The Second Chance Of The Rejected Moon (Celine and Bastian) novel Chapter 171

Chapter 171

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Bastian turns and walks toward a small cabinet where several bottles are resting. He takes one, opens it without bothering to look for a glass, and remains with his back to Johan for a few seconds.

“You won’t, Bastian. Could you live away from her?”

Bastian does not need to think about it.

“No.”

The answer comes out dry and immediate.

Johan slowly nods.

“Neither could she. I can’t, you can’t. And that thing that took Celine away to heal her? It’s even greater than you and me.”

Bastian drinks directly from the bottle. The liquor burns his throat and travels down to his empty stomach. The accumulated exhaustion, lack of energy, and stress of waking up in the middle of a war are beginning to take their toll. His fingers tighten around the neck of the bottle as he rests his other hand on the cabinet.

“If he were interested in her, the demon wouldn’t have brought her back.”

“Maybe it isn’t his time, and he decided that Celine is better off away from him for now. I’ve seen it. When I met her, I saw a shadow behind her that protects her.”

Bastian slowly turns his head.

“What shadow?”

“I don’t know.”

Johan shrugs slightly.

“But it was there. And it wasn’t human.”

Bastian looks at the bottle again. For several seconds, the only sound inside the office is the crackling of the fire in the fireplace and the distant noise of soldiers moving through the corridors. Outside, Lemuria continues trying to recover after the invasion, but inside that room, Bastian’s problem is much simpler and, at the same time, much more impossible to solve.

He does not want to share Celine. He does not want to accept that another man has a bond with her.

He does not want to think that there could be a life in which she loves someone else without ceasing to love him. He takes another drink before speaking.

“I refuse to share my wife with another man. Have someone else touch her, sleep in another bed, have children with someone else.”

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The Second Chance Of The Rejected Moon

Johan watches him in silence for a few seconds. This time, he does not smile.

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“It doesn’t depend on you. I’ve seen it before. It is possible to live a life with multiple mates. For instance, right now there are three men in your castle who share the same woman.”

Bastian immediately looks up.

“Three mates? Who?”

“King Ciro, Christian, and Darien.”

Johan settles deeper into the armchair as he watches Bastian’s expression change.

“They are mates to a hybrid in the human world. They live in harmony, have children, and have turned their home into a peaceful place. They learned to live together, to put their pride aside.”

Bastian lets out a dry, humorless laugh and brings the bottle to his lips again.

“I have no interest in playing house with you getting in the middle.”

“You can always give her up, little prince. I won’t, and I already said everything I had to say.”

Johan rises calmly, adjusting his clothes before turning his back on Bastian. He does not seem willing to argue any further. He walks to the door and places one hand on the doorknob, but before crossing the threshold, he stops. For a few seconds, he remains with his back to the prince, as if he has just remembered something that has been on his mind for far too long.

“The other man I put to sleep that day… Where is he?”

Bastian frowns. The question brings some of the tension back to his face, but he does not answer.

“I’ll look for him myself.”

Darien turns his head slightly, as if he expected that answer, and finally opens the door.

He says nothing else. He leaves the office and closes the door behind him, leaving Bastian alone with his thoughts and far too many questions for a mind that is still trying to understand how much time he has lost.

Meanwhile, in the bedroom, Celine has just stepped out of the shower. Steam still escapes through the bathroom door and mixes with the warmth of the fireplace. Her white hair is completely wet, and several drops of water slide down her neck before disappearing onto the towel wrapped around her body. As she opens the door, she instinctively pulls it tighter against her chest and takes a step into the room.

Then she stops.

There is a small crowd inside her private space.

Sonia and Silas, Bastian’s grandparents, are sitting in one of the armchairs beside the fireplace. Silas has one hand resting on the arm of the chair as he speaks quietly with Sonia, although they both look up as soon as Celine appears. Magnus is standing near the window, his arms crossed as he speaks with Thomas and Jared. The two men seem to have been informing him about something that happened in the castle, but the

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The Second Chance Of The Rejected Moon

conversation dies the moment they see her come out of the bathroom.

For a moment, Celine simply stares at them, still clutching the towel with one hand.

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