Pregnant and Rejected by My Alpha Mate

#Chapter 36 Leave

Bastien’s POV

Axel hasn’t made a sound in days. Though he was all but feral from the moment I answered Danver’s phone call to the second Dr Kane uncovered Selene’s body in the morgue, he hasn’t moved a muscle since. I’ve found myself reaching out to him on the hour,

extending my internal feelers toward his shape just to make sure he’s still there.

More than anything else, his absence tells me that this nightmare l’ve been living is unfortunately very real. Selene – my sweet, perfect little wolf – is dead.

She ran from my home believing I thought her guilty of a terrible crime. She fled my protection because I made her think it was persecution, and died alone and afraid.

My father’s death nearly destroyed me, but my mate’s has annihilated me completely. Everything that used to matter to me, has ceased to be important. Suddenly I don’t care if I’m the Alpha; I don’t care if the pack falls to ruin; I don’t care if Arabella is found; 1 don’t even care if I live.

I do not recognize myself, and I don’t feel the need to find the man I once was, nor create a path forward for the wretch I’ve become.

At first I took to the forest, but when I discovered that I could not shift, I returned to the pack house, and locked myself in my rooms. My mother, Aiden and Donovan have all tried to persuade me to return to the land of the living, but I have no interest in being there without Selene,

Even now, when Aiden is outside my door with news that might have sent me running last week, I want nothing more than to disappear.

“The enforcers think they’ve found Arabella.” He calls through the heavy wood panel.

“Fine.” I respond blankly, refusing to pull my attention from the picture frame clutched in my hand. “Go get her.”

“Not without you.” Aiden huffs out a frustrated breath. “We need you to lead us.”

“You don’t.” I counter, tracing Selene’s shape in our wedding photo. “Just bring her home.”

You made a vow to Flynn and your father

my anguish and fury in their direction. “I broke the most sacred vow I ever took. How can you possibly think I care about lesser promises

“You‘d never forgive yourself if something went wrong

I

my ears, too low to decipher without strain – and I don’t care enough to try. If you won’t do it for honor, do it for intel.” Donavon finally proffers. “If we can recover

of interest in the far reaches of my mind, even as I brush them aside. “If she could identify them, they would never let her

doubt they planned on letting her live. We just beat them to the punch

hand through my hair. “What makes you so sure we can

“We’ve already got

blankets and patting her back while she cries. Her nose and

skin wet with tears and her willowy frame shaking with

he said he

soft shushing sound, helping her sit on a nearby park bench. “Can you tell us anything about the man responsible? What he looked like? Anything he told you about himself

watch from a few feet away as Arabella swoons into another fit of sobs. I should feel guilty for not being more concerned, indeed, under any other circumstances I would be

for anything but mourning Selene, and as fond as I am of Arabella, I’ve known for a long time that those feelings come down

or form. She didn’t ask to be kidnapped, but if I hadn’t been off looking for her, I would have been there when Selene needed me. She

– and it was all for nothing. The real danger was right under my nose the whole time. I never saw

mask. But he said Bastien has only himself to blame.” Her big brown eyes lock onto me, her lower lip caught in a trembling pout. “He said you don’t deserve to be Alpha. He said you have blood on your hands and he’s going to come at you until you know how it feels to lose everything he

Selene’s POV

My senses gradually return, filling in the world

cold ground beneath my cheek littered with fallen leaves and sprawling tangles of knobby roots. A fluttering breeze carries birdsong to my ears, along with the babbling of a distant brook, enveloping me

looks so like the forests around Elysium; the forests I

the otherworld should take the shape of those beloved stomping grounds; that my afterlife should be spent in the peace

and stretch my aching limbs iņ confusion, a new thought plaguing my bewildered psyche.