All Chapters of Marked Against My Will: Chapter 1 - Chapter 8

I knew I shouldn’t have stayed after dark.Everyone knew that.Human or wolf, you didn’t linger when the sun dipped behind the tree line and the air started to change. The forest didn’t belong to us then. It never really did, but night made the rules clearer.I pulled my jacket tighter around me and quickened my pace, boots crunching too loudly over gravel. The path home cut through the borderland, a strip of land that wasn’t claimed outright but wasn’t safe either. Wolves patrolled it when they felt like reminding us who really owned the ground.I kept my head down.That was how you survived.I was almost through when the air shifted.It wasn’t a sound at first. It was pressure. Like the forest inhaled and forgot how to breathe out again. My skin prickled, every instinct I had screaming at once.Run.I didn’t make it three steps.Something slammed into me from the side, hard enough to knock the breath clean out of my lungs. I hit the ground, palms scraping against stone, pain flaring

The bond hurt when I refused to listen to it.I learned that quickly.It started as a headache, dull and pulsing behind my eyes as they locked me inside the Alpha’s quarters and posted guards outside the door. I paced the room, back and forth, back and forth, ignoring the pull in my chest that kept tugging me toward a direction I didn’t want to think about.Him.The headache sharpened.I stopped pacing, bracing my hands on the table. “I won’t,” I said aloud, even though no one was listening. “I won’t give in.”The pain spiked instantly.I gasped, fingers digging into the wood as something hot and tight wrapped around my ribs, squeezing until my breath came shallow and fast. It wasn’t like being stabbed or burned. It was worse. It felt like my body was correcting me. Punishing me for stepping out of line.I slid down the side of the table until I was on the floor, knees pulled to my chest.“No,” I whispered. “Stop.”The bond didn’t stop.It eased only when I stopped fighting it long en

They didn’t give me time to prepare.I was escorted from the Alpha’s quarters before the sun fully cleared the treeline, guards flanking me on either side like I might bolt if given half a chance. My clothes had been changed sometime during the night — simple, neutral, nothing that marked me as pack or outsider.Nothing that protected me either.The council chamber sat at the heart of the compound, a wide circular structure carved from dark stone. I felt it the moment we stepped inside. Power lingered here, thick and heavy, pressed into the walls by generations of authority and judgment.The council was already seated.Five of them.Three men. Two women. All wolves. All watching me with open assessment.The Alpha stood at the center of the room, his back straight, hands clasped behind him. He didn’t look at me when I entered, but the bond reacted anyway — a sharp tug that steadied my steps and reminded me exactly where I stood in relation to him.Bound.Exposed.“Bring her forward,” o

They kept me close after the attack.Too close.I learned that within the hour, when the Alpha ordered that I be moved into the inner quarters — not mine, but his. The decision was delivered like a command issued to the entire pack, not a suggestion open for debate.No one argued.That scared me more than the rogues had.The room they put me in was adjacent to his, separated by a thick stone wall and a door that didn’t lock from the inside. It wasn’t a cell. That almost made it worse.“This is temporary,” he said, standing in the doorway as guards took up position outside. “Until we identify the leak.”“And if you don’t?” I asked.His gaze held mine. “Then it becomes permanent.”I swallowed. “You don’t get to decide that.”“I already have,” he replied.The bond hummed low, not painful, but aware — like it was listening.He turned to leave.“Wait,” I said before I could stop myself.He paused.“You said the rogues were captured,” I continued. “What did they say?”His jaw tightened. “En