All Chapters of Rejected by My Alpha, Claimed by the Lycan King: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

Lyra’s POVThe palace had transformed almost overnight into something I barely recognized, every hallway suddenly bustling with seamstresses, florists, and nobility eager to secure their place at whatever spectacle the claiming ceremony would become."Hold still," Mira instructed, pins held carefully between her lips as she adjusted the fabric draped across my shoulders. "I can't get this line right if you keep fidgeting.""I can't help it. This entire thing still feels like it's happening to someone else, not to me.""Get used to that feeling," Mira said, around the pins. "I have a suspicion it's not going away anytime soon, given everything else about your life lately."Three seamstresses circled us both, murmuring quietly among themselves about hemlines and embroidery patterns, occasionally pausing to hold swatches of fabric up against my skin, checking the way the deep midnight blue caught the light against my now fully silver hair. I tried not to think too hard about how strange

Lyra’s POVCassian's expression darkened steadily as I recounted everything Seraphine had told me, his hands braced flat against his desk as though he needed the solid weight of it to keep from pacing straight through the study wall."You're certain she wasn't lying," he said, once I'd finished."I'm not certain of anything, honestly. I told her that myself, before I left the garden." I sank into the chair across from him, exhaustion from the conversation still weighing heavy. "But if she is lying, I don't understand what she gains from it. She has nothing left to offer Malachar. She's already burned that bridge as thoroughly as it can be burned.""Unless burning it convincingly is exactly what he wants us to believe," Cassian said grimly, though something in his voice suggested even he didn't fully believe his own caution. "I don't like it either way. If she's telling the truth, someone close enough to matter has been feeding him information for months. If she's lying, she's still ma

Lyra’s POV Mira's hands trembled slightly as she fastened the final clasp of my ceremonial gown, the deep midnight blue fabric catching torchlight like something spun from the night sky itself, silver crescent embroidery shimmering faintly with every small movement."You don't have to do this," she said quietly, for perhaps the fourth time that evening. "There's still time to reconsider.""There isn't, actually. Not anymore." I studied my own reflection in the tall mirror, silver hair catching the candlelight, the ancient crown Elowen had discovered resting carefully atop it. I barely recognized the woman staring back at me — regal, composed, entirely unlike the frightened exile who'd collapsed at Cassian's border all those months ago. "This is happening tonight, Mira, whether I'm afraid or not. I'd rather face it as myself than hide somewhere safe while someone else pays for my caution.""I know." She squeezed my shoulders gently. "I just needed to say it once more before we left th

Lyra's POVSomething tore loose inside my own chest the moment the moonlight surged its final, blinding wave, and for one terrifying heartbeat I understood, with absolute clarity, that I had gone too far. That whatever I was pouring into Cassian wasn't only power anymore. It was something of myself, bleeding out alongside it, the boundary between us thinning until I could no longer tell where his failing heartbeat ended and my own began."Lyra." Mira's hands closed hard around my wrists, not pulling me away, but steadying me, grounding me against whatever storm I'd become. "Look at me. You're pouring everything into him at once, unshaped, and it's going to kill you both if you don't slow down.""I don't know how to slow down." My voice came out cracked, distant, barely recognizable even to my own ears. "If I stop, he dies. I felt it the moment I paused even for a second, his heart faltering—""You don't stop. You focus." Mira's voice sharpened, cutting through my rising panic with the

Lyra's POVI woke slowly, the world assembling itself in fragments — soft light through unfamiliar curtains, the distant murmur of voices I couldn't quite place, and a warmth pressed against my hand that I recognized before I'd even fully opened my eyes.Cassian."Lyra." His voice cracked on my name, relief and disbelief tangling together as I finally managed to focus on his face. "You're awake. Thank the gods, you're actually awake.""How long," I managed, my voice hoarse and unfamiliar, throat dry as though I hadn't spoken in days."Three days." He pressed my hand between both of his, as though letting go might somehow undo whatever fragile recovery I'd managed. "Three days, Lyra. I've barely left this room since.""Three days." I tried to sit up, and the effort alone left me dizzy, my body aching with an exhaustion that seemed to reach all the way into my bones. "The ceremony. The attack. You were—""Healed. Completely, thanks to you." Something fierce and grateful and devastated