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The Council

Author: Hallie Shoemaker
last update publish date: 2026-01-25 16:05:26

Gage

The elders don’t meet in the packhouse. Not officially. They meet in the den—an old room tucked behind the library, lined with dark wood and older rules. No windows. No phones. A ward stone in the lintel turns every signal into static.

I stand at the center of their circle because that’s what an Alpha does when his authority is being weighed like meat.

Voss sits in the high chair, silver hair braided tight, eyes pale as winter. To his left, Maren and Holt—both sharp enough to smell a lie t
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  • The Mark You Hide   A Better Cage

    SilasA human in my packhouse should have been simple. You scare her, you silence her, you move on.Gage made it complicated the moment he put his blood on her mouth and then acted shocked that she answered. Now every wolf with a nose is smelling a bond that doesn’t fit the story, and every elder is pretending their interest is “protocol” instead of opportunity.I didn’t need to see Mara up close to understand what she was. I’d heard her in the corridor and watched her keep her chin up while half the pack measured where they’d put their hands if they were allowed. Not prey. Not obedient. The kind of human who thinks rules are suggestions.And the worst part? She was breathtaking. Mara was one of the most beautiful women I'd ever laid eyes on. The kind of woman who didn't believe she was worth looking at, but was incredibly wrong. How could someone who looked like that be such a pain in the ass?I shut the door to my office and slid the deadbolt. My space sat on the perimeter of pack g

  • The Mark You Hide   Marked

    MaraThe packhouse looked normal from the outside in the way a trap can look like a home if you don’t know what you’re seeing. Wide porch. Warm lights. Trucks. Woods pressed in on every side like the whole place had been built to vanish.Gage had agreed to a “brief return” for one reason: I wouldn’t stop asking what the crescent-and-slash meant, and I’d started asking loud. Fifteen minutes, he’d said. Escort. No wandering. “Eyes forward,” Mason told me, and I almost laughed at the irony of being told not to look while every living thing here was looking at me.Two wolves flanked me as we crossed the gravel. Not guards, they’d insist. “Escort.” Like changing the word made it less obvious I could be grabbed at any second. Mason stayed half a step ahead, scanning the yard like he expected trouble.The moment I stepped inside, the air hit different—warmer, thicker, saturated with scent. Coffee. Laundry detergent. Sweat. A metallic bite like weapons cleaned too often. Under it, wolf. Pack

  • The Mark You Hide   Leash

    GageThey didn’t summon me to the elders’ den because they wanted my input. They summoned me because they wanted my compliance.The den sat behind locked doors and a warded threshold, carved into the packhouse like a bunker dressed as tradition. Voss was already seated at the long table, hands folded, expression neutral. Maren lingered near the cabinet of records, watching me like she was taking notes. Two other elders sat on the council channel, their voices tinny through the speaker on Voss’s desk.I shut the door behind me and didn’t sit until Voss gestured.“Alpha Gage,” Voss said.“Elder,” I replied.The bond tugged the moment my mind brushed Mara’s name. Off-site. Warded. Locked down. Alive. Facts I’d repeated all morning. They didn’t settle the wolf under my skin. He kept pacing anyway, like he knew she was a thread someone else wanted to cut.Maren’s eyes flicked to my throat. “You smell like her.”“I smell like blood and dirt,” I said. “We had a breach.”“We had an exposure,”

  • The Mark You Hide   More Than Human

    Mara By morning, my body felt like it had been rewired overnight.I wasn’t sick. I was turned up—sounds too crisp, skin too sensitive, my pulse too quick. The bond tugged whenever I thought about Gage, like my ribs had grown a compass and it only pointed at him.I hated that.I tried to tell myself it was just stress. I drank water; it tasted like pennies. The fridge air carried too many smells at once: plastic, onions, detergent, stale bread. My stomach rolled. When I rubbed my palms together, my own scent hit me, sharper than usual, almost spicy. Even sound felt close: the wall clock, the heater tick, my socks scraping the floor. Every creak made my muscles coil, ready to bolt. My body wasn't resting; it was listening. Breathing through it didn't help. The cabin had a faint animal note under the cleaner, and it made my teeth ache. That wasn't normal. None of this was.I paced the cabin, staring at my useless phone like it might magically decide to work. No bars. No Wi-Fi. Locks on

  • The Mark You Hide   Silas

    GageThe pack grounds should’ve sounded normal. Instead, when my truck rolled through the gate, the noise thinned into that quiet, where everyone is talking, but they’re talking about you.Heads turned. Sparring stopped. Even the younger wolves who liked to pretend they weren’t watching their Alpha watched me like I’d come home with blood on my hands.I parked near the training yard and got out with a duffel on my shoulder and the sealed pouch tucked under my jacket. The crescent-and-slash stamp on it stayed in my head, heavy and hot.Mason met me at the gravel, too quick to be casual. “Alpha.”“Report.”“Two unknown mounts pulled off the perimeter. Cameras. One aimed at the bunker road.” His jaw flexed. “The installers are gone.”“Tracks?”“Scrubbed.” He flicked his eyes toward the yard. “And the talk’s spreading. You moved the human off pack land. You’re hiding her.”I corrected only what mattered. “She’s alive.”I kept my voice level, but my wolf paced inside me. I’d left Mara at t

  • The Mark You Hide   One Lead

    MaraGage snatched the photo out of my hand and shoved it in his pocket. I started to question him but he stormed away in perfect Gage fashion. I decided not to push the subject.. yet.The cabin was too clean and too quiet, built for people who needed to disappear. Gage called it a safe room. I called it a box with better lighting. And it hated me right back, too.He let me shower, which sounded generous until I realized he’d posted himself somewhere in the hall. I couldn’t hear him, but I could feel him—an annoying pull in my chest that had nothing to do with logic and everything to do with that stupid blood “tether” he’d forced on me.I turned the water hot and tried to wash off the bunker dust and the sick twist of that photo I’d found in the dresser. A woman who looked like my grandmother, standing beside wolves like it was a family picnic.Then I stepped out and realized I’d forgotten a towel.Of course I did.I stared at the empty hook, dripping, and aimed my voice at the door.

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