Lahat ng Kabanata ng Alpha's Regret: Return of the Rejected Mate: Kabanata 391 - Kabanata 400

Penelope’s POVThe cottage door hung open like a mouth waiting to swallow us whole. I ran inside before anyone could stop me.“Debbie!” My voice echoed through empty rooms. “Baby, are you here?”Nothing.I tore through the main room. Knocked over chairs. Checked behind furniture. A blanket on the floor still held warmth when I pressed my hand to it. Someone had been here recently.“Debbie!” I screamed it this time. “Mommy’s here!”Footsteps pounded behind me. Dominic appeared in the doorway looking like he might collapse any second.“She’s not here,” I said. “He’s already gone.”“The back room’s empty too,” someone called from deeper in the cottage.“Upstairs is clear!”Julian appeared with dirt on his knees from examining the ground outside. “He left maybe fifteen minutes ago. Tracks head north into the forest.”“Then we’ll follow—”“We’ll search here first.” Dad grabbed my arm when I tried to run past him. “He might have left something. A clue about where he’s going next.”“I don’t c

Kelsey’s POVThey both stood over my bed like executioners. Penelope’s face was cold as stone, while Dominic looked like he wanted to rip me apart with his bare hands.“Talk,” Dominic said. “Start from the beginning and don’t stop until you’ve confessed everything.”My throat burned from vomiting. My head pounded from the pills that hadn’t quite killed me, but I knew there was no escape now.“I met Nick at a bar.” The words came out in a whisper. “About a year and a half ago. Some dive place where pack members go to blow off steam.”“Keep going.”“We both got drunk. Really drunk. I barely remember most of that night.” Shame burned my cheeks. “We slept together. It was stupid and meaningless and I regretted it the second I sobered up.”“Then what?” Penelope’s voice was sharp.“I found out I was pregnant.” My hands twisted in the blanket. “I panicked. Nick was nobody. Just some random man from a bar. I couldn’t raise a child alone with no father and no status.”“So you lied,” Dominic sai

Penelope’s POVAfter Kelsey was dragged away screaming, the Council chamber fell into tense silence. Every Alpha in that room was calculating what this meant for them. How to use it. How to protect themselves.Same old politics even when children were being kidnapped and Alphas were being murdered.I walked to the front of the chamber with Dominic beside me. Our combined presence made everyone stop their whispered conversations and pay attention in a way neither of us could manage alone.“We need to talk about what is really happening here,” I said. “The Rogue King has an army of dead warriors walking again. Nick proved that enemies got deep inside our homes without us noticing. Two packs have already been seized. And my daughter was kidnapped to show that none of us are safe anymore.”Alpha Mark started to interrupt but Elder Francis held up his hand. “Let her finish.”“I have spent years proving myself to this Council despite constant pushback. I have fought beside you. Bled beside y

Penelope’s POVThe search teams came back at our command. We called them all into the war room at Iron Mountain so we could regroup with Julian’s new information.Maps covered every surface. Spy reports were stacked in messy piles. Coffee cups sat abandoned and cold because nobody had time to drink.Mom had been quiet all morning. She sat in the corner with books spread across her lap. Old family texts from the archives that looked like they would disintegrate if you breathed on them wrong.“We move at dawn tomorrow,” Dominic was saying. He pointed to locations on the map. “Hit Nick’s bunker fast and hard before he knows we are coming.”“What about the Rogue King’s main base?” Alpha Williams asked. “Do we just ignore hundreds of undead warriors three miles away?”“We deal with them after we get Debbie back,” I said.“That is not a plan. That is wishful thinking.”“Then come up with something better,” I snapped. My patience was gone. Every minute we spent arguing was another minute my d

Dominic’s POVI woke before dawn with Penelope still asleep in my arms. For a moment I just lay there watching her breathe, memorizing the curve of her cheek and the way her hair spread across the pillow, the peaceful expression she only wore when she was unconscious.Then reality crashed back and I remembered what today was.I slipped out of bed carefully so I would not wake her and got dressed in the darkness before checking my weapons one more time even though I had already checked them a dozen times yesterday.My phone showed forty-seven missed messages from various pack leaders. Questions about logistics. Concerns about timing. Requests for last minute changes to the plan. I ignored all of them.The plan was set. Changing things now would only create confusion.Penelope woke while I was lacing my boots. She sat up and the sheet fell to her waist. “What time is it?”“Four thirty. We move out in ninety minutes.”She got out of bed and started getting dressed without a word. We both