Page 9 of Blood Marked

She was outside the guest chamber door, leaning hard against the wall, her breathing shallow, eyes closed. A servant girl hovered nearby, uncertain whether to help or flee.

Kael stepped into the hall without announcing himself. His shadow stretched over the stone, and her eyes flew open.

For a split second, everything in her face—confusion, exhaustion, even pain—gave way to something else when she saw him.

Relief.

Quickly masked. Gone before he could fully register it.

“You,” she said, straightening, voice tight. “What the hell was that?”

Kael didn’t answer. Not yet.

He stared at her, taking in the faint shimmer of sweat on her brow, the ragged line of the cut on her palm, the glow of the Mark beneath the silk of her tunic.

He felt her.

He didn’t know how the hell he was supposed to survive this.

“You should rest,” he said instead.

Selene arched a brow. “And you should go throw yourself off a cliff, but here we are.”

A laugh almost escaped him. Gods help him.

“I didn’t ask for this either,” she said, softer now. “But I’m not going to break just because your damn moonstone thinks we’re soulmates.”

Kael stepped closer.

She didn’t back away.

“Good,” he said, his voice just above a whisper. “Because I don’t need a soulmate.”

Selene’s eyes flicked down to the Mark, then back up again. “Then what do we do?”

Kael stared at her. The ache behind his ribs sharpened, but he gritted his teeth against it. He didn’t have an answer to that, for now.

FIVE

SELENE

Selene woke to the distant sound of steel boots outside her door.

She kept her eyes closed at first, not because she was tired—sleep had come in fits and starts—but because the moment she acknowledged the room around her, the moment she let her mind remember where she was andwhathad happened, the dam inside her would crack.

But it was already too late for that, wasn’t it?

The soft rustle of furs against her skin was unfamiliar. The bed was too large, too firm. The ceiling above her was arched stone painted in shadows from the flickering hearth. Wolf sigils carved into the beams stared down like watchers.

This was not a guest chamber.

This was a cage dressed as courtesy.

Her hand shifted beneath the blanket, and her fingers brushed bare skin.

It pulsed. A soft, persistent ache just beneath her collarbone.

The Mark.

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