Rejected by Her Mate Claimed by Four Alphas novel Chapter 269

Clara’s POV

We stripped and shifted back to wolves. The run home should have felt victorious, but tension rode all of

1. us. We’d won the battle. The war was just starting.

We’d made it maybe halfway when Ronan’s wolf suddenly stopped, hackles raised.

We all stopped immediately, Darius’s wolf moving in front of me protectively. Through the bonds, I felt

Ronan’s alarm about blood, fresh blood with the wrong scent.

The attack came from three sides at once.

Six wolves burst from the underbrush, rogues from the smell of them with no pack scent, just the wild dangerous smell of wolves who’d been alone too long.

But these rogues moved with purpose. This wasn’t random. This was planned.

We scattered. A rogue came at me, teeth bared. I dodged and snapped at his throat. He yelped and

backed off.

The four Alphas didn’t need my coordination this time. They’d just proved they could work together. They

moved like water, each covering the others.

Darius’s wolf caught one rogue by the throat and shook hard until bones cracked. Killian’s wolf was fast,

his speed overwhelming his target while Lucien and Ronan worked together to bring down a third.

The fight was over in less than two minutes with three rogues dead and three more wounded but alive.

We shifted back to human form. Darius grabbed the least injured rogue who’d also shifted back and

slammed him against a tree. “Who sent you?”

The rogue spat blood. “Go to hell.”

“Wrong answer.” Darius’s hand tightened on his throat. “Who. Sent. You.”

“Can’t say,” the rogue gasped. “They’ll kill my family.”

Lucien stepped forward, his voice calm but cold. “We’ll protect your family. But if you don’t tell us who hired you to attack a Luna and four Alphas, I promise you’ll wish they’d killed you instead.”

The rogue’s eyes darted between us, calculating. Finally, he slumped in defeat. “Council member. Didn’t give his name. Just said to make it look like a rogue attack. Kill the Luna if possible. Wound the Alphas. Make them weak before the Council meeting.”

My blood ran cold. “The Council hired assassins?”

“One Council member,” the rogue corrected. “Not all of them. Just one. He paid well. Said it was necessary to protect pack law from corruption.”

< CHAPTER 243

Darius released him and stepped back, “Which Council member?”

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told you, he didn’t give his name. Older wolf. Gray hair. Had an accent, northern territories maybe. That’s

all I know.”

We exchanged looks. The Council wasn’t just going to judge us. At least one member wanted us dead

before we got there.

“We need to bring them back as proof,” I said. “Derek, call for warriors to help transport the prisoners.”

Derek had followed us in wolf form and shifted to nod. He let out a howling call that would bring backup.

Within twenty minutes, a group of our warriors arrived. They’d brought ropes and would escort the

surviving rogues back on foot while we continued ahead.

We shifted again and ran the rest of the way home. By the time we reached pack lands, the sun was

setting and I was exhausted beyond measure.

But the pack was waiting. Word of our victory had reached them. They lined the entrance in human form,

cheering. Not everyone, but enough that it warmed me.

We shifted back and dressed quickly in clothes that had been left out for us.

Derek arrived an hour later with the prisoners and locked them in the holding cells. “I’ll interrogate them

properly tomorrow. See if they remember any other details.”

“Good,” I said. “And double the guards on all borders. If one Council member is willing to hire assassins,

there might be more attempts before we leave.”

We gathered in the war room with our senior advisors, maps and documents covering the table. We had three days to prepare for the Council meeting, and now we knew at least one member wanted us dead.

“This changes things,” Lucien said, spreading out old texts he’d been researching. “I found the precedent was looking for. Two cases of multiple mate bonds in recorded history. One during the Great Pack Wars three hundred years ago. Another during the plague that nearly wiped out our species five hundred years ago. Both times, the multiple mate bonds appeared when werewolf kind faced existential threats.”

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“So what’s the threat now?” Killian asked.

“Maybe us,” Ronan said quietly. “Four major packs tied together through mate bonds? That’s more power consolidated in one place than the Council has seen in generations. They’re scared.”

“Then we use that,” Darius said. “Make them more scared of what happens if they try to break us than if

they accept us.”

“That’s a dangerous game,” I warned.

“Everything about this is dangerous,” Darius countered. “But we’re stronger together. We just proved that. We need to make the Council see that breaking these bonds isn’t just wrong, it’s impossible. That trying will start a war they can’t win.”

< CHAPTER 243-

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“No.” I said firmly. “We don’t threaten war. That makes us look like exactly what they’re afraid of. We

present this as what it is. Bonds created by the Goddess that we’re trying to honor. We have the law on our side if Lucien’s texts hold up. We have proof that at least one Council member is breaking pack law by hiring assassins. We use truth, not threats.”

Silence fell as they thought about it.

“She’s right,” Lucien agreed. “Going in aggressive confirms their fears. We need to be strong but not

threatening. Show them we’re not trying to overthrow anything. We just want to exist as we are.”

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