All Chapters of Rejected: The Alpha's Fatal Mistake: Chapter 71 - Chapter 79

KadeThe council chamber Nightshade had established for ongoing alliance business filled quickly once word spread that new intelligence had arrived, five packs' representatives gathering with the particular tense alertness of people who'd hoped, perhaps too optimistically, that the mountain fortress's fall had ended the Moonless threat completely."The Hollow Mother led the organization's central command," the fifth power's delegate explained, laying out a series of reports that had arrived via messenger over the preceding week. "But forty years of operation doesn't simply collapse because a single leader falls, however significant that leader was. We're seeing scattered activity — smaller cells, apparently operating with some independence from the central stronghold, continuing operations across at least two additional territories we hadn't previously mapped as compromised."Wren studied the reports with the particular focused intensity Kade had come to recognize as her working throu

KadeThe fourth and final cell proved more elusive than the previous three, Rurik's scouts spending nearly two weeks tracking scattered fragments of intelligence before finally pinpointing its location — not a fixed outpost like the others, but a mobile operation, deliberately kept moving to avoid exactly the kind of methodical hunting the alliance had been conducting these past several weeks."They're led by someone considerably more disciplined than the other three cells," Rurik reported, laying out the accumulated intelligence during a council convened at Ironfang's own territory, closer to the mobile cell's suspected current position than either Nightshade or Blackthorn. "A woman going by Thessaly. According to what we've gathered, she served as the Hollow Mother's personal lieutenant for nearly a decade before the fortress fell.""Then she'll know considerably more about the organization's full scope than anyone we've questioned so far," Wren said, studying the rough intelligence

WrenThree months after the campaign against the Moonless cells concluded, Wren had settled into a rhythm of shared leadership that felt, most days, considerably more natural than she'd expected two Alpha-led packs' worth of logistics to become.She split her time roughly evenly between Nightshade and Blackthorn, riding the now-familiar road between the two territories with an ease that had grown from what once felt like an impossible logistical puzzle into simply the shape of her life. Sable managed Nightshade's day-to-day governance with the same steady competence she'd shown for years, and Torren had taken to his expanded role at Blackthorn with an enthusiasm that made Kade laugh, more than once, about having apparently discovered his own replacement rather too easily.It was Ezra who first noticed something different, three months after their return from the final campaign, watching her train with a critical eye during one of her visits back to Nightshade."You're slower today," h

WrenThe power surges began in her second month, unpredictable and considerably more intense than anything Wren had experienced since her earliest, untrained days discovering the ability at all.It happened first during a routine council session, the silver shimmer building around her without warning or conscious intent, strong enough that half the assembled delegates instinctively reached for weapons before recognizing the source wasn't hostile."I don't understand it," Wren admitted afterward, sitting with Ezra and Maren in the small healing house Nightshade had established, still shaken by how completely the surge had overtaken her control. "I wasn't trying to draw on the power at all. It simply happened, the way it used to before I'd learned any real control over it.""Petra's journals mentioned this," Ezra said, consulting the worn pages with careful attention. "Pregnancy intensifying the bloodline's manifestation — I mentioned it before, when we first suspected you might be carr

WrenBy her eighth month, Wren had largely stepped back from active field leadership, Sable and Torren both handling the bulk of day-to-day pack governance while she focused on preparations considerably more personal than the political work that had defined so much of the preceding year.The house stood nearly complete now, walls finished and roof secured well ahead of the baby's expected arrival, and Wren found herself spending increasing amounts of time there directly, watching the final details take shape — a nursery painted in soft, warm colors, furniture crafted by Blackthorn's finest woodworkers, small protective wards worked into the doorframe exactly the way Ezra had insisted upon for every threshold in the house.Marcus visited more frequently as her due date approached, his own eagerness to properly know his grandchild evident in the careful, attentive way he'd taken to checking on her wellbeing during each visit."You look tired," he observed, finding her resting in the nea