All Chapters of Marked by the alpha, bound by fate : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The Quiet That Wouldn’t StayElara woke to Mira’s small fist in her hair and the scent of rain. The cottage was warm with the last of the embers, but the air outside had that wet, sharp edge that made muscles wake.“Mama,” Mira said, half asleep, voice thick and raw. “Moon.”Elara let a breath out she had been holding without knowing. She turned, felt the child’s cheek against her collarbone, felt that steady little heart that had kept her alive for seven years. “Not yet,” she whispered. “Close your eyes.”Mira’s lashes were long and dark as a widow’s wing. She shoved her face against Elara’s throat. “But it’s full,” she said. “It’s big.”Elara ran a hand down small, damp hair and smiled the way she had learned to smile for small things. “Then we’ll say a prayer. Quiet and soft.”They moved like a small circle of moonlight—two bodies and a loaf of bread between them. Elara broke the crust and listened to Mira chew. Her mind went to the woods, to the line where trees met stone and the

The Rope That Took the NightThe yard became a mouth that swallowed sound. Rain hit the grass like nails. Hands closed on Elara’s wrist and the rope around Mira’s ankle pulled tight. For a second everything moved in a blur—wet fabric, a small body twisting, Darius’s shout like a bell.Elara saw only one thing: Mira’s face. Tiny, white, her mouth open in a high, sharp note that lodged in Elara’s chest. Time narrowed to that sound. She lurched, fought, tore at the hands on her arm with fingers that suddenly felt like iron. Her nails found skin. A man cursed and slapped her hard. Pain flared hot and bright, but she did not let go.“Get off her!” Darius’s voice snapped the rain. He was in the yard like thunder, boots eating mud, coat flung back. He moved with a quick cruel grace that made Elara catch her breath. The men near the rope stumbled back as if hit by wind. One fell, face gone from him like he had been unmade.Rowan was a wall of motion beside Darius, hands grabbing at the rope,

The Mark They WantedElara could feel the room breathing around her. Heat from the fire, the wet press of bodies, the low hum in her bones that came whenever the pack remembered old rules. She held Mira like a thing that might break if set down. The stranger at the side of the hall watched the child like a man who reads coins for value.“You will not touch her,” Elara said, and the words were small and sharp. They cut the air clean. Her voice trembled but did not break.Darius stood by her like a wall. He was wet, blood drying on his sleeve, but he looked whole in a way that made no one in the room mistake him for a broken man. “She belongs with Blackmoor,” he said, low and plain. “Not to strangers, not to bargains.”The stranger smiled like a thin blade. “No one here has a patent on power, Alpha,” he said. His voice was smooth as oil. “Power moves. People want it. You can keep her as a child, hide under your law, or you can let us ensure she grows strong enough to protect the pack. T

The Trail That Wasn't ThereThe hall went strange and empty in the space after the wolf’s howl. People stood like statues, mouths open, eyes wide. Torches guttered and spilled shadows that looked like hands. Elara felt her heart beating so loud it drowned the world. Her chest hurt where Darius had held her. Her hands smelled of him and of rain and of the small child she had just had in her arms.“Elara,” Darius said. He sounded small, broken around the edges, like a thing that had been hammered and not yet fixed. He set her down gently, like she was ceramic that might crack. “Where—where is she?”Elara could not speak. Her throat closed as if someone had put a hand there. She could feel the floor under her feet, cold and real, and the empty heat in the bed where Mira had been. The private room felt too small for the noise in her head.Rowan moved first. He was never a loud man, but his voice cut through the stunned air. “Search the grounds,” he ordered. “Now. Gates. Walls. Every outbui

The Thing Below the SkinThe hand in the earth tightened like an answer. Mira’s small fingers were slick with mud and something that smelled like old rain. Elara could see the pale knuckles, the tiny nails. She set her jaw and wrapped both hands around the wrist and pulled until the rope burned her palms.“Pull!” Darius ordered. He had a rope looped at his waist and another in his hands. Rowan and two men took the other end and dug their heels into the dirt. The world narrowed to the rope, the hole, Mira’s face, the way her eyes looked older than seven when the light hit them.“Harder!” Rowan shouted. Mud slid under the horseshoes. Someone’s torch sputtered and went low.Mira’s mouth opened and a small sound came out—not a cry, not a word Elara knew, but something that shook the air. “Mama,” she said, small and clear. The sound struck Elara like a bell. It made her lungs pull in.“Elara,” Lyra hissed from the ring’s edge. Her voice had the thin, cracked tone of someone who smelled a t