All Chapters of Rejected By The Alpha, Desired By The Immortal King: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

POV: ARAYA “So you are my wolf?” I breathed. The world seemed to hold its breath with me. “You’ve been… the voice guiding me?” My voice was raw, splintered. “All those nights. All those dreams… the fire in the dark.” “If you are my wolf—” My throat tightened, fury clawing up my ribs. “Then why—” My voice cracked, grief curdling into something sharper. “Why didn’t you come when I needed you? When I turned sixteen? When they mocked me, starved me, cursed me… when they called me wolfless?” Nyxara’s voice slid through the dark like a blade pulled from a furnace—iron wrapped in flame. “Because I do not bow to mortal clocks. I do not answer to the calendars of men or the frightened timelines of gods. I do not rise because the moon commands it. I rise when the world deserves it.” Her tone deepened, thunder wrapped in fire. “In this life, yes—I am your wolf, because fate dared to bind me to your flesh. But long before fate carved its runes, I was not a beast. Not a whisper. Not a name.

POV: KADE I don’t remember walking into the forest. One moment I was pacing my quarters like a caged wolf. The next— Cold air. The smell of wet bark. Midnight pressing against my skull. And then— Her name. Carved into a tree. Burned so deep into the bark it smoked faintly in the moonlight. My claws were out. My hands were bloody—half mine, half… something else. I don’t remember writing it. Don’t remember shifting. Don’t remember screaming. But the tree remembered. Every line of her name was scorched into the bark like a vow the forest itself had been forced to hear. ARAYA. “What the hell is happening to me?” My voice was raw, shaking. The forest didn’t answer. It never does. But behind me— A sound. Not footsteps. Not breath. A drag. A pull. Something slithered. I turned—nothing. Just the black wall of the Hollow’s shadow, thick as water. Then the roots beneath my boots pulsed once. Like a heartbeat. And the whisper came. Soft. Almost gentle. > “You turned dow

POV: HIGH PRIESTESS KAELITH The bells were not meant to ring at night. They were bound by holy law, tied to the cycle of light, and only answered when Selene willed it. No mortal hand could coax them. No errant wind could stir them. But still— They called. Once. One chime. Like a breath exhaled into eternity, soft as a whisper of silver through the threads of the world. Then— A break. Not loud. But deep. Down in the marrow of the temple’s bones. A separation. The closest bell fractured from the crown to the base. Its pieces slid down the holy spire like falling moons, each shard catching the starlight for a heartbeat before vanishing into shadow. I rose from my place among old scrolls and constellations, my knees protesting. My heart slammed hard against my ribs, each beat too sharp, too fast. Breath quivered in my lungs, thin and cold as though I’d inhaled winter. Everything was still. Too still. The lamps had not been doused—yet their flames fought for air. The sa

POV: SELENE The moon did not blink. But I did. Only once. Only when the Heartmirror shattered. I knew something was coming. I had felt it in the stillness between prayers. In the way the stars hesitated before shining. In the way the scent of ash replaced the usual incense in my temples. But nothing—nothing—had prepared me for the exact moment the thread snapped. Not Kade’s. Not Ryven’s. But Araya’s. --- The Argent Spire loomed above Solara, its mirrored light stretching so high it seemed to pierce the cold heavens. From its summit, where the gods watch the unravelling of the world, I stood, draped in my veil of woven starlight, alone. Behind me, the Temple of Moonlight and Flame stood silent. Too silent. Once, it had hummed with crystal chimes. With breathless choirs. With the rhythmic whispers of fate woven by divine hands. Tonight—even the air refused to breathe. I hovered above the Heartmirror. A sacred pool of silver flame and molten starglass, alive with pr

POV: ARAYA The night was a coffin, and I ran barefoot through its black belly—lungs flayed open, heart hammering like it was trying to break out of my chest. The rogues were close. Three? Four? I couldn’t count anymore. Their snarls tangled with the wind. Claws scraped against bark. Even the trees seemed to race with them—faster, hungrier. I caught on a root that hadn’t been there a second ago. The ground punched my knees open. Palms tore against gravel. Moss filled my mouth, thick with the taste of blood. I pressed my back against a fallen log, chest heaving so hard it hurt. “Not here,” I rasped. “Not like this.” Nyxara’s voice coiled up from the hollow inside me, sharp as a blade. Let me take over. “No,” I whispered. “You’re too bloody.” The sound of them came closer. Breathing—hot, eager, wrong—surrounded me. Even the ground beneath me seemed to pulse in warning. They knew. They could smell me. An unmated she-wolf. Alone. --- A shadow broke from the trees. “You’re no