Lahat ng Kabanata ng Reborn After Rejection: I Chose the Alpha Everyone Feared: Kabanata 201 - Kabanata 210

The first survivor reached Cedar Draw without his coat.Hallie saw him from the meeting-room doorway, one hand pressed to his side while Caleb and two people from the boundary watch brought him across the yard.Another wolf followed. Then a third. No one behind them.Hallie was moving before she decided to.“Where are the others?”The first survivor looked at her as if the question had too many answers.Grant came out behind her. The change in him was immediate. His face went still.Caleb guided the survivors toward a bench near the building. Hallie looked for blood. There was some.Not enough to tell her whose.“Were you traveling under safe-conduct?” she asked.The second survivor nodded.“Yes.”“Was notice sent to Cedar Draw?”“Yes.” Hallie felt the bottom drop out of the morning.Not random movement. They had declared where

Grant read the last witness sequence twice.The circled area on the map did not become more certain the second time.It did become smaller. That was enough to make waiting feel dangerous. Caleb stood across the table with the recovery notes.Hallie was beside him, one hand resting on the map. Grant looked at the marked route again.“We go for the captives.”Caleb nodded. Hallie did not. Not yet.Grant looked at her.“What?”“Say the rest.”He knew what she meant. Not the part anger wanted. The part everyone else would have to live with afterward.Grant straightened.“We recover the people taken under Cedar Draw’s safe-conduct.”Caleb waited. Grant continued.“We do not take territory.”Hallie’s gaze stayed on him.“We do not punish civilians for what armed wolves did.”“No reprisals a

Hallie turned the meeting room into a return point before anyone knew whether Grant had found the captives.Caleb came through the door carrying the latest communication sheet.“Nothing yet.”“Then we keep preparing.”She had already cleared one side of the room. Blankets. Water.Clean cloth. Food that could be eaten immediately.A second space nearby had been left quiet for anyone who needed distance after they returned.If they returned. Hallie cut the thought off.“When they return,” she said.Caleb looked at her.“I didn’t say anything.”“I know.”She moved another stack of records off the table.The survivors from the attack had given Cedar Draw enough information to begin the recovery.They had also given Hallie a warning about what the captives might need afterward.The captives needed water and room before

Hallie counted them before she let herself believe Grant.She did not think he was wrong. The word all had become too important to accept without seeing it.The rescued travelers came through the meeting-room door one by one. Some walked without help. Some did not.Hallie stood beside the intake table with Caleb and matched faces to the witness reconstruction.One. Two. Three.The man who had frozen on the road came in last, pale and unsteady but upright.Hallie looked at the list again. Then at the original survivors. One of them had started crying before the final count was finished.Not loudly.He simply crossed the room and grabbed the last man around the shoulders.The rescued man held on just as hard. Hallie looked down at the page.“All accounted for.”Caleb checked her count.“Yes.” No new deaths.The relief was so sharp Hallie had to grip the edge of the table.

Austin received three requests before noon. None used the same words. All asked the same question.Which side was Bellamy Creek on?He left the messages spread across the table and read Cedar Draw’s formal response again.Recovery. No territorial claim. No offensive campaign.Force used, then stopped. One of Bellamy’s leadership members stood near the window.“You know people will call that convenient.”Austin looked up.“What part?”“The limit.”Austin glanced back at the page.“They crossed a boundary with armed people, used force, and came back. Now they say that was not war.”“That is what the record says.”The man folded his arms.“And do you believe it?”Austin hated the question because belief was easier than position. He did not need to believe Grant was harmless. Grant was not.He did not