Lahat ng Kabanata ng Alpha's Regret: Return of the Rejected Mate: Kabanata 401 - Kabanata 410

Penelope’s POVI was pulling Debbie toward a side corridor, trying to get her away from the worst of the fighting, when one of Nick’s fighters broke through our defensive line. He came at us with a knife raised high, his face twisted with hate and bloodlust.I pushed Debbie behind me and got ready to shift, but before I could even start the change, my daughter let out a scream.It wasn’t a normal scream. It wasn’t even entirely human. The sound tore through the bunker like something alive and furious, echoing off the concrete walls until it felt like the whole place might collapse.Light exploded from Debbie’s small body. Pure white energy that felt like standing way too close to lightning during a thunderstorm.The man with the knife just disappeared. One second he was there, lunging at us with murder in his eyes. The next second he was ash floating in the air like cigarette smoke.Two more fighters who’d been rushing to help him died exactly the same way. Their bodies turned to nothi

Penelope’s POVAfter Nick fell and the last of his fighters either died or ran away like cowards, I found Debbie standing perfectly motionless in the corridor. She was staring at the ash piles where bodies used to be just minutes ago.My daughter was shaking so hard her teeth were chattering. Her eyes were fixed on the gray dust, the only evidence left that those had been living, breathing people.I tried to take her hand but she pulled away from me like my touch burned.“I killed them,” she whispered. “They were alive and talking and moving and now they’re nothing. Just dust on the floor.”“Debbie, you protected us—”“I turned them into nothing.” Her voice was hollow, empty in a way that scared me more than the violence. “They had names and families and I made them disappear like they never existed.”I knelt down to her level, trying to get her to look at me instead of the ash. “Baby, look at Mommy.”She wouldn’t. Just kept staring at what her power had done.Julian and the other figh

Penelope’s POVThe corridors were slick with blood from the fighting, and watching Dominic tear through enemies with his bare hands made heat pool between my thighs despite the horror surrounding us.His shirt had been ripped to shreds hours ago, leaving his chest bare and covered in patterns of blood that caught the firelight like some twisted form of war paint.Every time he moved, muscles bunched and released under skin that gleamed with sweat, and I caught myself staring instead of focusing on staying alive.“Behind you!” I yelled, shooting an undead that had crept up while he was distracted.He spun around and nodded his thanks, then went back to ripping throats out with his claws. The way he moved was deadly grace in motion, like watching a predator who’d been designed specifically for killing.Blood ran down his arms in rivulets, and when he snarled at enemies his canines extended in a way that made something primitive in my brain respond with want instead of fear.Debbie walked

Penelope’s POVMoonlight swept across the battlefield like cleansing fire, and the screams that followed would haunt my dreams for the rest of my life regardless of how long I lived after this moment.The purifying power burned through the compound in waves that I could feel as well as see, reaching every corner where corruption had taken root and ripping it out by force.Throughout the fortress, mutated wolves convulsed as the power burned through corrupted flesh that had been twisted by dark magic, but instead of dying they were transforming back into their original forms.I watched through eyes that could suddenly see deeper than normal sight as creatures with extra limbs and distorted features writhed on the stone floor while their bodies fought to remember what they’d been before the Rogue King had changed them.A wolf with elongated limbs and too many rows of teeth shrieked as the extra appendages dissolved like smoke while bones cracked and reformed themselves into natural shape

Penelope’s POVThe great hall was festive three days after our victory, but the sound of drinking and music felt wrong when so many chairs sat empty around the tables. I watched people laugh and toast while their friends’ bodies were still being prepared for burial, and something twisted in my stomach at how quickly grief turned into relief.“Mommy, can we go home now?” Debbie whispered beside me, her small voice barely audible over the noise.She hadn’t spoken more than necessary since the battle, and I kept catching her staring at her hands with an expression that broke my heart. Those tiny fingers had turned living people into ash, and no six-year-old should have to carry that weight.“Soon, baby,” I said, stroking her hair. “Just a little longer.”Dominic sat on my other side looking equally haunted. Dark circles ringed his eyes, and he hadn’t touched the food on his plate. When our eyes met I felt an echo of that perfect union we’d shared, a ghost of what it had felt like to be co