All Chapters of Rejected by the Alpha, Claimed by the Crown: Chapter 151 - Chapter 160

Ember Frost’s POVIt was a plain mug of tea. The ceramic was almost too hot to hold, steam curling up from the surface as if it had just been poured moments ago.That was what made it unsettling; I knew for certain the tea had been sitting there for at least nine hours.But that wasn’t possible.I watched closely. The steam rose, thinned out, and vanished. Before the last trace could fade, another plume appeared. Then another. Again and again. Three times. Four.That was when something felt… wrong.The latter steam didn’t behave like normal heat rising from liquid. It didn’t start with the tea. It simply showed up, like fog materializing out of nowhere. There was no transition, no gradual build.It reminded me of something done wrong but trying to hide it, like a reflection in warped glass, almost convincing until you look too closely and notice the breaks.A chill crept down my spine.A thought I didn’t want began to form in my head.My stomach dropped. "Guys," I said, my voice shaki

Ember Frost’s POV“That’s right.” I stared at the fresh markings in the stone. For a split second, I could’ve sworn the wall shifted just barely, like something underneath had rolled over.No one spoke. Not because there was nothing to say, but because every thought felt useless. What was happening here went beyond instinct. There was no proper way to explain it, and trying to make sense of it felt pointless.“What if we’ve been wrong from the start?” Orion said slowly, “What if time and space aren’t just distorted here? What if… there was never a stable framework to begin with? Maybe it’s been chaotic and unstructured from the start, and we’ve just been moving through that mess all along.”Suddenly, it all clicked in my mind.That would explain it. Why did the third team run into a mark that shouldn’t exist yet? They weren’t ahead of us; we were behind them, relative to nothing at all. It was like they were stepping into our future.My chest tightened as I realized what that meant, a

Ember Frost’s POV“You saw me, didn’t you? I saw you too.” Eira’s voice came from behind me. I spun around, heart pounding, but all I caught was a flicker of her form before it vanished again.“I was standing in front of you before,” she said, her tone calm but urgent, “and now I’m a few steps behind. You can see me from behind, which means the spaces we occupy are overlapping in a precise way; everything lines up exactly.”“What… what does that even mean?” My head was spinning with a hundred questions, none of which I could organize into words.Eira let out a soft sigh, exasperated. “You weren’t paying attention in class, were you? Elder Anna explained spatial anomalies before! Let me simplify this. Our previous guesses were wrong because we were thinking only in terms of time. We assumed that the disorder of time had scrambled space.“But that’s not it. There’s more than one space. The distortions and overlaps we’re seeing? They’re the result of spaces gradually merging. Time and sp

Ember Frost’s POVWhen we woke, we were sprawled in the snow just outside the base. The cold bit straight through us. None of us had on proper gear—no coats, no gloves. We were dressed like people who had stepped out for a minute and never made it back.That was when the pieces started to line up in the worst way. Based on the time, it was clear we’d been dragged into whatever this was the moment we rushed out after those cries for help the night before.And then there was Henry.We did a headcount. Again. And again. Everyone was there.Everyone except him.A knot formed in my stomach. We spread out, combing the area around the base, calling his name, and scanning the snow for tracks. Nothing. Not a footprint. Within four hundred meters, it was as if Henry had never existed.I turned to Lilian. She was the last person who’d been with him.“Think back,” I said carefully. “When you and Henry went looking for that man, where did you go? Where did you find him?”She frowned, genuinely con

Lilian’s POVThere was no time left to look back. Regret was a luxury I’d already lost. The moment I stepped into Lilian’s life and took up her identity, my path had narrowed to one cruel choice: I would move forward as the Lord’s piece on the board.There were only two ways this could end: either we saw it through to the very last moment, or they never made it that far at all.The hemlock woods loomed ahead, dark and silent, and the mark on my chest began to throb again. It felt like the heat was trying to break me from the inside, searing through flesh, gnawing at bone, and pushing deeper and deeper.As if it wasn’t satisfied with hurting me, as if it wanted to tear me open and look inside, searching for whatever was left in my hollow chest, trying to decide where I truly belonged.Ember Frost’s POV:The forest felt wrong the moment we stepped close. At first glance, it was nothing more than a stretch of hemlock woods packed tightly together. But the closer you looked, the more dist