Pregnant And Rejected By My Alpha Mate By Caroline Above Chapter 146
Chapter 146 Arabe Learns the Limits of Magic
Arabe’s POV
Damn it! I internally shriek, staring in horror at the news broadcast filling.the television screen. Selene
and her brat are parading across a stage, charming the crowd and giving a wlessly sympathetic
performance. What the hell are they thinking? This is thest thing I need!
Bastien has been watching the news like a hawk, pacing like a caged tiger in front of the TV and
alternatively scouring the newspapers for any scrap of intel. I’ve been carefully screening both before
he gets his hands on the remote or the morning post, but until now we haven’te up against this
kind of crisis and that’s undoubtedly what this is. If Bastien sees the press conference footage I’m
absolutely screwed. They are too convincing, too lovely, and that child is obviously his. For all she
resembles her mother, when she speaks to the reporter it’s as if the words areing from Bastien
himself albeit a very young Bastien.
Everything I’ve been telling him depends on making Selene the enemy: a cunning, vengeful tyrant. My
story is a far cry from the quietly courageous, loving and fragile beauty on the TV. What’s worse, her
speech is the perfect balm for everything which has been going wrong in Elysium thesest few weeks
no doubt at Frederic’s hands. I can almost see the rifts in the Nova pack healing beneath her caring
ministrations.
I cut the wires to the TV before Bastien wakes, thanking the Goddess that fatigue seems to be a side-
effect of the memory potion. I’m just in time. No sooner have I stored the wire cutters that he emerges
from his room, scrubbing a tired hand over his face as he moves toward the abandoned remote only
pausing to give me a chaste kiss on the cheek. “Morning Be.”
Clicking the device repeatedly with no response, he mutters, “the cable must be out.” Instead he
retrieves the newspaper, which thankfully printed too early to include details from the press conference.
Still, i’ll almost certainly have to find a way to alter tomorrow’s post.
As Bastien sits down at the breakfast table, pouring himself a mug of coffee, I suddenly realize I was so
distracted by Selene’s antics that I’ ve forgotten to dose his drink. While his head is still buried behind
the paper, I sidle close, uncorking the vial I keep on a chain around my neck and leaning over him.
“Don’t worry,” I say, pretending to reach for a slice of toast and tipping the vial over his ss of juice.
“I’ll call the cablepany first thing.”
Bastien looks up just as I shake a few drops of potion into his drink, and I whip the vial behind my back
before he can see what I was doing. He looks as though her might have caught a sh of movement,
but the potion dulls his senses as well as his memory, and a quick distraction should easily ease his
suspicion, “Okay?” I prompt, focusing his attention on my previousment.
“Fine.” He afrees. “I don’t want to spend the day in front of the TV again anyway. I’ve got to get out of
this apartment, Be.”
“Bastien we’ve talked about this.” I sigh, not having to fake an ounce of my exhaustion with the subject.
“Yes, but you’re assuming I’ll be recognized here when there’s no reason to think I would.” He argues,
“After all, you told me you had to order the Nova News Network and paper specially. Most Calypso
wolves won’t see any of this. They won’t know what I look like.”
“No but they’ll know a strange wolf is roaming around.” I remind him. In fact, I have to scrub myself raw
every time I leave the house so his scent won’t linger on me when I visit ise.
“Be, I’m going crazy being locked up here.” He gripes, “This city has millions of inhabitants and
thousands of tourists visit every day. One strange wolf isn’t going to raise any rms.”
“Alright, alright!” I agree, worn down to the bone. “We’ll go out tonight but I decide where, and you have
to be disguised.”
Bastien straightens up, lookingically indignant. “I will not put on a disguise and slink around like
some rogue.”
ring and gnashing my teeth, I mutter, “You are so stubborn.”
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He shes me a wolfish grin. “Well if that isn’t the pot calling the kettle ck, I don’t know what is.”
Bastien’s POV
“What is this ce?” I inquire, staring at my surreal surroundings in surprise and dismay. When
Arabe said she was going to show me the city, I expected her to take me on a tour of her favorite
ces. Granted, that’s thest thing I wanted to see, but I’m starting to think I’d prefer it to this.
