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Chapter Eight: Awakening
publish date:
2026-07-26 05:30:12
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MARKED BY FATE: THE ALPHA PRINCE'S REGRET Chapter Nine: The Truth Beneath the Truth
Mira led us to a clearing behind the pack house at moonrise. An old ritual circle, half-swallowed by moss, untouched for years."This won't be gentle," she warned, drawing a rough circle of salt and ash around me. "Awakening isn't discovery. It's a kind of breaking. What's dormant in you has to crack fully open, and that process tends to bring the truth of things with it, including truths you might not be ready for.""I haven't been ready for anything since the ceremony," I said. "Might as well add one more thing to the list."Rhys's hand brushed mine before I stepped into the circle, brief, grounding, gone before I could fully register the warmth of it. Kaelan stood at the circle's edge on the opposite side, golden eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made the bond hum warm and insistent beneath my ribs, even now."Close your eyes," Mira instructed. "Think of the clearest lie you've ever caught. Follow it back to its root."I didn't have to look far.I reject you, fatass.The memo
MARKED BY FATE: THE ALPHA PRINCE'S REGRET Chapter Eight: Awakening
"Unmake lies," I repeated. "What does that even mean?"Mira's expression was grave. "It means the gift you've had all your life, sensing when someone lies to you, is only the dormant fraction of what a fully awakened Seer can do. History records it as forcing a compelled truth. A person standing before a true Seer, once the gift is awakened, cannot maintain a lie. The words simply... fail them.""That sounds like a fairy tale," I said, though my pulse had picked up regardless."So did fated mate bonds, until you felt one snap into place," Rhys said quietly.Point taken."How does it awaken?" Kaelan asked, leaning forward, something sharp and urgent in his expression that I couldn't quite name.Mira hesitated. "Historically, through crisis. Grief. Betrayal. A moment where the truth matters enough to break something open." Her eyes moved to me, careful and searching. "Judging by the timeline, Ivy, I suspect yours may have already begun the night you were rejected in front of two hundred
MARKED BY FATE: THE ALPHA PRINCE'S REGRET Chapter Seven: What Bianca Knew
We regrouped in Rhys's study. The fear in the room was so thick it made every breath feel loud. Mira spread brittle old texts across the desk, muttering about bloodline markers and scent signatures. Rhys paced, wearing a groove into the floor.I sat frozen in the corner. Trying to process that a woman I'd met once wanted to use me as a weapon."How did she know?" I finally asked. "I only found out myself hours ago."Silence. Heavier than any answer.Kaelan's jaw tightened. "There's only one way she could know something that specific, that fast.""Someone told her," Rhys said grimly.I felt sick before I even let myself think the name. "Bianca.""You don't know that," Kaelan said, though the doubt in his own voice betrayed him."Don't I?" My hands had curled into fists in my lap. "She's been furious since the ceremony. She's spent every day since telling anyone who'll listen how humiliated she was that you rejected me instead of picking her. If someone from the Draveth camp came sniffi
MARKED BY FATE: THE ALPHA PRINCE'S REGRET Chapter Six: The Envoy
Three wolves waited at the Sterling border when we arrived. Ashford Kingdom colors. Unshifted. Black-and-gold royal guard uniforms, stiff as armor. But it was the fourth figure that made my stomach drop. I knew her the second I saw her.Lady Serrin Draveth.She was beautiful in that cold, perfect way that only comes from a lifetime of being trained to be watched. Sharp cheekbones. Ink-black hair twisted into a crown braid. A smile that never touched her eyes."Alpha Sterling," she said, inclining her head to Rhys with exaggerated courtesy before her gaze slid to me. "And this must be the famous Ivy Hart. You're smaller than the rumors suggested.""Funny," I said, "considering the rumors mostly focus on how large I am."Something flickered across her face surprise, maybe, that I hadn't wilted. She recovered fast. "I'm not here for pleasantries. I'm here on behalf of the King, to collect the girl named in the royal order.""She's not going anywhere with you," Kaelan said, stepping forwa
MARKED BY FATE: THE ALPHA PRINCE'S REGRET Chapter Five: The Name She Wasn't Supposed to Know
We stayed up half the night poring over the intercepted letter, Rhys's scouts' reports, and everything Kaelan could recall from council meetings he'd only half been allowed into. By the time grey dawn light crept through the study windows, I had a headache, three cups of cold tea, and absolutely no plan that didn't end with either me in a royal cell or Kaelan married to a woman actively plotting to end his bloodline."There has to be something in the old bonding laws," Rhys muttered, dragging a hand through his hair. "A loophole. Some precedent for""There is," said a voice from the doorway.We all turned. An older woman stood there, silver hair braided severely back, leaning on a carved wooden staff Mira, Rhys's pack historian, whom I'd only met once in passing during my first week."Forgive the intrusion," she said, though she didn't sound remotely sorry. "I couldn't help overhearing. And I couldn't, in good conscience, let you keep searching blind when the answer is sitting three f
MARKED BY FATE: THE ALPHA PRINCE'S REGRET Chapter Four: The Price of a Crown
Nobody moved for a long moment.Rhys's whole body had shifted into something coiled and dangerous, a wall between me and the doorway before I'd even registered him standing. "You have exactly one reason not to be thrown off this land right now," he said. "Talk fast."Kaelan's eyes found mine over Rhys's shoulder, and for once there was no arrogance in them at all. Just exhaustion, and something rawer underneath it."My father isn't doing this to protect the kingdom," he said. "He's doing it because a fully severed bond would let him arrange a political marriage for me before the Draveths can use my weakened power as an excuse to challenge the throne. Ivy isn't a problem to him. She's an inconvenience standing between him and a treaty he's already negotiating.""And you know this because?" Rhys's voice was ice."Because I overheard him say it." Kaelan's throat worked. "Word for word. 'The girl was never the point. She's a loose thread.' That's what he called you, Ivy. A loose thread to
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