All Chapters of Marked but Unclaimed : Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

Council ChamberThe Council Hall is colder than I thought it would be.Not cold like stone or wind.Cold like fear. The kind that sits in your chest and does not leave.I walk beside Kade. We are not touching. But he is close enough that I can feel his warmth. I hold onto that feeling without letting it show on my face.Behind us, our pack leaders follow.No one speaks.The doors open.Every step I take echoes in the silence.The hall is huge. Stone walls. Tall windows. Light comes in but brings no warmth. And up above us, sitting higher than everyone else like they want you to feel small, the Council waits.Five seats.Five judges.Vance sits in the middle.His face shows nothing. No anger. No worry.Somehow that is scarier than anger.Other Alphas stand along the walls. Arms crossed. Eyes cold. Watching like this is a show made for them.I feel all their eyes on me.I keep my head up.Kade does not bow. He gives one short nod. Respect, but not weakness. I do the same.Vance speaks f

The pack did not sleep well after what happened at the border. Kade felt it in the air everywhere he walked. People spoke less. Eyes stayed on him longer than usual. Questions floated around but nobody asked them out loud. Something had shifted in the pack, and every single person could feel it even if they could not name it. He stood inside the war room alone, staring at the large wooden table in the center of the room. On top of it was a carved map of their land. Small stones sat on top of that map, each one showing where a patrol group would walk during the night. Every stone had a meaning. Every path had a purpose. He had placed each one himself the night before, after he changed all the routes. Footsteps came from outside the door. Derek walked in without knocking. As Beta he never needed permission to enter. "The warriors are uneasy," Derek said, stopping a few feet from the table. "They should be," Kade replied without turning around. "They feel like everything has been

The council chamber was already crowded when I entered. Voices wove through the air in controlled tones that carried too much restraint to be calm. Warriors and advisers filled every seat around the long wooden table. Derek stood at Kade’s right shoulder, arms folded behind his back, his expression carved from stone. The moment I stepped inside, the sound shifted. Not silence. Just awareness. I took my seat without hesitation. Kade did not waste time. “Patrol formations remain tightened. No alterations without my approval.” Murmurs rolled across the table. An older warrior leaned forward. “The fighters are uneasy. They want to know why changes were made without explanation.” “They were made because someone moved a patrol marker,” Kade said evenly. “And our enemies were waiting at the gap that created.” The air thinned. That was not speculation anymore. That was an admission that someone inside these walls had made a move. A younger warrior cleared his throat. He kept his gaz

Kade told two of his men to take the fighters out of the corridor. Nobody spoke while it happened.Derek watched the last one get walked out and then turned and looked at me. Not the way he had looked at me in the chamber this morning.This was different. This was Derek trying to put something together in his head."You want to tell us what happened in there," he said.I looked at him. "Three men were waiting for me in a locked room.""That is not what I am asking and you know it," he said.Kade had not said anything yet. He was standing a few steps away with his arms crossed and his eyes on the floor between us.I waited to see which direction this was going. Derek took one step closer."Something happened in that room Della," he said. "We both felt it from outside the door before we even walked in."I kept my face still. "What I need you both to focus on is who sent those men."Derek's eyes narrowed slightly. "We will get to that.""No," I said. "We need to get to that now."Kade lo

Jake had been awake all night and it showed. He was sitting at the table when Kade and I walked in, surrounded by papers, looking like a man who had found something he wished he had not. He did not say good morning. He turned one of the papers around and pushed it across the table toward me. I looked down at it. It was old, the kind of document where the paper itself tells you it has been around longer than anyone in the room. There was a drawing on it, a circle with a symbol inside it and small marks running all the way around the outer edge. I recognized it without needing anyone to tell me what it was. "That is the coin," I said. "That is the Ardenmark," Jake said. "And before I tell you what it means, I need you to tell me exactly where the coin was found." "At the bakery," I said. "Before I came here. That is what Kade told me." Jake nodded like that confirmed something he had already suspected. "The bakery is outside pack territory. Which means whoever placed it th