All Chapters of Rejected Bride: The Alpha's Biggest Mistake: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

They made it back to Ashwood without further incident, though every rustle of leaves along the return path had Kade's hand hovering near his belt and Rowan's eyes darting constantly toward the shadows. Elena carried the small, tarnished locket the entire way, its rusted clasp refusing to budge no matter how carefully she worked at it with trembling fingers.It was Rhea, once they were safely back inside and gathered around the kitchen table, who finally managed to pry it open using a fine hairpin and more patience than Elena had left in her entire body. The rest of them waited in tense silence, Kade posted near the window keeping watch on the drive, Rowan pacing a slow, restless circuit of the kitchen while Damian sat close enough to Elena that his shoulder brushed hers every time either of them shifted position, a small, steady point of contact neither of them seemed inclined to break.Inside, folded impossibly small, was a single photograph, faded and creased from what looked like d

Thessaly arrived at Ashwood within hours of Damian's urgent summons, traveling with Rowan and two others from her hidden community, her weathered face drawn tight with the particular focus of someone bracing for news she suspected would not be easy to hear. She had left the bulk of her people back at the ruins under careful guard, unwilling to risk more of her small community than absolutely necessary while so much remained uncertain, and Elena caught the flicker of worry that crossed her face more than once during the short journey to the kitchen table, the weight of leadership sitting visibly heavy on someone who had carried it alone for so many decades.She read the unsigned letter twice, her fingers tracing the faded ink with the same reverent care Elena had noticed her use on every fragment of old history she'd shown them at the ruins, and when she finally looked up, her expression had gone carefully, deliberately blank in a way that told Elena immediately she recognized exactly

Vivian survived the night, though only barely, and Rhea's grim assessment the next morning left little room for comfort. The bullet had lodged too close to her spine for safe removal without proper surgical care, and the best Ashwood's healers could offer for now was stabilizing her enough to survive the journey to a pack hospital better equipped to handle it, a journey that would keep her, and her testimony, far away from Elder's Crossing entirely."She wanted this to matter," Elena said quietly, standing at Vivian's bedside before they left, watching her stepsister's chest rise and fall in shallow, medicated sleep. "I'm not letting a bullet take that away from her too.""It won't," Damian said. "We'll carry what she gave us. The map, the checkpoints, everything she risked her life to tell us. That's still hers, Elena, whether she's standing in that room or not."Rhea stayed behind to watch over her, along with two of Ashwood's most trusted guards, and Elena pressed a hand briefly to

The meadow erupted into chaos, Hale soldiers scrambling toward their Alpha for orders, pack representatives murmuring urgently among themselves, and Ophelia Rook's sharp voice cutting through it all with practiced authority that gradually, reluctantly restored some measure of order.Elena barely registered any of it, her hand still gripping her mother's shackled one, some part of her mind entirely occupied with calculating distance and danger, wondering whether Rowan and his small team had walked into exactly the kind of trap Kade had warned them all about, or whether, against every reasonable expectation, they were actually succeeding."Silence," Ophelia commanded, and the meadow obeyed, though the tension crackling through the crowd remained thick enough to taste. "Rider. Report the full message, clearly, so this entire Council hears it exactly as it was sent."The rider, still catching his breath, straightened in his saddle. "The message came from one of Alpha Hale's own outposts n

The masked champion circled her slowly, unhurried, and Elena forced herself to breathe, to plant her feet, to remember every fragment of instinct her body had shown her during the last month of impossible, unasked for battles. She could feel every eye in the meadow fixed on her, Damian's tension radiating from the crowd's edge, her mother's ragged breathing somewhere behind her, the whole gathered Council watching with the particular stillness of people who understood they were about to witness something that would be talked about for generations regardless of how it ended."You don't have to do this," Elena said, keeping her voice low, meant only for him. "Whatever they've told you, whoever you are, you don't owe Alpha Hale a fight against someone who might be your own blood."The masked figure said nothing, only tilted his head slightly, studying her with an unreadable intensity that made her skin prickle. Behind the mask, his molten gold eyes never once wavered."Begin," Ophelia ca