All Chapters of Rejected as the Fat Mate: Chapter 161 - Chapter 170

Tahlia's POV"Eleven territories, Tahlia. Eleven, in less than a day."Cassian dropped the latest stack of dispatches onto the war table, and I didn't need to read them. I could see the wax seals from across the room, a dozen different crests, every one of them broken."Withdrawals?""Formal ones. Withdrawal of allegiance, suspension of tribute, and in three cases, a polite request that the crown remove its soldiers from their borders." He rubbed his eyes. "Corliss's territory was the first. She sent her letter before the smoke cleared over the border station.""Because she'd already decided we'd lose." I moved down the table, scanning the faces of the commanders still gathered there. Kastor, grim and silent. Priya, who had been summoned from the quartermaster's office and stood stiffly beside the door with a ledger pressed against her chest. Alaric, bandaged along one forearm where flying stone had opened it to the muscle. "How many are still with us?""Marrow Vale. Ember Crest. Four

Tahlia's POV"Eight guards. Outside my own door."I stood in the corridor with my arms folded, counting spears. Eight men in royal gray, shoulder to shoulder, blocking the passage to my study like a wall. Two more stood at the stairwell. At least four more, I suspected, were posted outside the windows."Doubled," Ronan said from behind me. "From four.""Eight is not double four.""I rounded up."I turned. He looked terrible. He hadn't slept, and the dark stain on his sleeve was Varos's blood, which he hadn't bothered to change out of. He'd come straight from the training grounds to the council chamber, then straight to me. I knew what he was doing. He was trying to keep from shaking apart by controlling the only thing within reach."Ronan, I need you to listen. Not as the king. As my husband.""I am listening.""No, you're standing in front of me deciding what I'll accept." I kept my voice low, because eight guards were listening. "You told the council I'd remain inside the palace wal

Ronan's POV"Burn it."I said it the moment I finished reading, and the council chamber went silent. The Law of Sundering lay open on the table in front of me, its cracked leather cover curling at the corners. Tahlia stood at my left, pale but steady. Alaric stood behind her. Across the table sat nine councilmen who had voted to take my wife's authority and, in the last hour, learned how little she cared for their opinion."Majesty," Thorne said carefully. "The law is part of the royal charter. It cannot simply be destroyed.""Watch me.""Ronan." Tahlia's hand closed on my sleeve. "Not yet."I'd ridden four hours at a dead gallop after Cassian's messenger found me at the northern garrison. I hadn't slept in two days. I could still see Varos at the foot of that practice post, a note pinned beneath his hands, and I knew exactly how close I was to doing something stupid."This law was written to kill a Luna," I said. "It has no place in this kingdom.""It has been invoked twice in record

Tahlia's POV"That isn't my handwriting."Alaric said it quietly, and in the silence of the council chamber it sounded like a confession.Thorne held the letter out at arm's length. "The seal is yours.""A seal can be copied.""As the Luna's was?" Rennick murmured. A few councilmen shifted in their seats, and I saw the argument land. We had spent two days proving my seal had been forged. Now we were asking them to believe it had happened twice."Let me see it." I crossed the floor before anyone could stop me and took the parchment from Thorne's hand. The seal was dark green wax pressed with Ember Crest's crest, a mountain wreathed in flame. It looked perfect, and that bothered me. Forgeries are never perfect. They're usually just convincing enough."Tahlia," Alaric said. "I need you to hear me.""I'm listening.""I did not write this. I did not order siege weapons sent to Dunmere. I have never sent Cavan Rusk so much as a bottle of wine."I held his gaze. I couldn't feel the truth of

Ronan's POV"Take off the bracelet."My stepmother looked up from her embroidery. Selene sat by the window of her private sitting room with a lap full of green silk thread, as she did every evening since the council postponed her trial. The war had pushed her treason hearing to the bottom of every agenda. She remained confined to the north wing, not quite a prisoner, not quite free."Good evening, Ronan.""The bracelet. Now."Her fingers stilled on the needle. On her right wrist, catching the lamplight, lay a braid of blackened silver, each link ending in a tiny thorn, the clasp shaped like a wolf's open jaw. I had seen it a thousand times without once looking."You've been speaking to someone," she said."To a courier named Ilsa Venn. She described a veiled woman who paid her in gold, and she described a bracelet." I stepped closer. "Tahlia found the same one in your portrait. The portrait I stood beside when it was unveiled.""Plenty of women have thorn bracelets.""With a wolf's ja