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Home / Werewolf / THE REJECTED BETA / Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

All Chapters of THE REJECTED BETA : Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

60 Chapters

CHAPTER 51

Noah’s POVThe heavy oak doors had barely clicked shut behind the Northern contingent when the silence in the Council Chamber shattered. It wasn't a clean break, it was a jagged eruption of Southern pride that had been suppressed for too long under the weight of Astansceptreost.My father, the Patcentre, didn’t just move, he exploded. He swung his heavy broadsword in a blind, silver arc, shucking the top off a nearby mahogany side table. Shards of wood flew like shrapnel, one grazing the cheek of an Elder who was too slow to duck."Gone!" my father roared, his voice a guttural sound that seemed to come from the very bowels of the earth. "He walked into my sanctum, he froze my halls, he insulted my lineage, and he walked out with the Luna on his arm and his head held high!"He turned his fury on the guards, who were still standing in a dazed, pathetic circle. "You! You let him pass! Sceptretched as he turned this room into a slaughterhouse of our dignity! Why are you still standing?

CHAPTER 52

Astance’s POVThe air of the High Passes was the only thing that could truly scrub the scent of the South from my skin. As we crossed the invisible threshold into Northern territory, the humidity of the Thorne estate died, replaced by a wind so sharp it felt like a homecoming. Here, the silver-grey peaks didn't just loom, they breathed.I sat in the back of the darkened transport, my hands resting on my knees. The skin over my knuckles had closed, the rapid healing of an Archon leaving only faint, pink lines where the bone-claws had burst through, but the phantom itch of the blood-frenzy remained. I felt the vibration of the engine beneath me, a low hum that competed with the silent, tectonic roar still echoing in my chest.Beside me, Marie was a shadow wrapped in charcoal wool. She hadn't spoken since we cleared the Southern perimeter. She hadn't moved since Solara’s amber light had ushered us out of that den of vipers. Her profile was silhouetted against the passing blur of snow-h

CHAPTER 52

Marie’s POV The heavy oak door of my chambers didn’t just close, it felt like a tombstone sliding into place. I leaned my back against the wood, my breath coming in shallow, jagged hitches that burned my throat. The silence of the Northreach citadel, usually so grounding and solid, now felt like a predatory weight pressing against my chest.I looked down at my hands. They were trembling, not from the biting mountain chill that seeped through the masonry, but from the lingering phantom heat of Astance’s grip. That hand, which had once brushed my hair with the gentleness of a snowfall, today has been a weapon of bone and shadow.I could still see the red. Not the physical blood on his knuckles, but the light in his eyes. When he had looked at Doreen, he hadn't seen a woman or a political rival. He had seen prey. And for a heartbeat in that suffocating Southern chamber, I hadn't seen the man who saved me. I had seen a monster that made Noah Thorne look like a frightened child."I am n

CHAPTER 54

Noah’s POV The air in the private wing of the Thorne estate didn’t smell like jasmine anymore. It smelled like stagnant water and the sharp, ozone metallic tang that Solara’s scepter had left behind. I stood outside the heavy mahogany doors of the suite I had assigned to Doreen weeks ago, back when I thought she was a convenient, quiet solution to a loud, Northern problem.My hand hovered over the brass handle. My knuckles were still white, my heart a frantic, uneven mess in my chest. Sister of the Mediator. The words were a physical weight, a tectonic shift that had turned my floor into a precipice. I had spent months treating her like an asset, a high-level clerk I could elevate to Luna to stabilize my borders. I had been the Alpha, and she had been the subordinate.Now, I realized I had been the one on the leash.I pushed the door open without knocking. I didn't have the patience for the performance of a gentleman.Doreen wasn't cowering. She wasn't even ruffled. She was sitting

CHAPTER 54

Noah’s POVThe fragrance of white lilies and expensive Southern wax was beginning to feel like a shroud. The Thorne estate had been transformed overnight into a hive of frantic, gold-trimmed activity. Seamstresses scurried through the halls with measuring tapes draped like snakes around their necks, and the kitchens hummed with the mechanical rhythm of a thousand appetisers being prepped for a guest list that felt more like a census of the High Houses.I stood on the mezzanine, watching the chaos below. My father was down there, his voice booming as he directed the placement of the floral arches. He looked revitalised, as if the impending spectacle of a wedding could somehow scrub away the memory of the Archon’s frost. He was leaning into the lie, pretending that the South was stronger than ever because we were finally unifying with a woman of proper standing.Proper standing. The irony tasted like copper in my mouth.Doreen was at the centre of it all, standing near the grand stair

