All Chapters of Rejected Bride: The Alpha's Biggest Mistake: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

Bianca stood alone at the edge of the meadow, watching the tree line where her father had disappeared without so much as a backward glance, and for the first time since Elena had known her, the careful, composed mask she wore had cracked entirely apart, leaving something raw and frightened underneath. The Council guards who might have moved to detain her seemed uncertain how to proceed, hovering at a careful distance, and Elena understood, watching them hesitate, that nobody in the meadow quite knew yet what to do with a woman who had spent the entire day as the enemy's daughter and was now, apparently, standing entirely alone."You could run too," Elena said, approaching slowly, exhaustion and adrenaline still warring through her body from everything the last hour had demanded of her. "Nobody would blame you for trying. He's already halfway to disappearing."Bianca's laugh came out thin and bitter. "And go where? My whole life has been built around being Griffin Hale's daughter. Ever

It took four of them to hold Theo still, Kael's grip firm but gentle around the boy's shoulders, Rhea working quickly to prepare a sedative while Damian and Kade cleared the panicked medical wing of anyone not directly needed for the emergency unfolding at its center. The other five freed prisoners watched from their own beds with wide, frightened eyes, several of them visibly bracing themselves, as though half expecting the same mechanical chant to rise unbidden in their own throats at any moment."The moon calls home," Theo repeated, his voice flat and mechanical, utterly unlike the frightened, wondering boy who had reached for Kael's wrist in the courtyard hours earlier. "The moon calls home. The moon calls home.""Theo," Kael said urgently, crouching to meet the boy's blank, unfocused eyes directly. "Theo, listen to my voice. You are not there anymore. You are safe. Whatever they built into you, it is not stronger than you are."The chanting didn't stop, and Elena, watching helple

The riders emerged from the tree line in tight, disciplined formation, and Elena's stomach dropped as she counted them, not the dozen Rowan had estimated, but closer to twenty, moving with the same trained precision she remembered from the ridge attack weeks ago, except this time there was no element of surprise working in Ashwood's favor. Behind her, she heard Thessaly's people murmuring in low, tense voices, some of them clutching tools that had clearly been repurposed as weapons only in the last several minutes, their hands unpracticed but their resolve, Elena noted with a fierce ache of gratitude, entirely unwavering.Alpha Hale rode at the center of the formation, and even from a distance, Elena could see the change in him since the gathering, something feral and unhinged replacing the cold, calculated composure he'd worn throughout the entire proceeding, a man who had clearly stopped caring about appearances the moment his careful century of control finally began collapsing arou

The passage entrance came into view through the smoke, a low stone archway carved into the base of the great hall's ruined foundation, and Elena's heart lurched violently as she saw two of Thessaly's guards sprawled unconscious near the opening, clearly overwhelmed before they'd had any chance to raise the alarm properly. Somewhere deeper in the smoke, faint and muffled, she could hear the frightened crying of children who had been promised, only an hour earlier, that this exact passage was the safest place in the entire settlement."Move," Damian shouted, already tearing at the smoldering debris someone had piled against the entrance, an obvious, deliberate attempt to seal the passage and everyone trapped inside it. Kael joined him instantly, and together they cleared enough of the burning wreckage to force the archway open, thick black smoke billowing outward in a choking wave.Thessaly arrived seconds later, her weathered face carved into an expression of pure, focused terror, and

The main hall had not held this much tension since the night of Elena's own wedding, torches lit hastily along the walls, guards positioned at every entrance, the small gathered group of people Elena trusted most standing close around her as the great doors finally opened to admit their unexpected visitor. Isolde stood near the back of the hall, one hand pressed protectively against Kael's arm, and Elena caught her mother's expression, a raw, weary dread that spoke to exactly how many years Isolde had already spent learning to fear exactly this kind of unexpected, unwelcome visitor.The woman who entered moved with an unhurried, deliberate grace that immediately set Elena's instincts on edge, dressed in simple, unmarked dark clothing that gave away nothing about her origin or allegiance, her silver streaked hair pulled back severely from a face that carried the particular ageless quality of someone who might have been anywhere between fifty and a hundred years old."Luna Hart," the wo