All Chapters of The Mate I Never Chose: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

"Your legs are lead? That's fantastic," Rangga muttered, his hands hovering frantically over his glowing abdomen as a sharp, rhythmic thump echoed from his skin like a heavy bass drum beating inside a hollow log. "Just great. I survived three corporate layoffs and a psychotic boss only to become a walking tectonic sensor for a cursed mountain."Arung tried to push himself up from the cold cave floor, his boots sliding uselessly against the damp earth. A spasm of nausea crossed his sharp features, and he caught himself on one elbow, his breath hissing through clenched teeth. "Stop complaining and check the back of the cave. The seismic resonance isn't just in your head—look at the ceiling."Rangga jerked his gaze upward. Overhead, the jagged limestone stalactites hanging from the cavern roof weren't just casting shadows; they were visibly shivering, fine lines of fracture spider-webbing across their bases in time with the heavy, geological cadence pulsing from Rangga's chest. A shower

"Tell me that’s just fog," Rangga wheezed, stumbling past a rotted wooden boundary post wrapped in fraying red twine. "Please tell me the air down here isn't supposed to taste like a mouthful of wet pennies.""Shut your mouth and keep walking," Arung snapped, his voice rough and reedy. He leaned heavily on a snapped bamboo pole, his boots dragging through the sodden mud. "You breathe through your teeth, you swallow the sulfur. Keep your head down.""Easy for you to say. You're not the one radiating heat like an unshielded microwave.""You want me to carry you, city boy?""I want you to tell me where the hell we are.""Desa Ujung Kabut," Arung muttered, squinting through the thick, pale mist that clung to the valley floor like wet wool. "The lowest settlement on the western ridge. If there’s dry shelter within ten miles, it’s here."Rangga pushed a heavy fern aside, stepped onto a packed dirt path, and immediately froze.The village wasn’t resting. It was tearing itself apart.Dozens o

The world did not wake up; it merely suffered into existence. When Rangga opened his eyes, the light filtering through the gaps in the floorboards was the color of bruised iron—sickly, metallic, and heavy. His body felt like a landscape that had been terraformed overnight, his muscles aching with a deep, subterranean fatigue that went far beyond mere physical exertion.He shifted, and his breath hitched. The heat that had been carving through his torso like a red-hot brand had receded into a dull, rhythmic throb, buried somewhere deep behind his ribs. He felt… tethered.Beside him, Arung was slumped against the central support pillar, his head hanging low. The man’s usual composed silhouette was fractured, his posture displaying a vulnerability that felt like a violation of the laws of nature. Rangga sat up, the motion sending a jolt of vertigo through his skull. His hand brushed against Arung’s shoulder—an accidental contact that sparked with a lingering, static charge.Arung jolted

"Stay low, keep the brush between us and the ridge," Arung hissed, his voice barely a tremor in the humid air. He adjusted the strap of his pack, his movements fluid despite the bruising on his face. "If they have thermal optics, the ground heat from the mountain might mask us, but don't count on it. Keep your center of gravity neutral."Rangga scrambled behind a thick cluster of ferns, his breath coming in shallow, ragged bursts. His skin still felt like it was humming, a low-frequency vibration that seemed to harmonize with the rhythmic thrum of the earth beneath them. "What are they even doing here, Arung? This is deep in the protection zone. No one maps this far out unless they're looking for something specific.""They aren't mapping, Rangga. They’re anchoring." Arung pulled back a heavy curtain of moss, revealing the valley floor below.Rangga gasped. Below them, nestled in the curve of the riverbed, was a forward camp that looked like a jagged scar on the face of the jungle. It

The humidity was a physical weight, pressing down on the canopy until the air felt more like liquid than gas. Rangga wiped a smear of grime and dried blood from his forehead, his fingers trembling. Every time he looked at his forearm, the obsidian-like scars seemed to shift beneath his skin, pulses of amber light darting through them like trapped fireflies.“Made isn’t going to hold up much longer,” Rangga said, glancing back at the man tied to a gnarled ironwood tree thirty yards behind them. The corporate surveyor, Made, was slumped against the trunk, his face a pasty mask of terror.Arung didn't turn. He was busy field-stripping a piece of the brass resonator they’d scavenged from the ambush site. His movements were clinical, efficient, and utterly devoid of the frantic energy that usually defined their flight. “He’s a mid-level contractor, Rangga. He doesn’t need to hold up. He just needs to be useful until we get to the estate. After that, he’s a liability.”“You talk about peopl