Rejected Once, Now Claimed By The Lycan のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 21 - チャプター 30

Ava's POVI stormed into my room, slammed the door hard enough to rattle the frame, and screamed.Not a dignified sound. A full, raw, frustrated scream that I was fairly certain carried through the floor and down the staircase and possibly into the party hall where every Lycan in the kingdom was probably still talking about me.Good. Let them talk."I *hate* this place!" I threw myself onto the bed and stared at the ceiling.Four days. I had been here four days and I had already been told I needed to get pregnant on a deadline, watched my mate grope another woman on a balcony, accidentally endangered an innocent man's life, and been publicly threatened with something called a dark room.Four days.The knock came less than five minutes later. I ignored it.It came again. I pulled a pillow over my face.Then — quietly, through the door — "It's Isabelle."I was across the room before I had fully decided to move.She walked in and wrapped both arms around me immediately, no questions, no

Ava's POVI left Edgar's study with my cheek still burning and my blood running hot.Any sensible person would have gone back to their room. Locked the door. Waited until morning.I went upstairs instead.I had never been to Sebastian's floor. Three doors, all closed, all identical. I stood in the corridor and stared at them and felt the tears building before I could stop them.I knocked on the first door. Nothing.Second door. Nothing.I stopped in front of the third and pressed my fist against it."Sebastian." I knocked hard. "Open the door."Nothing."I'm not leaving." My voice cracked on the last word and I hated it. "I'm not going anywhere until you open this door."I knocked again. And again. And somewhere between the third and fourth knock the tears spilled over and I stopped trying to hold them back.I was twenty years old. I had been dragged out of bed by my hair, thrown to the floor, slapped across the face, and threatened by a man who looked at women like they were furnitur

Ava's POVEdgar stayed in his seat like the entire room belonged to him.Which, once upon a time, it had."Have you gone mad?" he said. "Do you know who you are speaking to?""I know exactly who I am speaking to," Sebastian said.Janet moved to his side quickly, her hand on his arm. She knew her son. She knew Edgar. She understood what happened when neither of them decided to back down.Edgar's eyes were already shifting — darkening at the edges, his Lycan pressing forward."Sebastian." Janet kept her voice low. "Please.""Don't stop me, mother." He pulled away from her hand. "Do you know what they did to Ava last night?"Janet turned to look at Fiona, who stood with her arms folded and her jaw set, wearing the expression of someone who felt entirely justified."They dragged her out of her room at midnight," Sebastian said. "By her hair. Took her to his study. She was slapped and threatened." He slammed his hand on the table. "She is my mate!"Fiona moved before anyone could stop her.

Ava's POVI sat on Sebastian's bed for a long time after he left.The boxes were still in my room downstairs. My clothes were still in them. My decision to leave had not changed.But my feet were not moving.I lay back against the pillow and stared at the chandelier above me and thought about what he had said at the door."I am not losing you."No performance. No calculation. Just the words, plain and direct, and then he was gone.I pressed my hands over my face.This was the problem with Sebastian. Every time I built a wall solid enough to stand behind, he said or did something that cracked it without even trying. He did not beg. He did not explain himself endlessly. He just stated things like they were already decided and walked away and left me sitting with it.I hated that it worked.I hated that I was still lying on his bed instead of walking out the front gate.Janet's voice came back to me."You cannot be queen."Then Sebastian's."I am not losing you."Two people. Two differen

The afternoon had been exactly what Ava needed.She walked through the mall with Isabelle like someone who had been holding her breath for years and had only just remembered she was allowed to stop. They went through everything — clothes, shoes, things with no practical purpose that Ava picked up simply because she could. She tried on a hat that was wrong for her face and Isabelle had to hold the wall. She bought a book because the cover was green. A candle that smelled like rain.And a simple silver bracelet that she put on in the fitting room and did not take off.At the end of it she found the staff member who had stayed with them the entire time and placed two thousand dollars in her hand."Thank you, Doris," she said simply.The woman stared at the money. Then at Ava."Thank you, Ma'am," she said, and meant every word.Ava smiled and walked out.She did not tell Isabelle that two thousand dollars used to be two months of café wages. She did not say that she had spent years walkin