All Chapters of Rejected by the Alpha Heir, Mated to His Rival Brother: Chapter 171 - Chapter 180

Draven's POV"Thorne has fled. He is somewhere out there, plotting, scheming, waiting for his moment to strike. And Ironpeak—the pack that has been trying to destroy us for years—remains a threat. They control the moonstones. They control our supply. They have been strangling us slowly, and we have done nothing."He paused."That ends now."The council murmured. Lord Harren leaned forward."Alpha," he said slowly. "What are you proposing?""I am proposing that we stop cowering," my father said, his voice firm. "That we stop waiting for Ironpeak to make the first move. That we take the fight to them. That we show them that we are not weak. That we are not afraid."He looked at me."Draven."I stepped forward. "Yes, Father?""I have wronged you." His voice was quiet, but it carried through the chamber. "I accused you of crimes you did not commit. I confined you to your quarters. I stripped you of your authority. I believed Thorne's lies over your own words."He paused."I am sorry."The

Isolde's POVVarek led me through the Ironpeak territory, and I felt my breath catch in my throat.This was nothing like the Stormclaw Pack. Nothing like my old home. Nothing like anything I had ever seen before.The mountains rose around us like walls—sheer, black, impossibly tall. The paths were carved into the stone, winding upward in switchbacks that made my legs burn and my lungs ache. The air was thin here, cold, sharp with the scent of iron and smoke and something darker underneath. Something ancient. Something that had been burning in the belly of this mountain for a thousand years.But it was the industry that struck me most.Everywhere I looked, there were mines. Tunnels bored into the mountainsides, their entrances glowing with torchlight. Carts loaded with ore—moonstone, I realized, the precious mineral that had given Ironpeak its power—rumbled along tracks carved into the stone. Workers moved with purpose, their faces smudged with soot, their bodies bent with labor. The c

Isolde's POV Thorne's eyes locked onto mine. I felt my blood run cold. He was staring at me—really staring—his head tilted slightly, his brow furrowed. Like he was trying to place me. Like he was searching his memory for something just out of reach. His eyes moved over my face with the slow, deliberate attention of a man who had spent his entire life reading people, manipulating them, destroying them. He recognizes me, I thought. He knows. He knows what I did. I forced myself to breathe. To keep my face calm and my posture relaxed. I had seduced him once. I had drugged him. I had wrapped my hands around his cock and made him tell me everything. And now he was standing in front of me, trying to remember where he had seen me before. Don't flinch. Don't look away. Don't give him anything. "Alpha Marius," Thorne said, his voice smooth as silk. "I don't believe I've had the pleasure of meeting your... guest." Marius gestured lazily toward me, his thick fingers glittering with rings

Draven's POVI stood at the edge of the garden, watching her.The evening light caught her hair, turning it into a cascade of dark silk shot through with gold. She was sitting on the bench near the fountain, her hands folded in her lap, her face tilted toward the sky. She looked peaceful. Content. Beautiful.Gods, I thought. She's beautiful.I had seen her a thousand times. I had memorized every line of her face, every curve of her body, every expression she made. I had watched her sleep, watched her wake, watched her laugh and cry and fight. And yet, every time I saw her, it was like seeing her for the first time. Every time, she took my breath away.How did I get so lucky? I wondered. How did I, of all people, end up with someone like her?I thought of my life before her. The cold corridors. The whispered insults. The endless, crushing loneliness. I had been nothing. Less than nothing. A mistake. A stain. A bastard.And then she had come into my life—like a storm, like a wildfire, l

Draven's POVI stared at her.The words hung in the air between us—wasting your potential—and I felt something shift inside me. Something uncomfortable. Something that felt almost like shame.She's right, a voice whispered in my head. She's absolutely right. And you know it.But another voice—louder, angrier—rose up to meet it.She doesn't understand. She doesn't know what it's like. She doesn't know what they did to me. What he did to me. How can she possibly understand?I looked at her—at the way she was standing there, her hands clasped in front of her, her eyes wide and worried. She was biting her lip, the way she always did when she was nervous.Gods, she's cute, I thought. Even when she's lecturing me, she's cute."I'm sorry," she said quickly, stumbling over her words. "I didn't mean—I'm not saying you're a failure or anything. I'm not saying you're not doing enough. I just—I worry about you. I worry that you're holding yourself back. I worry that you're letting your past dicta