Todos los capítulos de I Rejected My Mate On Purpose: Capítulo 1 - Capítulo 10

Eight years. I finally found you.The thought was still ringing through me when a guard touched my elbow and said the Alpha wanted me shown to a guest room for the night. Not asked. Told.I followed him out of the Moon Hall on legs that didn't feel like mine, my mind still stuck on a scarred forearm and a promise I'd been carrying since I was sixteen. I needed to think. I needed a locked door and an hour alone to figure out what it meant that the man I'd spent eight years hunting had just turned out to be my mate.I didn't get either.Ronan was waiting at the end of the corridor when we reached it, leaning against the doorframe of a room with his arms crossed, like he'd known exactly which hallway I'd be walked down. He dismissed the guard with a small tilt of his head, and the man vanished so fast I barely saw him go."You didn't have to walk me here yourself," I said."I didn't have to." He pushed off the frame and opened the door, waiting for me to go first. "I wanted to."I steppe

The Beta's name was Kael, and within ten minutes of stepping into the training ring with him, I understood exactly why Ronan had chosen him to watch me instead of anyone else."Alpha says you're fast," Kael said, circling me slowly, hands loose at his sides, the kind of relaxed that only comes from someone who's never once needed to look ready to be dangerous. "Border patrol doesn't usually turn out fast. It turns out patient. Fast is a different kind of training.""Maybe I'm naturally fast.""Maybe." He didn't sound convinced. "Let's find out."He came at me without warning, which I respected, because it meant he wasn't going to waste time letting me pretend to be less than I was. I sidestepped the first strike out of pure reflex, the kind I hadn't used carefully in front of anyone in eight years, and felt the mistake the second it left my body. Kael's eyes narrowed, just slightly, tracking the movement like he was filing it away for later.I slowed down after that. Deliberately. I l

The north wall was a fifteen minute run from the council chamber, and Ronan covered it faster than that, shifting halfway across the training yard without breaking stride, fur replacing skin in one smooth motion I felt in my own chest like a held breath finally let go. I shifted a step behind him, matching his pace instead of my own, and neither of us said a word the whole way there. Some conversations don't need language. This was one of them, both of us running toward whatever had gone wrong, both of us already bracing for it.The wall itself was quiet when we reached it, which was somehow worse than chaos would have been. A handful of guards stood in a loose half circle near the tree line, torches lit even though the sun hadn't fully set, nobody speaking, nobody moving closer to whatever sat in the center of that circle.Ronan shifted back first, pulling on the clothes a guard passed him without being asked, and I did the same a beat later, my hands steadier than they had any right

I lied to Ronan's face, and I spent the rest of that night hating how easily it had come out of me.He walked me back to my room himself, one hand resting light against my back the entire way, like he thought letting go might undo the fact that I'd come back from those trees unharmed. I let him. I told myself it was strategy, staying close, keeping the bond calm enough that he wouldn't press harder about what really happened in the dark.The truth was simpler than that, and worse. I wanted his hand there. I hated that I wanted it."You're quiet," he said, stopping outside my door."Long day.""That's not an answer.""It's the only one I've got tonight." I met his eyes, and something in my chest twisted at how easily concern sat on his face, how little of tonight's calculation showed there anymore. "Get some rest, Ronan. Whatever's out there, it'll still be there tomorrow."He didn't look satisfied, but he let it go, and I shut the door behind him with a single word sitting heavy on my

Selene's quarters looked like she'd left in the middle of getting dressed for the day, not fleeing in the dead of night.That was the first thing that struck me as Ronan pushed the door open, Kael a step behind us, two guards posted outside like they expected her to come strolling back any minute and demand to know why her private rooms had been invaded. A robe still hung over the back of a chair. A cup of tea sat cold and half finished on the table by the window. Whatever had made Selene run, she hadn't packed for it in any hurry a normal person would recognize."This doesn't look like panic," I said, moving carefully through the room, careful not to disturb anything before Ronan had a chance to see it exactly as the guards found it. "It looks staged.""Or she really was that calm," Ronan said, crouching by an open drawer, its contents picked through with more care than a frightened woman running for her life usually bothers with. "Some people don't panic. They plan.""You think she