All Chapters of My Alpha Mate Rejected my Divine Pregnancy : Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

Lila’s POVI found Marcus in the barn, working on repairs to the fence posts. The sound of his hammer against wood echoed in the late afternoon air. He’d been out here for hours, finding excuses to stay away from the house, from the tension that had been building like a storm cloud.I couldn’t wait two more days, not when every training session felt like watching a snake coil around my children and every smile Astrid gave Marcus felt like a knife twisting in my gut.“Marcus,” I said, stepping into the barn. “We need to talk.”He didn’t stop hammering. “If this is about Astrid again…”“She poisoned Joan,” I said bluntly. “That wasn’t an accident with the herbs. Astrid poisoned her deliberately, then healed her when you came home to make herself look like the hero.”The hammer stopped mid-swing. Marcus turned slowly, his expression carefully neutral. “That’s a serious accusation, Lila.”“I know what I saw,” I said, my

3rd POV Astrid waited until she heard Marcus’s breathing deepen into sleep before she moved. The bedroom was dark, moonlight filtering weakly through the curtains, casting his face in soft shadows. He looked peaceful and trusting of her.Which was Foolish of him.She slipped from the bed with practiced silence, bare feet making no sound on the hardwood floor. The house settled around her, old wood creaking, but she’d memorized every sound by now and knew which floorboards to avoid, which doors squeaked, and where everyone slept.She believed that Information was survival while Control was victory.She made her way to the small office Marcus rarely used, shutting the door and locking it with a quiet click. Then she pulled the blackout curtains closed and activated the silence ward she’d carefully woven into the room’s corners over the past four days. No sound would escape and no magical signature would leak beyond these walls.Well, almost none. Joan’s detection crystal would catch th

Lila’s POV Astrid’s scream cut off abruptly as her body went rigid, then crumpled. Marcus caught her before she hit the ground, his face a mask of anguish and confusion.“Get rope,” Marchs snapped at me. “Now. Before she wakes up.”We worked fast. Marcus carried Astrid’s unconscious body to a chair in the training room while I retrieved a heavy-duty cord from the supply closet. My hands shook as I helped bind Astrid’s wrists to the chair arms, then her ankles to the legs.“Tighter,” Joan said grimly, testing the knots. “She can teleport. We need to make sure she can’t gesture or focus.”Marcus added another layer of binding around Astrid’s torso, pinning her arms completely. His jaw was clenched so tight I could see the muscle jumping.“Mama?” Ari’s small voice made me turn. Both twins stood huddled together near the doorway, watching with wide, frightened eyes.“It’s okay, babies,” I lied. “Everything’s going to be okay.”Ash shook his head slowly. “She was going to hurt us. I felt

Lila’s POV We buried Joan at dawn, in a clearing two hours from the ruined safe house.Marcus dug the grave in silence, masking the grief that threatened to break him. I stood watch with Ari pressed against my side, scanning for threats that might follow us even now.The earth was soft from recent rain. That felt wrong somehow, like it should have been harder, more resistant. Like the world should acknowledge that we were burying someone extraordinary.“Is Miss Joan really not coming back?” Ari asked for the third time, her voice small.“No, baby,” I said, my throat tight. “She’s not.”“What about Miss Astrid?”Marcus’s shovel hit the ground harder. I saw his shoulders shake.“Her neither,” I whispered.“And Ash?” Aria looked up at me with eyes too old for her face. “Is Ash coming back?”“Yes.” I made my voice firm, certain. “I promise you, sweetheart. We’re going to get your brother back.”“When?”“Soon.” I hoped I wasn’t lying.We wrapped Joan in the blanket I’d taken from the hous

Lila’s POV The guards came at dawn.I heard them before I saw them, boots on gravel, and low voices Marcus was already awake, his hand on his weapon.“Something’s wrong,” he said quietly.I stood, moving Ari behind me. She’d barely slept, kept reaching out with her empathic abilities trying to find her brother. The exhaustion showed in the dark circles under her eyes.The door opened without a knock. It was the same patrol leader from yesterday, but her expression was different now. Her face looked harder. It was like she was following orders she didn’t necessarily agree with.“The Alpha requests your presence at the pack house,” she said. “Council meeting. He’s made his decision.”Hope flickered in my chest despite myself. “He’s going to help?”She didn’t answer. Just gestured for us to follow.The walk through the pack grounds felt like a gauntlet. Wolves stopped to stare, some I recognized, most I didn’t. Three years had changed the population. But their expressions were universal