All Chapters of MARKED BY FATE: THE ALPHA PRINCE'S REGRET: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The scent hit me first. Pine. Smoke. Something colder underneath, like frost clinging to stone. My whole body locked up.Mate.I didn’t even know I could feel it until now. Something snapped tight behind my ribs, yanking me toward the dais. Alpha Prince Kaelan Ashford stood there in ceremonial black, golden eyes locking on mine across a sea of wolves.For one breath, I let myself believe it. The Moon Goddess had actually seen me.. me, Ivy Hart, the girl who always made herself smaller so Bianca could shine and decided I was worth choosing. Chosen by a prince.Then I saw his face change.He didn’t even try to hide it. His nose wrinkled, like I stank. His eyes dragged down my body the curve of my hips, the softness of my arms and his face twisted with disgust so sharp it stung worse than a slap."No," he said. Not to me. To his father, to the council, to the entire pack watching. "That's not there has to be a mistake."There wasn’t. Everyone in the hall felt the bond humming between us,

Sterling territory smelled nothing like Hartwell.Where my old pack's halls had always carried an undertone of competition expensive perfume, sharp cologne, the particular tension of people constantly measuring themselves against each other Rhys's pack house smelled like cedar and rain. Quiet. Unhurried.He set me up in a guest room with a window overlooking the training yard and didn't ask a single question that night. He just left a plate of food outside my door and a note that said, simply: Rest. We'll talk when you're ready.I cried for the first time in three weeks.Not from the rejection. From the relief of someone giving me space instead of demanding I perform gratitude for it.By the second day, I'd stopped flinching at every knock. By the third, I'd started noticing things the way the Sterling pack didn't have the rigid hierarchy Hartwell prided itself on, the way warriors and kitchen staff ate at the same tables, the way nobody looked at my body like it was a problem to be s

We stayed up half the night poring over the intercepted letter, Rhys's scouts' reports, and everything Kaelan could recall from council meetings he'd only half been allowed into. By the time grey dawn light crept through the study windows, I had a headache, three cups of cold tea, and absolutely no plan that didn't end with either me in a royal cell or Kaelan married to a woman actively plotting to end his bloodline."There has to be something in the old bonding laws," Rhys muttered, dragging a hand through his hair. "A loophole. Some precedent for""There is," said a voice from the doorway.We all turned. An older woman stood there, silver hair braided severely back, leaning on a carved wooden staff Mira, Rhys's pack historian, whom I'd only met once in passing during my first week."Forgive the intrusion," she said, though she didn't sound remotely sorry. "I couldn't help overhearing. And I couldn't, in good conscience, let you keep searching blind when the answer is sitting three f

We regrouped in Rhys's study. The fear in the room was so thick it made every breath feel loud. Mira spread brittle old texts across the desk, muttering about bloodline markers and scent signatures. Rhys paced, wearing a groove into the floor.I sat frozen in the corner. Trying to process that a woman I'd met once wanted to use me as a weapon."How did she know?" I finally asked. "I only found out myself hours ago."Silence. Heavier than any answer.Kaelan's jaw tightened. "There's only one way she could know something that specific, that fast.""Someone told her," Rhys said grimly.I felt sick before I even let myself think the name. "Bianca.""You don't know that," Kaelan said, though the doubt in his own voice betrayed him."Don't I?" My hands had curled into fists in my lap. "She's been furious since the ceremony. She's spent every day since telling anyone who'll listen how humiliated she was that you rejected me instead of picking her. If someone from the Draveth camp came sniffi

Mira led us to a clearing behind the pack house at moonrise. An old ritual circle, half-swallowed by moss, untouched for years."This won't be gentle," she warned, drawing a rough circle of salt and ash around me. "Awakening isn't discovery. It's a kind of breaking. What's dormant in you has to crack fully open, and that process tends to bring the truth of things with it, including truths you might not be ready for.""I haven't been ready for anything since the ceremony," I said. "Might as well add one more thing to the list."Rhys's hand brushed mine before I stepped into the circle, brief, grounding, gone before I could fully register the warmth of it. Kaelan stood at the circle's edge on the opposite side, golden eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made the bond hum warm and insistent beneath my ribs, even now."Close your eyes," Mira instructed. "Think of the clearest lie you've ever caught. Follow it back to its root."I didn't have to look far.I reject you, fatass.The memo