All Chapters of The Rejected Mate Returns: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

**Mikail**Silence hung between us like a thick, uncomfortable shadow. Lyra kept her eyes downcast, lost in some undefined spot on the table, her lips pressed into a thin line.Something in her expression unsettled me; it wasn’t anger or defiance, but something more subtle, more sharp.I frowned and rested an elbow on the table, without taking my eyes off her.“What are you thinking about so much?”She blinked, as if she’d just remembered I was there, and let out an almost imperceptible whisper.“I understand you did that for Rowan… Not because you care about me, but because you wanted to beat him.”I opened my mouth to deny it, but no words came out. Her statement was valid. It hadn’t been for her… or had it?Something in her eyes before she said that had unsettled me: the faint spark of hope I thought I’d seen in them.That was why I blurted out those words without thinking, cloaking myself in the armor of my usual coldness, preventing her from seeing beyond what I wanted to show he

**Lyra**Mikail’s hoarse voice as he spoke my name was like a whisper laced with fire.It shook me to my core, awakening something in me I didn’t know existed… a primitive, visceral instinct.I had never felt anything like it. Not even with Rowan.When his arms lifted me off the floor, I thought I was going to faint. The heat of his body stood in stark contrast to the cold shower floor.My cheeks were burning, my heart was pounding so hard I felt on the verge of madness.“Don’t move,” he murmured firmly, but his tone… wasn’t harsh. It was protective.He wrapped me in a towel, covering my body as if my nakedness mattered more to him than it should.I felt… safe. Ridiculously safe. How could that be possible coming from him?The chills from the cold turned into a different kind of shiver when our bodies brushed against each other.Being so close to Mikail was like standing on the edge of a cliff: terrifying, dizzying… and addictive.I didn’t understand what was happening to me. Not on t

**Lyra**Having Mikail’s body on top of me was like bearing the weight of an entire universe… one that was warm, imposing, and full of desire.But I couldn’t help but tremble. My hands clung to his arms, to his shoulders, as if the mere touch would help me not to lose myself completely in the storm of emotions sweeping me away.And then, I felt it.The union.His body inside mine, making us one, and with it… the tension. A dense, suffocating wave.I could feel him pause, his breathing growing heavier, slower. I knew it immediately: he had realized.I knew he would realize I hadn’t been with anyone else.That I was a virgin.“Maybe he’ll reject me for good,” I thought, my chest tightening. “Maybe he doesn’t want to be with someone like me.”I looked up, fearfully, and what I saw took my breath away.Anger. Frustration. His features hardened, his eyes shining with restrained fury.Was he… upset with me? Did he regret it?I had to ask him, and my voice was barely audible.For a second, t

**Lyra**Mikail’s arrival was like a blaze in the darkness. Like the moment when the harshest winter is interrupted by a warm ray of sunlight that envelops you completely.His presence filled the air, and for a second, my heart forgot fear.His eyes scanned the scene: Ava wounded, the two men on top of me.I saw it. I saw how the man vanished and something wilder, more primitive, emerged in his place.Mikail seemed beside himself, overwhelmed by a fury that sent an involuntary shiver down my spine.One of them tried to speak, but it was already too late. Mikail was fast. Lethal.The first one had no chance to react, and the second could barely scream before being subdued.I stood still, paralyzed, feeling the adrenaline drain from my body as if every cell were shutting down.Then he looked at me. His eyes, burning with fury, met mine… and changed.As if seeing my trembling body, curled up next to Ava, was breaking him from the inside.“I… I’m sorry,” I murmured, lowering my gaze.“Wha

**Mikail**I opened my eyes suddenly and looked at her as if I suddenly didn’t recognize her.Her breathing was ragged, her cheeks flushed, her lips swollen from my kisses… but her gaze was steady.Confused, broken… just like me.For a moment I thought my mind had played a trick on me, that she hadn’t said anything.But there it was, her voice still ringing in my ears: that “no”—clear, fragile, and powerful all at once.She was resisting too. I wasn’t the only one caught in this storm.Lyra didn’t push me away. She didn’t pull back abruptly or scream. She just said that. *No*.And that “no” hurt me more than any blow.Because hidden within it was everything I didn’t want to admit: that we had hurt each other. That this was wrong.That our bodies were screaming with desire and surrender, but our souls were still bleeding from wounds that hadn’t healed.I wasn’t the only one fighting against what I felt. She was breaking inside, too.And seeing her like that… resisting like me, tremblin