We’re in some sort of strange subterranean street, staring into a dark maze of underground streets. It’s
true that Elysium was built into the mountains themselves, but not like this. Elysium is beautiful and
open and at one with nature, conforming itself to the naturalndscape rather than bending the
environment to our will. But there is nothing natural about this ce it is cold and dank and hopeless.
Unlike the glittering streets aboveground, these homes and shops are not shining examples of
technology and innovation, instead I feel as if I’ve walked two centuries into the past. Yet Arabe looks
around with bright eyes, blind to the suffering surrounding us on all sides. “It’s the underground.
The Calypso pack is partitioned by ss to keep things simple. The poor stay belowground in the old
levels of the city, and the nobility and aristocrats live above. It’s all very organized. no unnecessary
conflicts or ufortable confrontations.” She exins dreamily. After all, no one wants to have to
look at that kind of unpleasantness.” She remarks, wrinkling her nose.
I stop in my tracks, her words slowly filtering through my brain. I don’t know why, but ever since I got
here it’s taken me much longer than usual to wrap my head around even simple concepts. It feels sort
of like I’m constantly moving through water, fighting to sort out logic and my own feelings in slow
motion. “Simpler?” I repeat, “Arabe, it’s barbaric.”
“No. Sheughs warmly, trying to make me understand. “People are happier this way – the poor and
the rich. The sses aren’t meant to mix, Bastien, How do you think the poor feel when they have to
look at everything the wealthy enjoy but they’ll never possess themselves? This is more humane.” She
loops her arms through mine, and leads me back to the above ground section of the city. Fresh air
washes over me instantly, and the wretched conditions of the city beneath our feet seems even starker
byparison.
“I brought you here so you could see how things could be in Elysium.” Arabe continues, sweeping
her arm wide. “Look at this, it’s a utopia because ise isn’t afraid to make controversial decisions.”
I pull free of her touch, feeling a rush of disappointment in my surrogate sister, as well as shame for
failing her sopletely. Clearly we did not raise her well enough. “It’s a utopia built on blood.”
Arabe’s POV
This day just gets worse and worse.
After dropping Bastien at home, I head straight back to the underground. That excursion did not go as I
had nned at all. I thought Bastien would appreciate Tartarus as I do, even if he needed a little help to
see the beauty of the arrangement. Yet no matter what I said, he insisted ise’s creation was an
atrocity, and refused to listen to reason.
What’s worse, no matter how many ways I try to win him, Bastien seems immune to my charms. It
doesn’t matter that he doesn’t remember Selene, he seems no closer to falling in love with me now
than he did seven years ago.
Striding into the dim hole in the wall where my friend, the apothecary, conducts his business, I look
around and fight not to turn my nose up at the dirty shop. The bell above the door chimes shrilly, and a
disembodied voice sounds from the back of the store, “Just a minute!”
A few momentster, when the sketchy character I’vee to consider my supplier for all things illicit
appears, I set my hands on my hips, “It’s not working.”.
He arches a brow, “You mean he still has his memory?”
“No.” I snap. “He doesn’t remember a thing, but he’s not susceptible to control. I swear, making him like
me is like pulling teeth.”
“I never promised that my potion would let you control him.” He reminds me. “I said it would steal his
memory and dull his sharpness.”
*Fine, then give me something that will make him fall in love with me.” Imand.
The gnarled man cuts his eyes to me, “oh princess, didn’t anyone ever tell you the limits of magic?”
“What are you talking about?” I demand.
“No potion can create or instill love.” The apothecary exins, only the Goddess can do that.”
“You’re saying there’s nothing you can do to help me?” I exim in disbelief.
“I’m saying that if you want the man to fall in love with you, you might want to try acting lovable.” The
man remarks snidely. Ever consider it?”
ring at the rude man, I turn and storm from the shop. I’ll show him. I think spitefully. I’ll be so lovable
Bastien won’t know what hit him.