Lahat ng Kabanata ng Rejected by My Fated Mate : Kabanata 1 - Kabanata 10

Rhaevan's hand was steady around mine while we ran.I had never run like this. Not with these legs, this body that never once managed a full shift no matter how hard I tried. Not after all those nights in the training yard, bleeding from failed attempts while the pack watched.But something changed in the courtyard.Blood felt too fast for my veins. Like it wanted to be ahead of where my body actually was.Behind us, Vaelric stopped calling my name.That was worse than shouting."He'll send trackers," I said, breathless, as Rhaevan pulled me through a break in a tree line north of Ashveil border wards."He already did."Rhaevan didn't slow."Four, maybe five. Young ones — fast, but no experience. We have maybe ten minutes before they catch your scent.""You can tell that from — what, wind?""From nine years knowing exactly how Ashveil trains its trackers."Something flickered across his face, gone before I could name it.Old bitterness.History with my former pack that had nothing to

Current didn't fight me.It carried me — like water itself recognized something in my blood and decided, after three hundred years waiting, to finally do its part.I broke the surface quarter mile downriver, gasping for air that tasted like victory and terror at the same time. Paws found purchase on gravel bank slick with moonlight.Beside me, Rhaevan hauled himself out in human form, soaked through, dark hair plastered forehead, breathing hard in a way that told me the river cost him more effort than he wanted to admit.Behind us, faint and furious, still shouting on the far bank.But it's already fading.Ashveil trackers are not fool enough to follow Alpha's order into open water at night against current that strong, and Valeric, for all authority, couldn't order the river to slow for him.We'd made it.I felt shift reverse without willing it, body folding back into two legs, human and shaking and abruptly, horribly aware I was naked, freezing, and alone in dark with man I'd known l

"They're not giving up," I said, listening to the second howl rise and fade behind us."Vaelric doesn't strike me as a man who surrenders anything he's decided belongs to him." Rhaevan was already moving, hauling me off the main path into denser trees, his earlier calm replaced by something sharper now that Kael's visit had changed the math of the night. "Whether he still wants to claim you is separate from whether he'll let you walk free carrying knowledge of his rejection ceremony — witnessed by the Veiled Court. That's a political liability now. Liabilities don't get abandoned."The bitterness cut deeper than I expected. "So I'm still just a problem to be managed."Rhaevan stopped. Turned. His grey eyes held mine, unflinching. "To him, perhaps. Not to me." He said it plainly, without softening it — a fact, not comfort, which landed harder than comfort would have. "I didn't pull you out of that hall because you're a problem, Lunara. I pulled you out because I've spent nine years hop

The first wolf jumped in front of Rhaevan just as he was turning.I saw him take the blow meant for me, roll through it, and use the attacker’s own momentum against them — smashing their skull into a rock hard enough to crack stone.There was no time to be afraid of him.A second shadow broke away from the chaos and locked its gaze on me.Instinct took over before I could think. This body—only a few hours old in this form—dropped and twisted, claws slashing at empty space where my throat had been just moments before. I hadn’t learnt that move. My blood remembered it for me.[Warning: Combat instincts activating — Bloodline-inherited, not trained][Advice: Don’t rely on instinct alone. Instinct without skill fails.]The system blinked too late. The wolf recovered quickly, spun around, and launched a second attack. No surprises left to save me now.Nyra exploded into the wolf’s side—fully shifted now, bigger than I expected, a blur of dark fur and fury that slammed the attacker down

The northern gate stood open when we reached it, torchlight spilling across a courtyard packed with wary Noctis wolves, all of them keeping a careful, respectful distance from the woman standing alone at its center.She was smaller than I remembered. That was the first thing that struck me, absurd as it felt in the moment—nine years had shrunk the towering figure of my childhood memory down into someone almost fragile, silver threading through hair that had once been the same dark brown as mine, lines carved deep around eyes that found me instantly across the crowded courtyard and went wide with something I couldn't name."Lunara." My name in her voice sounded exactly the way I remembered it, and nothing like I remembered it, both at once.I didn't move. Couldn't. Nine years of grief and fury and unanswered questions rose up all together, choking anything I might have said."You're supposed to be dead," I finally managed. "Or gone. Or—I don't know what I thought. I stopped letting