Rejected Once, Now Claimed By The Lycan のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 41 - チャプター 50

Ava's POVI had not planned to kiss him.Or rather, I had planned not to — and then I had done it anyway, and now I was standing in the middle of his room with my heart going entirely too fast while he looked at me like I had just handed him something he had been waiting for without knowing how to ask."I'm sorry, I just —"His mouth found mine before I finished the sentence.The first kiss had been mine — quick, impulsive, barely a breath. This one was his, and it was none of those things.He kissed me slowly and with complete attention, one hand at my waist drawing me in, and the noise in my head that had been running constantly since breakfast — the pregnancy, the elders, the timeline, all of it — went quiet.Entirely quiet.His hands moved upward and I felt them through the thin fabric of my top, warm and certain, and I realised somewhere in the back of my still-functioning mind that I had not bothered with a bra when I dressed this morning in Isabelle's room.Sebastian realised t

Ava's POVThe pain faded faster than I expected.Sebastian kept his pace slow, watching my face constantly, adjusting at the smallest sign of tension. His hands moved between us, keeping the pleasure building alongside everything else, and gradually the discomfort dissolved until there was nothing left of it.Just warmth. Just him. Just the overwhelming closeness of another person who was paying complete attention to every part of me.I looked down once and realised he was barely halfway in.The realisation landed with some force.I could see it on his face — the deliberate restraint, the careful control of a man actively choosing not to take what he wanted because he was more concerned with not hurting me. It was written in the tightness of his jaw and the set of his shoulders and the way his breathing was more uneven than he would probably have liked me to notice.I lifted my hips.He froze immediately and pulled back to his original position."No," he said."I want everything," I s

Ava's POVI watched Jackson stand up from the table and walk out with his face covered.He had seen me. I had seen him. And then he had left.I sat with my hands in my lap and let out a slow breath.He was not here to cause a scene. He was here to plan. Which meant whatever he was intending to do was still coming — just not today.I did not tell the guards. I was not sure why. Maybe because telling them meant telling Sebastian and I did not know yet what Sebastian would do with the information and I did not want to spend the evening watching two powerful men circle each other again.I ordered food and ate it quietly and let the afternoon move around me.---Isabelle found me outside a bookshop at three in the afternoon and linked her arm through mine like she had been looking for me specifically."Spa," she said. "Edwin has a meeting and I refuse to go back to that palace before the sun goes down."We spent two hours being handled by people whose entire job was to make other people fe

Author’s POVSandra performed beautifully.She rushed to Ava's bedside with her hands pressed to her mouth and her eyes filling on command, calling her by the wrong name in her distress — Anna, she said, poor Anna — which told Isabelle everything she needed to know about how genuine the grief was.Isabelle pulled her back from the bed before she could get any closer."Drop the act," she said. "I know what you did. Get away from her.""What are you talking about?" Sandra pressed her hand to her chest, the picture of wounded innocence. "I know you do not like me, Isabelle. But to accuse me of something like this — Ava is my friend. She has been nothing but kind to me since I chose to extend an olive branch to her."Isabelle opened her mouth."Enough."Sebastian's voice cut the room in half.Both women went still."You will not mind if we search your room," Sebastian said to Sandra. It was not a question. "If you have nothing to hide, the search will confirm it. If anything is found that

Author’s POV The doctor returned to the palace exactly thirty minutes after Edwin's call.He went to Ava's room first, administered a second medication to flush the remaining poison from her system, checked her vitals with the careful attention of a man who understood the weight of what he was being asked to do, and then made his way to the meeting hall.Most of the gathered staff had already been dismissed. Sebastian had seen no point in keeping them standing in a hall past midnight for a conclusion that concerned only a handful of people. The elders remained, along with Fiona and Sandra — still under guard, still present, Fiona with her chin up and Sandra with her eyes on the floor.Sebastian was already in the hall when the doctor arrived.He had not followed him up from the room. He had come separately, through the side corridor, and positioned himself at the front of the hall with Edwin on one side and an empty chair on the other, and waited.The doctor bowed and addressed the r