All Chapters of The Mate They Rejected: Chapter 1 - Chapter 4

[MARA]"Stop trying to peek.""I'm not peeking.""Your eyebrows are doing the thing."I didn't know my eyebrows had a thing, but I pressed the blindfold tighter just to end that particular conversation. Rhys's hands stayed warm on my shoulders, steering me down the corridor with more patience than he usually had. From ahead, I caught Caine's low voice and Zane telling someone to move.The carpet changed. Then stairs. Rhys's grip shifted to my elbow."Three more steps," he said.I counted them. A door opened. Warmth hit me—amber, lamp-warm.Rhys pulled the blindfold free.Streamers were everywhere. Red and gold. A banner across the far wall in Zane's neat handwriting: Happy Birthday, Mara. Balloons pressed at the window like they were trying to get out. A low table held my favorite pastries—honey walnut, from the bakery in town I'd mentioned once, months ago. And Caine stood in the middle of everything with his arms folded, looking like he absolutely had not spent an hour blowing up ba

[MARA]The bond snapped.Not slowly. Not fading. It broke all at once, violent and complete, like a structural collapse from the inside out. The pain tore through my chest and radiated in every direction simultaneously.My knees hit the floor.I pressed a palm flat against the stone just to stay upright. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.Eira screamed.Not a howl. A scream—the kind that only existed inside your own skull, the kind that was worse for that. It went on for three seconds and then cut off completely.The quiet that followed was worse than the pain.Nobody moved.I lifted my head and looked around.Some pack members looked away when I found them. Some didn't bother.My dad was across the room.Still. Arms folded. Face exactly as it had been when he arrived. He was looking directly at me.I kept thinking he would move. I kept waiting for the part where my dad crossed the room and stood between me and the rest of it.He didn't move.I found their faces.Caine. Rhys. Zane.Non