The Rejected Mate

Chapter 13

Selene’s PPOV

The mechanical *click* of the pneumatic dart pistol was the loudest sound in the world, cutting straight through the thunder and the roaring flames of the burning King Estate. Elder Marcus stood over me like a grim reaper born from ash and desperation, his finger tightening on the trigger.

My fingers were slipping from the wet, fraying root. The rough bark bit into my skin, drawing blood that mixed with the freezing rain. Below me was a gaping, black fissure that tore into the unmapped, cavernous stomach of the earth. I was completely suspended, my heavy abdomen pulling me toward the dark void, utterly defenseless.

Thwack.

The weapon fired. But it wasn't a dart that tore through the air.

From the darkness of the brush to the left, a heavy, jagged piece of flying debris—a section of the estate’s shattered marble balcony—came hurtling through the smoke, slamming directly into Marcus’s torso. The impact was brutal. The old traditionalist let out a choked gasp as his ribs shattered, the dart pistol flying from his grip and clattering down into the abyss. The force of the blow threw him backward into the burning undergrowth, silencing him instantly.

Before I could even process the sudden salvation, the root completely snapped.

"Selene!"

A massive, scarred arm reached over the ledge, plunging into the mud. A hand clamped around my bleeding wrist with the force of a steel vice.

I looked up, gasping for air, my heart hammering against my ribs. It wasn't Caspian. It was Sebastian.

The moon-lily extract Caspian had injected into him had done its brutal work. The dark, venomous veins of the wolfsbane had receded from his face, though his skin was still deathly pale and his chest heaved in agony. He was bleeding from a dozen lacerations, his muscles trembling with severe exhaustion, but his amber eyes were burning with a fierce, frantic desperation.

Using every ounce of his remaining Alpha strength, he braced his boots against the crumbling rock and pulled. With a heavy groan, he dragged my body up over the edge of the fissure, pulling me safely onto the solid, muddy ground of the path.

I collapsed against the wet earth, clutching my stomach. The twins inside me gave a sharp, frantic kick, their golden hum pulsing unevenly, but they were unharmed.

Sebastian fell to his knees beside me, his breathing ragged and wet. He reached out a trembling, blood-stained hand toward my shoulder, but he stopped himself an inch away, his fingers shaking as if he feared his touch would burn me.

"Are you... are you alright?" he choked out, his voice cracking with emotion. "The babies... did the fall—"

"Don't," I snapped, my voice as cold as the ocean depths I had just crawled out of. I pushed myself up onto my elbows, staring at him with eyes that still flickered with a dangerous, celestial white fire. "Do not pretend to care about them now, Sebastian. You made your choice three years ago, and you made your choice on the cliff tonight. You don't get to play the worried father."

A look of profound, crushing agony crossed his features, far worse than any pain the wolfsbane had inflicted. He lowered his hand, his head bowing as he sat in the mud. "I know. I know I don't deserve your forgiveness, Selene. I was blinded... Aria used the blood-line seals to manipulate my wolf, to make me believe she was the rightful source. But the moment you threw yourself into the sea... my bond didn't just break. My soul shattered. I felt the absolute emptiness of a world without you."

"Your soul shattered because you lost your empire," I countered ruthlessly, refusing to let his tears soften the armor I had forged in the deep trench. "And now you have a twin brother who has crawled out of the basement to take whatever is left of it."

Before Sebastian could respond, a deep, rhythmic thudding sound echoed through the forest.

Caspian materialized from the smoke, his dark sea-silk clothes torn, his silver eyes flashing alertly as he scanned the perimeter. Behind him, my mother, Elara, emerged, carrying a heavily limping, completely human Aria. Aria’s face was hollow, her eyes blank as she stared at the dirt, her mind entirely broken by the loss of her wolf and her youth.

"The estate is fully collapsing," Caspian reported, his voice cutting through the emotional tension like a blade. He didn't even look at Sebastian. His focus was entirely on me. "Lucian and the ancient entity are still locked in the sub-levels, but their combined spiritual energy is destabilizing the entire tectonic plate beneath this mountain. If we don't get to the transport pods in the next two minutes, the landslide will bury us alive."

"Let's move," I said, forcing myself to stand.

Sebastian staggered to his feet, leaning heavily against a pine tree for support. "The pods... they are by the southern shore?" he asked weakly.

"They are my people's pods, Alpha," Caspian said, stepping between Sebastian and me, his tone dripping with cold arrogance. "You are only alive because your Luna commanded it. Do not speak unless spoken to."

Sebastian’s jaw clenched, the residual instinct of an Alpha King flaring in his amber eyes for a split second, but he looked at me, saw the absolute indifference in my gaze, and swallowed his pride. He simply nodded, falling into step behind our group as we sprinted down the remaining stone steps toward the hidden cove.

The journey down the mountain was a nightmare of falling debris and burning trees. The sky above us was a swirling vortex of crimson and black, the Blood Moon completely eclipsed by the dark, oily smoke rising from the ruins of the mansion. The earth groaned beneath our feet, deep, booming vibrations that signaled the violent struggle still happening in the depths below.

Finally, we broke through the trees and hit the gravel beach of the hidden cove.

Three sleek, metallic transport pods—advanced underwater vessels created by Caspian civilization—lay bobbing in the turbulent surf. The hatch of the primary pod was already open, guarded by two Triton warriors who stood with their tridents drawn, their silver eyes piercing the darkness.

"Mother, get Aria inside," I ordered, helping Elara guide the withered, silent girl into the pressurized cabin of the first pod.

Caspian turned to me, his expression deadly serious. "Selene, you and the twins need to take the secondary pod. It has the highest concentration of localized atmospheric shielding. It will protect your pregnancy from the pressure waves when the mountain blows."

