บททั้งหมดของ THE REJECTED BETA : บทที่ 11 - บทที่ 20

Marie’s POVAgainA sharp, ragged gasp tore through the silence of the room, vibrating against the fog in my mind."Marie? Oh, goddess... Marie!"I forced my eyelids to move. They felt as though they had been fused shut with lead and salt. When they finally flickered open, the fluorescent hospital lights stabbed at my retinas, turning the world into a blur of sterile white and clinical blue. Valerie’s face swam into view, her eyes bloodshot and her hair a frantic mess. She didn't wait for me to speak; she lunged for the call button, her voice trembling as she shouted for the doctor.The heavy thud of the door being thrown open echoed against the walls. I didn't need to look to know who it was. The air in the room didn't just shift; it pressurized. Astance and Kaelen surged into the space like a storm front, their presence too large, too predatory for the small medical suite.I tried to push myself up, my muscles screaming in protest. My head throbbed with the rhythm of a dull axe, the

Valerie’s POVThe silence that followed Astance’s departure was more deafening than the roar of the engines in the parking lot. I watched from the shadows of the hospital room as the black SUVs, the only wall standing between us and a shallow grave began to peel away, one by one. The silver crests of the Blackwood Clan vanished into the city’s grey afternoon, leaving the pavement bare and the air thin.My heart hammered a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I looked at Marie, who was still staring out the window with her chin tilted high, her jaw locked in that stubborn, beautiful defiance that had always been her greatest strength and her most dangerous flaw. She thought she had won. She thought she had finally cut the puppet strings.I knew better. I knew the look in Noah’s eyes when he was humiliated. I knew the way the Northern Elders viewed "loose ends."I moved toward the door, my heels clicking softly on the linoleum, my mind racing through a dozen different escape routes that all

Noah’s POVThe porcelain vase didn’t just break, it detonated against the mahogany door frame inches from my head. Shards of Ming-dynasty history whistled past my ear, one catching the edge of my cheek. I didn’t flinch. I couldn't. To show weakness now was to invite a more permanent kind of destruction.My father, Alpha Thorne the Elder, was a man composed of ancient granite and fresh vitriol. Currently, he was a hurricane. He seized a heavy crystal decanter from the sideboard, the one filled with the twenty-year-old scotch I had bought him for his sixtieth and hurled it into the fireplace. The liquid ignited in a roar of blue flame, a brief, violent sun in the middle of his study."Father," I began, my voice striving for the diplomatic resonance I had spent years perfecting."Don’t you dare open that filthy mouth of yours to call me a father," he roared, spinning around. His eyes weren't just gold, they were a molten, hellish orange, the pupils blown wide with the beast’s dominance.

Noah’s POVThe sliding glass doors of the hospital hissed open, and I stepped into the lobby with a storm of Northern fury boiling in my blood. I wasn’t here to negotiate; I was here to reclaim my property. I had six Enforcers at my back, men who lived and breathed for the Thorne legacy, and my father’s ultimatum was ringing in my ears like a death knell. Bring her back, or don’t bother coming home.I scanned the reception area, my jaw set. I was ready to give the order to let my men sweep through this pathetic clinic like a scythe, when a sharp, stinging red light caught me square in the eyes.I froze. My gaze darted to the source. It was a high-intensity laser sight, a tiny ruby dot dancing across the bridge of my nose, originating from a figure shadowed in the mezzanine above. Then I saw another on my chest. And another on the throat of my lead Enforcer.The realisation hit me like a physical blow: this wasn't hospital security. This was a kill zone.In a heartbeat, the adrenaline

Marie’s PovThe door to Room 412 might as well have been a vault made of reinforced titanium. Even through the heavy wood and the hiss of the hospital’s ventilation, I could sense him. The air in my room had changed, it had become charged, thick with the scent of cedarwood, rain, and the lingering, metallic tang of a rage so potent it felt like it could blister paint.I sat on the edge of the bed, my fingers knotting together in my lap until my knuckles turned a ghostly white. My heart was a frantic, trapped thing, drumming against my ribs in a rhythm of pure, unadulterated dread. Outside, I heard the low, rhythmic thud of a heavy boot, then silence. Then a muffled sound, a laugh?"Unbelievable," I heard Kaelen’s voice, sharp and dry, cutting through the tension in the hallway. "You were about to burn the entire world to the ground a moment ago, Astance. You were ready to tear an Alpha’s throat out in front of a live feed. And now, you can’t even step foot in a room?"I closed my eye