Page 8 of Blood Marked

Only one person in the damn Dominion walked like that.

Ruarc.

“Don’t speak,” Kael snarled, turning before his father could open his mouth. “Not yet. Just—don’t.”

But of course, Ruarc Fenrir never obeyed anyone’s command but his own.

“You should be grateful, boy.”

Kael turned fully, blood dripping from his knuckles. “Grateful?”

“She’s the one,” Ruarc said, voice level, eyes glowing faintly gold in the torchlight. “The Bond is sealed. The prophecy fulfilled.”

Kael let out a sharp, disbelieving laugh. “Prophecy. You’ve based my entire life around some rotted, bone-carved bedtime story from the age of monsters.”

Ruarc’s eyes narrowed, the calm in his face like a still pond hiding jaws beneath.

“That ‘story’ has kept our people alive. And itchoseher. You felt it. Youknowit.”

“I didn’t ask for this!” Kael snapped. “I didn’t choose her. I didn’t chooseanyof this!”

“No,” his father said coldly. “But destiny did. And it’s about damn time you stopped pretending you can outrun it.”

Kael’s hands dropped to his sides, shoulders rising and falling with each breath. There was a tightness behind his ribs that wouldn’t ease. A howling in his skull that wouldn’t stop. His wolf—the part of him buried beneath control, beneath politics and titles—was pacing. Agitated. Aroused.Drawn.

“I won’t claim her,” Kael said, voice low. “I won’t play your puppet.”

“Youwillhonor the Mark,” Ruarc said, stepping forward. “Because the other Houses saw it. The Court saw it. And if you defy it now, you don’t just shame yourself—you fracture everything we’ve built. They’ll see it as weakness.”

Kael’s laugh was bitter. “They already think I’m weak.”

“Then prove them wrong.”

Ruarc’s gaze was iron. “Seal the Bond. Make her yours. And show them what Fenrir blood is still worth.”

Kael didn’t answer. He couldn’t.

Because the truth he didn’t want to admit—the truth he’d buried deep for years—was that part of him had already started to want.

Not just her body, though gods knew that was there. Not just the flash of her temper or the way she stood straight in the middle of their snarling court like she had teeth of her own.

No. It was something worse.

It was the part of him that recognized the way her eyes flickered with hurt when no one was looking. The way she had stood in front of that ancient stone with her chin high, blood dripping and shoulders squared, like she was already used to being sacrificed.

He understood that kind of armor. He wore it too.

“They’re escorting her to the guest wing,” Ruarc said after a moment, tone shifting. “Let her rest. Tomorrow, you’ll begin the public bonding rites. We’ll hold the first audience at moonrise.”

Kael barely heard him.

Because in that moment, the thread inside him pulled.

A sharp pang of panic. Somewhere not far off. Her panic.

Kael didn’t think.

He moved.

---