Page 3 of Blood Marked

He clenched his jaw until something in it popped.

The scent of her still lingered in the courtyard—spice and storm-washed skin and something older, something beneath the blood. Something that twisted in his gut and made his wolf stir, low and restless.

She should not have smelled like that.

She shouldn’t have looked like that either—so damn breakable and defiant all at once.

And she sure as hell shouldn’t have talked to him like she had teeth sharper than his.

Kael exhaled slowly, shoulders rolling with pent-up tension as he turned away from the courtyard and stalked toward the war hall. The guards peeled away like smoke. No one dared follow him when he moved like this—sharp, cold, seething beneath the skin.

The old bones of the citadel groaned around him, stone and timber holding centuries of blood and secrets in their foundations. His boots echoed against worn flagstones, thecorridors quiet save for the occasional murmur of servants and the rustle of banners overhead—banners stained with House Fenrir’s crimson crest, the black fang of prophecy biting through a silver moon.

A symbol Kael had been born beneath.

One he’d hated ever since he was old enough to understand what it meant.

The moment he pushed open the heavy doors to the war hall, the scent of blood, old leather, and incense rushed up to meet him.

His father stood at the far end, arms crossed, silver hair braided with bone and iron, eyes like molten gold boring into Kael the second he entered.

“You made a show of yourself.”

Kael didn’t flinch. “She insulted me.”

“Shechallengedyou,” Ruarc corrected, voice low and rough like gravel dragged across steel. “And you let her.”

“She’s human.”

“She’s asymbol.” His father took a step closer, the long braid swinging like a blade over one shoulder. “And symbols don’t bleed unless we want war on our doorstep again. Have you forgotten what’s at stake?”

Kael’s fists curled at his sides. “No. I’ve just stopped pretending any of this is sane.”

A low chuckle broke from Ruarc’s throat—void of humor, all teeth.

“She has old blood,” the Alpha King said. “The Veil called to her. The Mark will choose.”

Kael’s lip curled. “The Mark can go fuck itself.”

He turned on his heel, fury burning in his throat, but his father’s voice snapped like a whip behind him.

“Youwillstand beside her at the ceremony. You will accept whatever fate binds you—and if it binds you to her, you willseal it.”

Kael froze. A silent war played out in the set of his shoulders, the tightness in his spine.

His wolf was pacing now, claws scraping just beneath his skin.

“She’s not one of us,” he said after a moment, low and cold. “She doesn’t belong in this court. In our blood. She’ll get eaten alive.”

His father smiled, thin and cruel. “Then let the fangs come. And we’ll see what survives.”

Kael didn’t sleepthat night.

He didn’t try.

He sat on the outer edge of the training circle beneath the hollowed bones of the old moon temple, shirtless in the bitter cold, his breath fogging the air as the stars watched in silence.

A jagged scar curved over his ribs—a souvenir from the first duel he’d ever lost, a reminder that strength didn’t mean immortality. It meant choices. And consequences.

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