Pregnant And Rejected

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.”

this is your duty. You made a vow to Flynn and your father to care for Arabella, to safeguard the pack. Do not

all my anguish and fury in their direction.

a promise.” Aiden chastises. “You‘d never forgive yourself if something went wrong with

wishing I could pull my

of muffled grumbling meets 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 Arabella

interest in the far reaches of my mind, even as I brush them

they planned on letting her

“What makes you so sure we can

announces assuredly. “We’ve already got eyes

Her nose and cheeks are swollen and splotchy, her flushed skin wet with tears and her willowy frame shaking with

awful!” She wails, clinging to Danvers’ burly shoulders. “He said he said he was going to kill me. He promised to

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 or shared about

under any other circumstances I would be absolutely horrified by my apparent apathy when someone I care about is

I am of Arabella, I’ve known for a long time that those feelings come down to my love

been off looking for her, I would have been there when Selene needed me. She and Mom never would have gone to the cabin, she would never have been implicated in a crime or doubted my belief

– and it was all for nothing.

his face.” Arabella’s voice drags me back to the present. “He wore a 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

Selene’s POV

afternoon sun bathes my skin in golden warmth. My senses gradually return, filling in the world around me with crisp air, damp

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

carefully pushing myself up to examine this new plane of existence. It looks so like the forests around Elysium; the forests I grew

otherworld should take the shape of those beloved stomping grounds; that my afterlife should be spent in the peace of the virgin forest. The only

confusion, a new thought plaguing my bewildered psyche. If this is the