All Chapters of BRIDE FOR RENT IS MY FATED MATE.: Chapter 151 - Chapter 160

THIRD PERSON POV"She knew my mother."Rebecca said it that evening, standing in the doorway of Donald's study. He looked up from the papers on his desk and set his pen down."Who did?""The woman who came to the gate this morning. Maren. She grew up in this territory." Rebecca walked in and sat in the chair across from him. "She told me my mother was born here, raised here, and that her name was Kalista, and her family had been in this territory for generations."Donald closed the folder in front of him and gave her his full attention."Tell me everything she said."So Rebecca told him. She told him about Kalista growing up in the territory, about Klem from the Ironveil Territory and the father she never met, about her mother leaving one night and never coming back. She told him about the messages Maren had received for years that stopped twelve years ago. She told him all of it in, leaving nothing out.Donald listened without interrupting once.When she finished, the room was quiet

THIRD PERSON POV"Rowan. Tell me exactly what you found."Donald said it the morning after the visit to Sera, standing in the archive room in the lower level of the main house. Rowan had the records spread across the table in front of him. They were old documents, some of them fragile at the edges, handled with careful attention."I found it three days ago when you asked me to look," Rowan said. "I did not want to bring it to you until I had read everything and understood what I was looking at." He pointed to the document at the center of the table. "This is the original founding record of the Black Moon Territory. It lists every family present at the establishment of the pack. Every bloodline that contributed to the building of this territory.""And Kalista's family is in it," Donald said."Her grandmother's family," Rowan said. "The Sthalone line. Listed here as one of seven founding families." He paused. "It is not a small thing. These families did not just live here. They helped

THIRD PERSON POV"This is your family," Rowan said. "Right here. Written in the founding record of this territory."They were all in the archive room the next morning. Donald stood to one side with his arms folded. Maren sat in the chair Rowan had pulled to the table for her. Sera had come — slowly, with the help of a walking stick and a guard who had gone to collect her before dawn — and she sat beside Maren with her hands folded on the table and her eyes bright.Rebecca stood at the center, leaning slightly over the old document Rowan had placed in front of her.She read the name slowly. Sthalone."That is your mother's family name," Maren said quietly. "Your grandmother's name before she married.""It is listed here as one of the seven founding bloodlines," Rowan said. "The families who came together to establish the Black Moon Territory, set its laws, divide its land, and build its first governing structure. Every family on this list contributed something essential." He pointed to

THIRD PERSON POV"You have not touched your food," Donald said.Rebecca looked down at her plate. He was right. She had moved things around without eating any of it, which was unlike her. She picked up her fork and made a deliberate effort."I am fine," she said. "Not very hungry this morning."He said nothing. He watched her for a moment and then returned to his own food. But she caught the way his eyes moved back to her twice more before the meal was done.It had been like this for about a week.Tiredness that arrived earlier than it should and stayed longer than it had any right to. A faint nausea in the mornings that she had been quietly managing by eating plain things before she got out of bed. A sensitivity to certain smells — the candles in the east corridor, the particular soap the kitchen used — that had never bothered her before.She had told herself it was the aftermath of everything. The trial, the poison, the revelations about her mother. Her body catching up to the weigh

THIRD PERSON POV"You are doing it again," Donald said.Rebecca looked up from the land report she was reading. She was sitting sideways in the large chair by the window, her legs over the armrest, a cup of warm ginger tea on the table beside her. She was four months along now and the morning sickness had finally eased, replaced by a hunger that arrived at inconvenient hours and a heaviness in her body that she had decided to simply work around."Doing what?" she asked, like she didn't understand what he was saying."Working when Sable specifically said to rest in the afternoons.""I am reading," she said. "Reading is not working.""That is a land dispute report.""It is light reading," she said.He looked at her."Rebecca.""Donald." She replied, laughing.He crossed the room and took the report out of her hands. She let him, because she had learned which arguments were worth having and which ones were not. This was not one of them."One hour," he said. "No reports. No correspondence.