Lahat ng Kabanata ng The Alpha’s Rejected Luna and Her Five Daughters: Kabanata 21 - Kabanata 30

Torin recovered first. Kael watched him do it — watched the man visibly decide that shock was a luxury he couldn’t afford in front of this many witnesses. “A dramatic entrance,” Torin said, “doesn’t answer the question. You say the Goddess was waiting. Waiting for what, exactly? Vague conviction isn’t proof, Kael. This council doesn’t run on your feelings for her.” The word her landed with an edge Kael didn’t like. He felt Bonita go very still beside him. “It isn’t feeling,” Kael said. “It’s what I’ve seen with my own eyes since she came onto my land.” “Then show us,” Torin said. “If there’s truth behind what you’re both claiming, this council deserves more than your word for it.” Kael opened his mouth, but Bonita’s hand found his arm — light, brief, a request to let her answer this one herself. “I can’t show you anything,” she said. “I won’t stand here and pretend I can command something I don’t understand. But I can tell you what I’ve seen, and you can decide what that’s worth

Morning came before the birdsong did. Bonita was already awake when the knock landed on the guest house door — three knocks, evenly spaced, the pattern Kael had started using since the ceremony so she’d never again mistake his hand for a stranger’s. She crossed the room quietly, careful not to wake the girls, and let him in. He’d changed out of the formal wear from the council hall. Plain clothes now, a blade at his hip, the look of a man dressed for walking rather than talking. “You said we start today,” Bonita said. “You meant early.” “I meant before Torin’s people are awake enough to notice which direction I ride.” Kael’s eyes moved past her to the beds, checking the girls the way he always did without seeming to. Mira was already stirring, propped on one elbow, watching them both. “I have two men gathering supplies. We leave within the hour.” “Where do we start?” “The last place anyone admits to seeing him.” Kael’s jaw tightened faintly. “A trading post two days east, on the

They ran the shorter path until the trees blurred, stopping only when Kael’s men signaled a rest none of them wanted to take. Bonita’s legs burned. She didn’t slow down enough to notice.By the second sunset, the ground began sloping toward water, and the air changed — cleaner, colder, carrying the sound of a river somewhere ahead splitting around rock.“Close now,” Kael said. “The holding Harlan described sits just past the split, tucked into the tree line where the current forks.”“Then we don’t wait for morning.”“No,” Kael agreed. “We don’t.”They came down through the trees as the last light died, and Bonita saw the cabin first — small, half-hidden, a single window glowing weak and yellow against the dark. No smoke from the chimney. No sound of movement.Kael’s hand came up, a silent order to stop. His men fanned out without needing to be told twice, one circling toward the back of the cabin, the other holding position near the tree line, blade already loose in its sheath.“Somet

They walked most of the night, Ren setting a pace that discouraged conversation, Kael’s men trailing close enough to react if the forest gave them reason to. Bonita didn’t feel the exhaustion until they stopped — some deep, animal part of her had been running on the same fuel that had carried her out of Blackthorn months ago, the refusal to stop moving until her children were safe. The refusal hadn’t changed. Only the reason had widened. Ren led them to a narrow fold in the hillside, easy to miss unless you already knew it was there — a shallow cave mouth screened by brush, faint firelight flickering somewhere back in the dark. “Corin,” Ren called low, before stepping fully into view. “It’s me. I brought the ones I told you might come.” A long pause. Then a voice, thin and unsteady. “How many.” “Two, plus the woman. And before you ask — yes, that woman.” Movement inside. A man appeared at the cave mouth, older than Bonita had pictured, stooped in a way that spoke less of a

They left the cave before first light, Corin walking between Ren and Kael’s two men, his stooped pace slower than the run out had been but steadier than Bonita expected from a man who’d spent months living in fear of exactly this moment, being found, being seen, being made to answer for a lie that had cost him everything except, apparently, his life. “You could still be walking into a trap,” Ren said to him quietly, close enough that Bonita caught it anyway. “Torin’s people, Blackthorn’s people, either one finds out you’re back inside Kael’s territory and talking, and every reason you had for hiding still applies.” “I know.” Corin didn’t slow down. “I spent three months telling myself silence was protecting her. I don’t believe that anymore. If I’m going to be found eventually, I’d rather be found having told the truth than found still running from it.” Kael fell into step beside Bonita as the trees thickened around the trail, his voice low enough that only she would hear it.