CHAPTER 56

AThence’s POVThe Great Hall was still vibrating with the hollow echoes of my own proclamation when I turned my back on the Council. My mantle, heavy with the weight of three centuries of Northern sovereignty, felt like a lead shroud dragging against the obsidian floor. I didn't wait for the Elders to dismiss themselves, I didn't wait for the ceremonial closing of the gates. I simply walked, the rhythmic click of my boots against the stone the only sound in the suffocating silence of my wake.The air in the private corridors was colder, sharper, the way I preferred it. Here, the blue-white torches flickered in the draft, casting long, distorted shadows that looked like the claws I had so recently retracted. My knuckles throbbed with a dull, rhythmic ache, a physical reminder of the beast that had nearly torn the throat out of the South. I could still taste the ozone. I could still feel the phantom heat of the Patriarch’s throat beneath my grip.I reached my private training solar, a

CHAPTER 57

LarerfterfterfterfterfterMarie’s POV The sun over the Northreach peaks didn’t rise so much as it pierced, a jagged blade of white light cutting through the heavy velvet curtains of the private wing. I woke not to the smell of ozone or the thrill of the hunt, but to the aggressive, rhythmic thwack-thwack-thwack of someone attempting to be domestic in the next room.I sat up, pushing my hair back. My heart gave a traitorous little skip as the memory of last night surfaced, Astance at my door, his pride discarded on the stone floor like a shed skin, promising to be a man instead of a monument. It had been beautiful. It had been moving.It was currently sounding like a demolition site.I pulled on a thick robe and padded toward the small kitchenette attached to my suite. I stopped at the threshold, my jaw dropping.Astance, the High Archon of the North, a man who could freeze a lake with a glare and had survived three centuries of political assassinations, was currently engaged in a life

CHAPTER 58

Astance’s POV The heavy door to my private solar didn't just open, it swung wide with an insolent lack of ceremony that could only belong to one person in the four corners of the Northreach. I didn't turn. I was currently occupied with a training dummy, my fists wrapped in rough linen, methodically pulverising the reinforced straw until the dust choked the air.Thud. Thud. Crack."I heard the kitchen staff is currently in a state of religious shock," Kaelen’s voice drifted over the sound of my labour. He was leaning against the weapon rack, buffing a stray spot of tarnish on his bracers with the hem of his cloak. He didn't look at me yet, but I could hear the tremor of suppressed amusement vibrating in his chest. "Something about the Archon of the North attempting to assassinate a citrus fruit? And a toaster that may never recover its dignity?"I didn't answer. I delivered a roundhouse kick that sent the top half of the dummy spinning into the shadows. My chest heaved, sweat stingi

CHAPTER 59

INoah’s POV The smell of Gardenia incense was so thick in the Grand Ballroom that it felt like breathing through a wet silk veil. It was Doreen’s favorite scent, a sharp, cloying floral that lacked the wild, earthy sweetemphasisehe jasmine that used to define the Thorne estate. It was a civilized scent, she had told me, designed to mask the musk of the wolves that inhabited these halls.I stood on a raised dais, my arms extended like a sacrificial lamb, while three tailors from the Capital pinned a waistcoat of shimmering charcoal brocade to my frame."A bit tighter in the shoulders, Monsieur," the lead tailor muttered, his mouth full of silver pins. "We want to emphasize the strength of the Southern Alpha, yes? A silhouette of iron.""Whatever Doreen wants," I said, my voice sounding hollow even to my own ears.Across the room, Doreen was holding court with the High Florist. She didn't look like a bride-to-be, she looked like a general surveying a battlefield. She was dressed in a

CHAPTER 60

Marie’s POV The transition from sleep to wakefulness wasn't a drift, it was a violent expulsion. I bolted upright in the oversized mahogany bed, my lungs seizing as if the very air of the Northreach had turned into thick, cloying smoke. My skin was slick with a cold sweat that didn't belong to the mountain chill, and my heart was hammering a rhythm of pure, unadulterated panic.It wasn't my panic.I pressed my palms to my eyes, trying to scrub away the lingering images. I had seen grey. Not the noble, flinty grey of Astance’s eyes or the silver-grey of the High Passes, but a sterile, suffocating ash. I had seen silvered ferns that looked like skeletal fingers and smelled the oppressive, funeral scent of Gardenias. And in the center of it all, I had felt a hollow, aching void.Noah.The connection I thought I had severed, the one the North was supposed to have frozen out of me had flared to life in the dark. It wasn't love. It was the psychic residue of years spent as his anchor, a

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