All Chapters of Rejected by the Alpha, Claimed by the Dark King: Chapter 61 - Chapter 65

Aria felt the platform tilt beneath her feet—not physically, but with a shift so deep it felt like the world rebalanced itself around a single point: the masked figure now standing only a few steps away. Their presence pressed against her skin like a second heartbeat, too familiar to be foreign, too foreign to be trusted. The air seemed to hum around them, vibrating with the strain of a truth Aria wasn’t ready to hold.The First Fractured extended their hand toward her—not threatening, but beckoning. “Come,” they murmured, their dual-toned voice soft and resonant. “You cannot understand what awaits you unless you see what awaited me.”Erevan snarled before Aria could speak, his shadows coiling around her protectively. “She isn’t going anywhere with you.”The Fractured turned their strange, luminous gaze on him, and Erevan’s shadows recoiled as if struck by an unseen force. Their voice deepened. “Shadow King, you fight everything you do not understand. But this is not your lesson.”Ere

The crack beneath their feet widened with a low, resonant groan—like the realms themselves were bracing for the weight of what had been spoken. Aria swore she felt the ground shiver beneath her boots, the path trembling in a slow, reluctant recoil. The void beyond the platform darkened, shadows thickening like smoke curling inward.Erevan stepped closer to her instantly, shadows snapping outward in jagged spines. His breath was sharp, uneven, barely contained. Aria could feel the rage rolling off him—not wild, but controlled, deadly, coiling behind his ribs like a creature ready to strike.He looked at the Fractured with eyes the color of a starless storm. “If you think for one breath that either of us will choose to sever anything—”The Fractured held up a hand, silencing him not with force, but with the weight of inevitability.“The Trial,” they said softly, “is not designed for choice. It is designed for truth.”Aria’s stomach tightened. “Truth about what?”The Fractured’s gaze shi

The figure shaped like her father stood with the same quiet confidence she remembered from childhood—broad-shouldered, warm, steady, the kind of presence that used to silence nightmares before they could fully form. The golden eyes that once held laughter now held something different: an unyielding expectation. A calm that felt too cold. Too perfect. Too constructed.Aria rose slowly, every muscle trembling under the weight of the light pressing against her skin. Here, her shadow was gone—peeled away as if it had never existed. Her connection to Erevan felt distant, muffled, like she was reaching for him through a wall of glass.“Papa…” she whispered again, stepping forward despite herself. “Is it really you?”The figure smiled—soft, tender, devastating. “I am the memory of him. His strength. His purpose. Everything he intended for you to become.”Her chest tightened. “He didn’t intend for me to become this alone.”“You were never meant to be ordinary,” the illusion murmured, voice sm