All Chapters of Marked by the Alpha: Blood Oath: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

MaraThe first thing I notice is the weight. The armory door should drag a little on its hinges. Too much humidity in these mountains, the timber swells. But tonight it swings open without that familiar resistance. My fingers hover on the iron latch a heartbeat too long before I push inside.The familiar smell envelops me. Oil, steel, cold stone. Normally it’s clean, orderly, a space that reassures me the pack’s teeth are always sharp. I step in, boots echoing against the planked floor. The torches on the wall flicker as I run my gaze over the racks. My gut goes cold.Two long rifles are gone from the upper hooks. A set of silvered throwing knives are missing from the locked case at the back. I check the lock for signs of tampering, but it’s intact. Someone had the key. I pull the ledger from its shelf, flipping pages under my thumb. Last entry for those weapons? Three days ago. Logged as “maintenance” by Reed, one of our Deltas. I’ll talk to him later, but my instincts tell me thi

EliI wasn’t trying to eavesdrop. The only reason I was even in the vicinity of Mara’s office was because the kitchen was out of tea and I thought maybe she had some stashed away.Ronan’s sister hasn’t exactly welcomed me with open arms, but it’s part of why I like her.She reminds me of Jace. Gruff, no-nonsense, honest. What you see is exactly what you get. She wouldn’t smile to my face and gossip behind my back.But voices carry in the lodge corridors when the wind’s up, and I’ve spent enough of my life surviving by catching the half-heard things people don’t mean you to hear.“…can’t leave him alone,” Jace’s voice, low and full of gravel, carries through the crack in her door.“That’s not your decision,” Mara says, clipped. “And you don’t have proof.”“I don’t need proof to know he’s trouble. Do you? He’s not like the others.”My chest tightens.I don’t hear a name, but who else could they be talking about? The pack’s golden Deltas and loyal Betas? No. I’m the stray no one asked fo

EliSnow has a way of telling stories you’d rather not hear. It remembers. Holds the shape of every trespass, every step that shouldn’t be there.Which is why I’m standing outside the cabin before the sun’s even scraped the treeline, staring at the imprint of boots that don’t belong to Ronan.The prints are shallow, made by someone light on their feet. Not my huge, hulking, stubborn asshole of a mate.I follow the tracks toward the forest, boots crunching through the crusted snow. The wind bites my cheeks, and every exhale curls in front of me like a warning.The trail peters out under the thicker pines, where shadows swallow the ground. I crouch, fingertips brushing a faint scuff mark. Someone pivoted here, fast. Then… nothing.A twig snaps behind me and I spin, shoulders tense. It’s Hazel, cheeks pink from the cold. “You’re out here early,” she says.“Couldn’t sleep.” Her gaze flicks to the boot prints. She doesn’t ask whose they are, which tells me she’s already guessed and doesn’

EliI don’t tell Hazel I’m going out.I should. She’s the only one who never makes me feel small. But there’s a smear on the inside latch of the lodge side door. Soot where there shouldn’t be soot, and the mark matches the powder I tucked under my drawer handles this afternoon. Someone was riffling through my things for a second time, and I’m done playing polite.The night is cold enough to bite. Breath ghosts from my mouth as I slip past the kitchens and across the yard, keeping to the dark seams between cabins. The snow crunches softly under my boots, the sound swallowed by the trees beyond the stockade. I pause at the fence, scenting the wind.I’m sure it’s Loran’s smell before I even see him.He moves ahead of me in the dark like the night wants him. He doesn’t hurry. He doesn’t look back. It’s not carelessness, that would insult him. It’s arrogance, pure and simple. The forest closes around me, all ink and bone. I track him by sound and shadow, by the brief catch of moon on h

RonanHe calls me a liar and I want to bare my throat and bite his all at once.I should step away. Button my shirt. Pick up the maps and put the world back into lines. Instead I crowd him into the table again and run a hand down the curve of his back. Slow, possessive, not gentle.“You acted like an imbecile when you went to the quarry alone,” I say, and the sentence is a growl. It’s also a confession. I cannot let go of the image of him vanishing into a hole in the earth with Loran behind him.“I came back,” he shoots over his shoulder.“And if you hadn’t?”“Then that would’ve proved me right.”It’s insane. It’s Eli. The part of me that rules with teeth wants to cage him. The part of me that doesn’t have a name wants to lay down and let him crawl under my ribs and live there.Neither part wins. The Alpha does.“On the bed,” I tell him.He moves like a challenge. Eyes not leaving mine, deliberate, slow, the kind of beautiful that ruins kingdoms. I follow, shedding the rest of my restr