All Chapters of Marked but Unclaimed : Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

My father arrived just after dawn. I was already waiting when his car came through the gate. I had not slept. His message the night before had kept turning in my mind, he was already on his way before we had even decided to contact him. Either someone had told him, or something at Northern Ridge had frightened him enough to move without waiting for word from us. Neither possibility was comfortable. He stepped out looking older than I remembered. Not physically — he was still the same broad-shouldered, hard-faced Alpha I had watched rule a pack my entire childhood. But something behind his eyes had shifted. He looked at Kade first, the measuring look of one Alpha taking the measure of another, then looked at me and said my name. Just my name, quietly, but the way it came out told me he had been thinking about this moment for longer than just the drive here.. Kade's response was brief and polite and carried not a single degree of warmth. "Come inside," he said, and tur

The team Kade sent east came back without her. Jake delivered the news in the late afternoon, standing in the doorway of the small office where Kade and I had been going through the Council response my father had spent most of the day drafting. He did not sit down. He said it plainly, the way he said most difficult things, without softening the edges. The house where the cousin had been living was empty. Neighbours said she had packed a bag and left without telling anyone where she was going. Nothing had been disturbed, no signs of a struggle. By every visible measure, she had walked out of her own life quietly and of her own choosing. Kade looked at the wall for a moment after Jake finished. Then he asked how long ago. Jake said the neighbours were not certain. Recently enough that the people closest to her were still expecting her back. That detail stayed with me after Jake left the room. If she had gone recently enough that people were still waiting for he

Jake found us still in the guest room about an hour later. He knocked and came in without waiting, which meant what he had to say could not sit. He looked at all three of us and then settled on Kade. The team found a trail, he said. She was not taken. She was moving. On foot, off the main roads, heading west. Heading west, Kade said. Toward us, Jake said. Nobody spoke for a second. Jake said the team had worked out roughly when she started moving and it was before the archive break-in at Northern Ridge. Before her location was even at risk. She had already been on her way before any of us knew her name. Someone warned her, I said. Jake looked at me. That is what it looks like. I thought about the letter on the desk. The symbol pressed into the wax. The name at the bottom that only my mother had ever used. She has been in contact with the cousin, I said. My mother. She warned her to move before anyone else even knew to look for her. Kade was quiet for a moment. Then he said,

Kade did not call a full alert. He just pulled four of his most trusted wolves and told them to go through the grounds quietly. Check every building, every corner, every space that someone could use to stay out of sight. He told them to be discreet about it.While they searched I sat with Lena in the small meeting room.I asked her everything she knew. She answered honestly and without making it more than it was. Her mother and mine had been in touch for a long time, passing messages carefully, never through anything that could be traced. Lena had known about my mother since she was a girl but had been told not to ask too many questions. Her mother had said it was for safety and Lena had accepted that.What did your mother tell you before you left, I asked.That the Arden were getting ready to move, Lena said. That it would happen soon. And that you needed to be prepared for something specific. She did not tell me what.Did she say anything else.Lena thought about it. She said your m

After my mother left the room to let Kade know she was on pack grounds, I went back to my room, sat on the edge of my bed and did not move for a while.My mind was going in too many directions. My mother sitting in that chair. The notebook. The things she had said and the things we had not gotten to yet. The apology she had given me and how I did not quite know what to do with it.I heard footsteps in the corridor and then a knock at the door.It was Kade.He was not in Alpha mode. That was the first thing I noticed. He was not carrying a report or coming to brief me on something. He was just standing in the doorway looking at me the way he sometimes did when he thought I was not paying attention."Derek has your mother settled in a room," he said. "Jake has the notebook. We will go through it in the morning.""Okay," I said.He stayed in the doorway. "Are you alright."I thought about giving him the easy answer. I did not."I do not know yet," I said. "Ask me tomorrow."He nodded and