Reborn After Rejection: I Chose the Alpha Everyone Feared의 모든 챕터: 챕터 51 - 챕터 60

Caleb found Hallie at the work board before breakfast was fully cleared.“We have a visitor coming.”Hallie kept one finger on the line she was checking. “Today?”“By afternoon.”“That sounds like more than a visitor.”Caleb handed her a folded message. A young Alpha from a recognized pack was coming to Cedar Draw to discuss a practical agreement between their communities. Hallie read it twice.The first sharp leap of old instinct in her chest annoyed her. This was a negotiation, nothing else.She folded the message along its existing crease.“How long have you known?”“Long enough to know I should have told you yesterday.”“Caleb.”“I was waiting until the time was confirmed.”“That is not better.”“No. But it is true.”Hallie looked toward the yard.Cedar Draw

The second round of questions began with a sentence Hallie knew would cause trouble.“I need one person on your side whose answer binds Cedar Draw.”The young Alpha said it calmly.Grant’s expression did not change.The request made perfect sense inside a traditional pack. Another pack needed to know whose word counted when something went wrong.Bellamy Creek would have supplied the answer before anyone asked.Alpha. Luna. Beta. A chain everyone understood.Cedar Draw had none of that beyond Grant’s position, and pretending otherwise would make the agreement look cleaner only until the first real problem exposed the fiction.Grant said, “If the problem belongs to stores, stores answers it.”The young Alpha leaned back slightly. “And if stores gives me an answer your work crews refuse?”“Then it wasn’t only a stores problem.”“That is ex

Hallie knew the conversation had shifted when the young Alpha stopped talking about the agreement and asked, “Do you miss the work you were trained for?”The question was not intimate. That was what made it difficult.They were still at the common-room table. Grant had stepped outside with Caleb to verify one of the practical points they had left unresolved. The revised procedure from the day before lay between them, marked with changes both sides had accepted as a working base.Hallie looked at him.“I still use most of it.”“I can see that.”He said it without irony. Hallie folded her hands over the page.“What do you mean by the work?”“In my pack?”“Yes.”He leaned back slightly.“A Luna handles more than ceremonies, despite what some people prefer to believe.”Hallie almost smiled. “That sounds familiar.&rd

Austin was reviewing correspondence tied to his betrothal when the Cedar Draw report arrived. The timing felt like an accusation even though no one had meant it that way.One stack represented the choice he had made as Alpha: a political match that brought Bellamy Creek the alliance, support, and territorial security he had wanted when he rejected Hallie. The report represented the woman he had told himself did not bring enough. Austin left the first stack where it was and opened the second.The opening lines were ordinary.A recognized pack had sent its young Alpha to Cedar Draw to negotiate a practical agreement. Grant was handling the commitments. Hallie was participating in the talks.Austin stopped there. He read the sentence again.Hallie was not sitting in because she was Grant’s wife. At least, the report did not describe it that way.She was helping shape the terms.Questions about responsibility, accountability, and ho

The last page of the agreement had been copied twice before Hallie realized the young Alpha was still watching her. Not staring. Waiting.Grant had taken one copy outside to compare a timing note with Caleb. Two of the visitor’s people were near the doorway, speaking quietly over the travel schedule. Nothing about the room was private.Hallie preferred it that way. She capped the ink.“Something else?”The young Alpha glanced toward the finished pages.“Not about the agreement.”Hallie’s shoulders tightened. He noticed.“I can leave it unsaid.”“That usually makes things worse.”A brief smile touched his mouth.“I suspected you would say that.”Hallie leaned back in her chair.“All right.”He kept the distance.“I find you interesting.”She waited.“Politically?”