All Chapters of Rejected by my mate: Bounded by the Ruthless Lycan : Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

Denice burst through the heavy doors of the Alpha’s lodge, her breath coming in sharp gasps.Moonlight spilled across the wooden floors, catching on the tears still glistening on her cheeks. Her hands shook as she clutched Zara’s phone like a lifeline."Your majesty" she shouted, voice cracking. "Kael, where are you? It’s urgent!" She yelled as she dropped the honorifics.Heavy footsteps echoed from the hall. Kael appeared at the door, silver eyes sharp with immediate concern. His broad shoulders filled the doorway as he descended two steps at a time, dark hair still tousled from running his hands through it earlier."Denice? What’s wrong? Where’s Zara?" She thrust the phone toward him, fingers trembling."She shifted and ran into the forest after… after everything. I tried to stop her. But then her phone pinged. Look." Kael took the device. His jaw tightened as he read the glowing notification. *King James is coming in three days to kill you all. Do not die. You haven't held up y

The war room had mostly emptied by the time the last candle burned low.Wisteria had commandeered an entire corner of the table for her maps, which were, admittedly, significantly better than the ones they had been using.Kael had eventually retired to deal with something involving the eastern watchtower. Valkyrie had stood, stretched in a way that suggested her spine had strong opinions about long rides on horseback, and announced she was finding a bed before she made any more strategic decisions."Second door on the left," Zara told her. "Noted." Valkyrie picked up her sword belt from the back of her chair and slung it over one shoulder. "Good planning tonight. Both of you.""You too," Zara said.Wisteria smiled pleasantly and said nothing, which was somehow the most Wisteria response possible.~~~The hallway was dark and quiet and cool.Valkyrie preferred it that way. She had always found the stretch between strategy and sleep to be the most useful part of any evening because the

The scream tore out of her before she could stop it.It happened too fast for her body to negotiate with. One moment she was on her back in the dark with her heart slamming against her ribs, and the next something had come through the window that was not a dream and was not the Shadow King and was very much real and already cracking open it's jaw with a low, wet sound in its throat that she had heard before.She rolled off the bed. Bare feet hit cold floor. The thing landed where she had been a half-second ago and the mattress caved under the weight of it.'Another hybrid' she thought.It was bigger and broader than the last one. Wrong in the same specific way the other had been wrong; too much muscle, too many angles, something in the eyes that flickered between animal and something older and less nameable. It turned toward her with a slowness that was somehow worse than speed.The door was kicked open. Valkyrie stood by the doorway with her pajamas on and a sixteen inch sword.She t

Valkyrie had already moved ahead to the door. She pushed it the rest of the way open with one hand and stood in the frame, looking in, and her expression didn't change.She stepped back and looked at Zara."I think we should head for the library first," she said. "Before we come here""Why straight there?" Denice asked.A pause."Zara might need a little more time to process everything. It would be best to keep ourselves busy til she's ready to come back "Valkyrie said simply.Zara didn't reply but she didn't object to it either."Don't look at the floor," Valkyrie said out of the blue. "Either of you."She looked at the floor.She hadn't meant to. It was the kind of thing your eyes did before your brain issued the relevant instruction. One second she was looking at the far wall, and the next she wasn't, and then she was.The shape of it was what stayed. The outline pressed into the old wood in a way that was unmistakably human and unmistakably her mother's, down to the particular way

The forest was quiet. Kael had learned to read that particular silence years ago. This one felt looser though like the morning hadn't decided what it was yet."Nothing on the eastern ridge," Rynese said, dropping down from the outcrop he'd been using as a vantage point. "No movement. No scent markers. Nothing.""Same west," said one of the scouts further down the line.Kael stood at the tree line with his arms crossed and looked out at the valley below. Empty. Pale with early light. The river bend at Crestmoor caught the sun and threw it back in pieces."He's not early at least," Rynese said, coming to stand beside him."He's never early." Kael's jaw was tight. "He makes people wait. It's a tactic.""Is it working?" Rynese joked.A pause. "Don't push it."Rynese smiled with the portion of his face he used specifically for statements he wasn't going to make out loud.They stood there for a while. The scouts kept their positions. The morning held."She went to her old home last night,"