All Chapters of MARKED BY THE UNBROKEN ALPHA: Chapter 21 - Chapter 26

Isabella The cathedral was full of faces I knew and none I trusted.I stood at the center of the stone floor and I looked around the hall. Duke Vance smiled from the front pew and his smile did not reach his eyes. Cecilia sat beside him and she would not look at me. She stared down at her hands. King Marcus sat rigid on his stone chair at the front, his hands gripping the arms of the chair. Vanya stood to one side with her staff pressed to the floor. Her face was calm but her knuckles were white."Isabella of Silver Creek," the High Priest said loudly. His voice echoed against the stone walls. "Step forward for the Rite."I stepped forward. I let my hair fall loose over my collarbone, refusing to make the mark easier to find. I wanted to hide it until the last moment."The candidate will show her mark," the High Priest said."I will not," I said quietly."You must," the priest beside him said. "It is required."I kept my hair over my collarbone."Isabella, you must show your mark," K

Isabella Under the King's guardianship, I was moved to a suite beside his wing, and my nightly vigil was cut to one hour under a priest's supervision, which made every minute with James more precious and more dangerous.The new suite was larger and the walls were thicker. A guard stood outside my door at all times."You will be safer here," King Marcus told me when he showed me the room. His voice was firm. "This wing is under my personal watch.""Am I safer, or am I more watched?" I asked."You are both," he said. "Under the old covenant, no charge can be brought against you without my assent while you are under my protection. That is the law.""And my nightly vigil?" I asked."You will keep one hour each night in the tower," he said. "Under a priest's supervision. That is all I can allow. The court is afraid of what happened in the cathedral.""I understand," I said, although I did not.The priest who supervised my hour in the tower stood near the door and never spoke. He watched m

Riley I rode into Silver Creek before dawn on the Voice's orders.The order had come the night before, tucked inside a potion wrapper the same way every order had reached me for two years. The handwriting was small and sharp."Retrieve the boy, bring him to the capital, and use him to keep the Luna obedient now that the Rite has made her untouchable," the letter said.I read it twice."Use him to keep the Luna obedient," I said out loud to my horse. "Now that the Rite has made her untouchable."The horse did not answer. I folded the letter and put it in my coat.I rode hard through the night. The road to Silver Creek was dark and empty. I told myself I was a soldier for the starving and that this was necessary. I told myself that the palace deserved every knife the rebels sent, and that the boy was a leash I needed."The boy is a leash," I said to myself as I rode. "That is what the Voice called him from the start. A leash for the girl."But the words felt wrong in my mouth now.I re