I nodded, moving toward the sleek metallic craft. But as I reached the hatch, a sudden, violent spasm tore through my abdomen.

I gasped, my knees buckling as a wave of intense, blinding pain rippled through my entire body. It wasn't the spiritual pain of a high-frequency weapon, and it wasn't the external pressure of the entities. It was an internal, rhythmic tightening that made the blood in my veins run hot.

The golden hum inside me suddenly stopped its chaotic thrashing. It unified into a single, deafening, steady vibration that echoed through my mind like a cathedral bell.

The twins.

"Selene!" my mother screamed from the first pod, her medical instincts overriding her exhaustion. She lunged toward the hatch, her eyes wide with terror as she looked at the front of my black tactical armor. "The shockwaves... the stress of the fall... it's induced by advanced labor! The atavistic acceleration is triggering the birth!"

"Now?!" Caspian hissed, his silver eyes widening in genuine panic. "We are in the middle of a tectonic collapse! We cannot deliver the original bloodline on a gravel beach!"

Sebastian rushed forward, his face pale with horror as he saw me clutching the hull of the pod for dear life. "Put her in the pod! I can help... I carry a matching genetic strain, my presence can stabilize the twins' wolves during transition!"

"You will stay exactly where you are," Caspian roared, drawing a compact obsidian dagger from his wrist guard. "No wolf touches the sacred heirs!"

"Stop it! Both of you!" I screamed, a burst of celestial white light exploding from my palms, forcing both men to take a step back. Another contraction hit me, sharper this time, making me gasp for oxygen. The air around my face began to thin as the sheer output of my spiritual energy began to consume the surrounding atmosphere. "Get me into the pod! Now!"

Caspian immediately moved, his powerful arms lifting me into the cushioned interior of the secondary pod. The cabin was small, filled with glowing blue monitors and soft, biometric gel-pads designed for high-pressure deep-sea travel. He laid me down, his hands moving frantically across the control console to initialize the medical overrides.

"The seal is closing!" the Triton warrior outside yelled, his voice muffled by the rising roar of the mountain behind us. "The landslide has breached the upper ridge! We have to launch!"

"Sebastian, get in!" my mother shouted from the adjacent pod, realizing that despite his betrayal, his alpha life force was the only thing that could act as a grounding wire for the chaotic energy my babies were releasing.

Sebastian didn't hesitate. He dove through the closing hatch of my pod, his massive frame barely fitting into the narrow walkway beside the medical berth. The heavy metallic door slammed shut behind him, the pressurized seals locking with a deep, hydraulic hiss that completely cut off the sound of the storm outside.

The pod shuddered violently as the automated launch sequence engaged, shooting us away from the gravel beach and plunging us directly into the black, freezing depths of the ocean.

Inside the cabin, the atmosphere became suffocatingly tense. The blue lights flickered wildly as the electronic systems struggled to process the sheer volume of spiritual energy radiating from my body. I writhed on the gel-bed, my hands clawing at the restraints as another contraction tore through me.

"The golden frequency is too high," Caspian warned, his fingers flying across the medical monitors as he knelt by my left side. "Selene, the twins' wolves are trying to shift *inside* the womb. If they break the amniotic sack before the spiritual alignment is complete, the feedback loop will destroy your internal organs."

"Use the grounding bond," Sebastian pleaded, kneeling by my right side. His face was covered in sweat, his amber eyes desperate as he looked at my agonized expression. "Selene... I know you hate me. I know I am nothing to you now. But let me take the feedback. Let me anchor them."

I couldn't speak. The pain was an absolute, blinding wall of white fire. I reached out blindly, my hand clamping around Sebastian’s wrist with a grip that literally cracked the silver armor plating he wore.

The moment our skin connected, a violent jolt of electricity shot through both of us. Sebastian gasped, his head snapping back as the chaotic, raw power of the atavistic twins flooded into his system, using his Alpha biology as a lightning rod. The black lines of the wolfsbane on his neck flared a bright, agonizing purple before turning completely white, neutralized by the sheer purity of the children’s magic.

"It's working," Caspian muttered, his silver eyes fixed on the vitals screen. "The heart rates are stabilizing. But we are descending too fast... the pressure outside is mounting."

Suddenly, the primary monitor on the pod's console flashed a violent, flashing crimson.

A heavy, localized shock wave slammed into the side of our vessel, sending the pod spinning out of control into the dark water. The internal gravity stabilizers failed, throwing Caspian against the bulkhead.

"What was that?!" Sebastian roared, his left hand gripping the medical berth to keep himself from crushing me as he maintained his grip on my wrist. "Did the mountain blow?!"

Caspian scrambled back to the console, his face turning an uncharacteristic shade of pure, unadulterated terror as he looked at the external sonar array.

"No," Caspian whispered, his voice trembling as the luminescent silver in his eyes completely died out, replaced by a cold, dead black. "The mountain didn't blow. Lucian... he didn't fight the ancient entity."

I forced my eyes open, panting through the fading edge of a contraction. "What... what do you mean?"

Caspian turned to face us, his hands dropping to his sides as the external cameras showed a massive, towering shadow descending through the dark water toward our pod with impossible speed.

"They didn't kill each other," Caspian said, his voice a hollow, broken echo. "Lucian used the backdoor in your genetic code to merge with him. The clone and the First Blood... they've become one entity. And it’s tracking the babies' birth frequency right now."

A sudden, deafening metallic screech echoed through the hull of the pod.

Four massive, pale human hands with entirely black claws tore directly through the reinforced titanium ceiling of our vessel, ripping the metal open like paper. Through the gaping hole, the freezing, high-pressure water of the deep ocean began to flood into the cabin, and two entirely black eyes, surrounded by a double ring of blazing crimson fire, stared down at me and my half-delivered children.