All Chapters of I Rejected My Mate On Purpose: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

"A memory," the creature said, its layered voice carrying a strange, almost gentle quality now. "Given freely, and chosen by your own hand, not taken by force. The grove does not steal, last ember. It only asks.""That's not fair," Nyra said sharply, still clutching her handful of petals, her voice tight with fresh, protective anger on my behalf. "She has already lost enough this week. You have no right to ask for more.""I have every right," the creature said, unbothered by her fury. "This grove has stood since before your grandmother's grandmother drew breath. I do not ask lightly, and I do not ask without reason. The flower carries power enough to counter poison built from the same old knowledge that first sealed away what I was made to guard. Such power does not come without balance."I felt the weight of Ronan's mother's ring pressed against my palm, the same small, steady comfort it had offered me through every impossible choice since he had first pressed it into my hand, and un

We reached Blackthorn as the sun set on the fourth day, exhaustion dragging heavy at every part of my body, and I felt my heart climb into my throat the moment I saw Torvin waiting at the gate, his expression carrying a grief he could not fully hide."How is he," I demanded, already moving past him toward the main hall."Worse," Torvin said, falling into step beside me. "The fever set in yesterday. Adaeze has done everything she knows how to do, but."He did not finish, and I did not need him to.I found Ronan exactly where I had left him, but the change in him tore fresh grief through my chest immediately. His skin had gone from pale to a deep, unhealthy flush, sweat soaking the sheets beneath him, his breathing faster and more labored than it had been when we left."Maren," I said, turning immediately. "How long do you need?""Not long," she said, already unpacking the moonflower petals carefully, working with quick, practiced hands alongside Adaeze to prepare the mixture the old re

Nobody spoke for a long moment after Ronan finished. The fire in the hearth popped once, sharp in the silence, and I felt the weight of his words settle over the room like a held breath none of us knew how to release.“Already waking up,” Selene repeated finally, her voice careful, testing the shape of it. “Ronan, are you certain? Fevers do strange things to the mind. I don’t say that to dismiss you, only because I need to understand how much weight we’re meant to put on a vision seen while you were closer to death than any of us wants to think about.”“I know what fever dreams feel like,” Ronan said, his voice still hoarse but steadier now, propping himself higher against the pillows with obvious effort. “I have had them before, during other injuries, other illnesses. This was different. It did not feel like my own mind inventing something to frighten me. It felt like something reaching toward me, the way Ronan’s father’s voice once reached toward Wren through the thread in her chest

Nobody in the great hall said a word.Maren stood beside the map table with her worn book held tight against her chest, and I watched her face the way you watch a candle in a draft. For a long moment, I thought she would deny it. I wanted her to. I wanted her to laugh, or get angry, or tell Lord Thorne he was a liar who had already lied to all of us.She did none of those things. She set the book down on the table very carefully, as if it might break, and she said, “He is telling the truth.”The words hit me in the stomach.“No,” I said. It came out small and stupid. “No, that was a woman I held while she died. She was bleeding. She could barely speak.”“I was bleeding,” Maren said quietly. “A little. Not nearly as much as I let you believe. I whispered because I had to. If I had spoken in my real voice, you might have remembered it, and known me, years later.”“I would have known you,” I said. “At the safehouse. When you knocked on the door. I would have known you.”“You heard me whi

I woke to the smell of warm broth and the sound of someone trying very hard not to move.It took me a moment to understand where I was. The ceiling was familiar, dark wood beams and a crack in the plaster shaped like a river, and the bed was the narrow one in the healer’s room off the great hall. Gray light came through the shutters. It was morning, or very close to it.Ronan sat in a chair pulled up beside me, one hand wrapped around mine. He had not slept. I could tell from the shadows under his eyes, and from the way he sat, stiff and careful, like a man who had been afraid to shift in case it woke me.“You should be in bed,” I said. My voice came out rough.“I am sitting down,” he said. “Adaeze said sitting counts.”“I doubt she meant all night.”“I doubt she meant a lot of things.” The corner of his mouth moved, almost a smile. Then it fell away, and he squeezed my fingers. “How do you feel?”I tried to answer honestly. My head ached, and my eyes felt dry and tight. But the stran