All Chapters of MARKED BY THE ALPHA I CAME TO KILL : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The invitation cost a man his life. Nyra had taken it off his body an hour before the gates opened, in an alley three streets from the border checkpoint. She hadn't felt a thing while she did it. Feeling things got hunters killed. She smoothed the parchment against her palm — thick, cream-colored, stamped with a wolf's head in black wax — and handed it to the guard at the gate. "Lady Ashwood," he read off the name written inside. "Envoy from the eastern packs." "That's me." He looked at her for a beat too long. Nyra let him. A petite woman with a polite smile and mild manners didn't read as a threat and she'd spent six years learning exactly how to look like nothing worth a second glance. He waved her through. Blackthorn territory unfolded past the gate like something built to be imposing — stone halls veined with ivy, torchlight throwing gold across a courtyard full of wolves in human skin, laughing, drinking, none of them looking twice at her. She catalogued her exits in

Morning arrived with a tray she hadn't ordered, left outside her door without a knock. No message this time. Just bread still warm enough to fog the plate beneath it, and the quiet implication that someone had decided she'd be staying long enough to need breakfast.Nyra ate half of it standing at the window, watching the courtyard wake up below — grooms leading horses out to pasture, a pair of children chasing each other between the stables while their mother called something after them that made them laugh instead of stop. She catalogued it the way she catalogued everything, out of habit rather than intention, and told herself the warmth spreading through her chest at the sight was nothing worth examining.The summons came at midday, delivered by the same maid as the day's food, phrased as a request rather than an order: the Alpha would welcome her company in the eastern gardens, if she had nothing better to occupy her.She had nothing better. She went anyway, telling herself it was

She found him again the next morning, this time without the pretense of wandering into the training yard by accident. Rowan was alone for once, working through a set of forms with a practice blade, movements precise and unhurried in a way that reminded her, uncomfortably, of the way Lucian moved through a crowded room — controlled, deliberate, nothing wasted. She watched from the fence a while before he acknowledged her, though she had no doubt he'd clocked her presence the moment she arrived. "You're becoming a regular fixture out here," he said, not breaking his form. "I like watching people who know what they're doing." "Is that meant to be a compliment?" "An observation," she said, and caught herself borrowing the word from Lucian a beat too late to take it back. Rowan's blade paused mid-arc. He straightened, studying her with the same careful weighing he'd given her in their first conversation, except this time there was less hostility in it and something closer to genuine

The invitation came without ceremony this time — no note, no maid relaying careful phrasing. Lucian simply found her near the library after the evening meal had already been cleared from the hall and asked if she'd eaten, and when she admitted she hadn't, said he hadn't either, and that seemed to settle the matter for both of them. They ended up in the same small study from her memory of a version of events that hadn't happened yet — she caught herself expecting the familiarity of it before she'd actually been there, a strange doubling sensation she pushed aside without examining too closely. The room was real regardless: shelves crowded with books that looked read rather than displayed, a fire already burning low, two chairs angled toward it that suggested this was a room built for exactly one occupant most nights. A servant brought bread, cheese, a pot of something that smelled like the tea her mother used to make, memory she hadn't let herself touch in years and didn't examine n

It was Rowan's idea, technically, though Nyra suspected he'd planted it knowing exactly how it would land. "You watch this yard like you're starving for it," he'd said the day before, arms crossed, studying her with the directness he'd grown into since their conversation at the fence. "Spar him. See what happens." "That's a terrible idea." "Probably," he'd agreed, entirely too pleased with himself. "Do it anyway." So she found herself at midmorning standing across from Lucian in the training yard, practice blades in hand, a loose ring of off-duty wolves gathering along the fence with the particular anticipation of people who suspected they were about to see something worth talking about later. "You don't have to hold back," Lucian said, rolling his shoulder, the easy confidence of a man who'd never once lost a fight in this yard settling over him like a second skin. "I promise I can take it." "I wasn't planning to hold back." Something sparked behind his eyes at that, not quit