direction that hadn’t existed before. “Elara,” I managed to say, my voice cracked. “Where is the pressure on you coming from?”Elara’s jaw clenched. With both hands planted on the ground, her shard was flickering in pulsing, erratic spurts. “It’s not just pressure. It’s resonance. It’s coming from beneath us.”Beneath?I looked at the ground. The ground surrounding the old altar shimmered, light pulsing through the cracks like somet

Jasmine's POV~The mountain didn’t stop screaming. It was like stone being shattered into voice — long, guttural, primal. Its tremors ran through the stairway. Dust rained from the ceiling. Cracks raced in all directions along the carved ribs of the corridor. But still, the hands came stretching.Ilsa cuddled at my side, shaking. Elara was behind us now, barely on her feet, breath ragged. I had not yet released my hold on her. Her blood had soaked the front of my shirt, but she seemed to be alive. It would have to be enough for now. “Back,” I said. “We need to get back up.”“But the hands—” Ilsa whispered. “They’re not grabbing. They’re reaching. There’s a difference.” And there was. And the more I looked, the more I saw it in their eyes. The pasty figures crawling from the fissures of the tomb weren’t attacking—they were batting at their eyes. Breathing. Shrugging off light and time as though they hadn’t beheld either in ages. Ilsa attempted to take one of the hands. It hesitated. Th