Chapter 209 Chasing his rejected Mate
Author’s POV
By midday, the Silver Creek pack house was wrapped in an oppressive quiet.
Clara pulled into the circular driveway with Marcus buckled in the backseat, her face drawn with exhaustion. They’d just returned from the hospital, where Gerald Holt remained in critical condition.
"Mommy, is Daddy still sleeping?" Marcus asked, craning his neck to look up at the second-floor windows as they walked toward the entrance. "He’s been asleep for two whole days!"
Clara’s hand tightened on his small shoulder. For a moment, she didn’t know how to answer him.
Finally, she knelt down and smoothed his hair back.
"Daddy’s just very tired, sweetheart. He needs to rest. Our family has been going through a lot lately, so you need to be extra good right now, okay?"
Marcus nodded solemnly, though confusion flickered in his pale blue eyes.
He knew something was wrong. Everyone in the house had been upset for days. And he was absolutely certain it was all that horrible woman Aria’s fault.
When he grew up, he would help Mommy and Daddy. He would make sure Aria paid for everything she’d done to their family.
Clara handed Marcus off to one of the housekeepers before heading upstairs to check on Ethan.
The past two days had been hell.
Gerald’s condition had left him with severe complications.
He’d regained consciousness, but the damage was extensive—his speech was slurred, his left side partially paralyzed, and his wolf may be permanently dormant.
Margaret had spent two days sobbing at his bedside, her expensive makeup smeared, her silk blouses wrinkled beyond recognition.
The imperious Luna who once commanded every room she entered had been reduced to a hollow-eyed, trembling wreck.
Sophie had finally emerged from her postpartum seclusion to relieve her mother at the hospital, which meant Clara could return home to manage Marcus and check on Ethan.
Especially Ethan.
Ethan had taken the news hard. After visiting his father in the ICU, he’d come home and collapsed with a fever that wouldn’t break. He’d been unconscious for two full days.
And meanwhile, Aria had struck again.
While Gerald lay incapacitated, she’d somehow secured a massive influx of capital—investors Clara didn’t even recognize—and diluted the Holt family’s stake in Holt Enterprises down to less than ten percent.
Even if they liquidated every asset the family owned, they wouldn’t have enough to buy back controlling interest.
Holt Enterprises was no longer theirs. It belonged to Aria now.
The woman was ruthless. Absolutely ruthless. She didn’t care who she destroyed as long as she got what she wanted.
The media firestorm hadn’t died down either. Every major outlet was still running stories about Ethan and Clara’s affair, their secret child, the fake marriage. The Silver Creek Pack’s reputation was in tatters.
Former allies had quietly distanced themselves. No one wanted to be associated with a Pack on the verge of collapse.
But none of them knew the truth—that Aria had orchestrated everything. That she wasn’t the victim everyone believed her to be. She was the architect of their destruction.
"Ethan..." Clara pushed open the bedroom door, then froze.
The bed was empty. The sheets were twisted and half-dragged onto the floor. Pill bottles from the nightstand had been knocked over, capsules scattered across the hardwood.
She grabbed her phone and dialed Ethan’s number. Once. Twice. Three times.
No answer.
A cold knot of dread formed in her stomach. She knew exactly where he’d gone.
---
Ethan’s fever had broken sometime that morning, leaving him weak and hollow-eyed. But the moment he’d regained consciousness, one thought had consumed him entirely.
Aria was leaving him.
Not just leaving Silver Creek Pack. Not just taking back the company.
She was severing every thread that connected them. Cutting him out of her life completely.
*She’s ours,* his wolf snarled, pacing restlessly beneath his skin. *Our mate. Our bond. We can’t let her go.*
*We rejected her,* Ethan reminded himself bitterly. *We chose Clara. We did this.*
*Then fix it,* his wolf snapped back. *Before it’s too late.*
So he pulled his car into a side street half a block from the Holt Enterprises headquarters. The building’s glass facade gleamed cold and impersonal in the afternoon sun.
Aria had issued orders to security. He and his father were blacklisted. They weren’t allowed on the premises.
But Ethan didn’t care.
If he couldn’t go inside, he’d wait outside. He’d wait on the street corner where she’d have to pass on her way out. He’d wait all night if he had to.
He needed to see her. To talk to her. To tell her everything he should have said years ago.
He wasn’t here for the company. He wasn’t here for his family.
He was here for *her*.
They’d spent years together. *Years*. That kind of history didn’t just disappear. She couldn’t possibly feel nothing. Not after everything they’d been through.
He could fix this. He *had* to fix this.
Ethan killed the engine and leaned back against the headrest, his jaw tight.
He’d gambled that she’d leave the building eventually.
And he’d gambled right.