Rejected Once, Now Claimed By The Lycan のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 31 - チャプター 40

The receiving room was exactly as Sebastian had left it.Elsie sat in the chair across from his desk with her legs crossed and her back straight, wearing an outfit that left approximately nothing to the imagination. She looked up when he walked in and arranged her face into something she clearly intended to be charming.Sebastian had seen better performances."Thank you for seeing me," she said, her voice pitched slightly higher than necessary."Sit," he said, though she was already sitting. He moved around the desk and took his seat, looking at her with the flat attention he gave to things that required managing."Is it just me or do you look even more —""I know you did not travel ten hours to comment on my appearance," he said. "If that is all you have, the door is behind you."Elsie's smile tightened at the corners.She uncrossed and recrossed her legs. Adjusted her position. Put the smile back in place."You are right," she said. "I came to warn you."Sebastian said nothing. He w

Ava's POVI made sure Elsie was settled in a room before Isabelle and I left the palace again, this time for a spa session Sebastian had arranged."That makes four enemies you have here," Isabelle said as we got into the car. "Did you really have to let her stay?""I lived in the Night Howl pack house for years," I said. "Everyone there was an enemy. This is nothing."Isabelle didn't look convinced. She had that look — the one that meant she could feel trouble forming somewhere just out of sight.She wasn't wrong to feel it.---By the time we returned to the palace, something had clearly shifted.We walked through the entrance into a corridor full of maids standing frozen against the walls, eyes wide, bodies pressed back like they were trying to disappear into the wallpaper.Then I heard him."Where is he?!"Edgar's voice carried from further down the hall, sharp and furious."H-he stepped out an hour ago," one of the maids stammered, her head bowed so low her chin nearly touched her

Ava's POV"Nothing much," Sebastian said. "She just wanted to know if she could stay."I looked at him for a moment.Something about his answer felt slightly too simple but I was tired and the Elsie situation had already taken more of my energy than she deserved, so I let it go."She is so stupid," I said, and shook my head.Sebastian said nothing. Just nodded once.---I woke up at six twenty the next morning.For someone who was not a morning person, that was an event in itself. But I wanted to see it with my own eyes — Elsie choosing between her pride and her plan, and what that choice looked like on her face at dawn.I made Sebastian get up and freshen up first so we would not have to rush later. Then I left him in the room and went down the hall to the room Elsie had been given.The door was unlocked.The key was hanging on the outside of the knob.I pushed it open.Empty. Completely and perfectly empty, like she had never been there at all.I stood in the doorway and laughed.Th

Ava's POVThe gasps had barely settled before Fiona's voice cut through them."That is impossible," she said, her lips pulling back in distaste. "She has only been here a month. A pregnancy cannot even be identified by a doctor until at least three weeks.""What makes you think she is not already three weeks along?" Sebastian said.Fiona's eyes narrowed. "Because I know very well that the two of you were not on good terms when she arrived. You would not have been intimate that quickly."Sebastian did not blink."She is my mate, Fiona," he said. "Whatever difficulties we had at the start, you know as well as anyone that the physical pull between mates is not something you simply ignore. We were intimate the night we arrived."Fiona's face twisted."Then she should take another test," she said, smoothing her expression into something resembling concern. "This is the future heir of the Lycan Kingdom. If there is truly a child, we need certainty. Surely you understand the need to be thoro

The Night Howl PackJackson spent the rest of the day unable to sit still.He moved through the pack house like a man with somewhere to be and no patience for anything standing between him and it. His father's voice followed him from room to room — warnings, reasons, the same arguments he had heard a dozen times already — and he let it all pass through him without landing.Elsie had been crying.If Elsie, who had spent twenty years making Ava's life miserable, had been moved to tears by what she heard — what was Ava herself feeling?He had told himself that Sebastian would be good to her. That whatever the Lycan King's faults, he genuinely wanted her. That she was safe even if she was not happy.He had been wrong."You cannot go there now," his father said, following him into the corridor. "If Sebastian catches you in his territory again after what happened last time —""I am not asking for your permission," Jackson said, stopping at his door and turning around. "I am telling you. I l