MARKED FOR PRETEND - Chapter 14: Chapter 14

They were looking at her like she was cursed again. Not the other girls. Not the guards.
The Council.
The same people who had whispered about her behind closed doors now stood in a half circle, lips pinched, eyes darting between her and the Alpha who had just announced she was leaving with him.
“He marked her,” someone murmured.
“No, not a mark — a claim. It’s not the same.”
“But the scroll wrote his name. Duskveil ink. I saw it myself.”
“She’s not even a wolf!”
“That’s the problem.”
Chelsea stood in the center of it all, spine locked in place, like a statue people had forgotten how to worship.
Her voice came out hoarse.
“Why are they saying your name was on the scroll?”
Kaden did not flinch. Just turned to her, slow and sure, like he already knew the question would come.
“Because it was.”
Her pulse stuttered.
“But you didn’t write it?”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
“The ink.”
There was silence.
Of course there was.
Because that didn’t make sense.
Because it was not enough.
“You think I’ll follow you because of a scroll?” she snapped, stepping toward him now. “Because a ghost wrote your name beside mine?”
“You will follow,” he said quietly, “because you are not safe here.”
Her breath caught.
The Council stirred.
“So I’m a threat now?”
“Not to me.”
“To who, then?”
He didn’t answer.
Just held her gaze a second too long, then turned and walked toward the waiting carriage.
A hand touched her arm, one of the Council aides, pity in her eyes.
“He’s never taken anyone before,” she whispered. “In all the selections, he’s never even blinked at a girl. And now… he’s claiming you.”
Chelsea didn’t move.
She stared at the carriage door, still open.
Stared at the guards waiting.
Stared at the empty space where a choice should’ve been.
What am I walking into?
But her feet moved anyway.
Because some part of her, the part she’d spent years burying — knew:
The carriage was too quiet.
Even the horses seemed to sense it, that this journey was more than a relocation. It was a shift. A beginning. Or maybe… an ending she hadn’t seen coming.
Chelsea sat stiffly, pressed against the corner seat, hands clenched in her lap. Across from her, Alpha Kaden stared out the window like the forest owed him something.
He hadn’t said a word since they left.
Not to her.
Not to the guards.
Not even to the Beta or Delta who rode on separate horses by the sides of the carriage, whistling as though they weren’t escorting a girl the entire continent was whispering about.
Claimed by the Alpha who never chooses.
Marked without bond. Without consent. Without logic.
The rumors were louder than the wheels beneath them.
She didn’t ask him anything else after that.
Not because she ran out of questions.
But because she was afraid of the answers.
The silence pressed harder now, as if the air itself had grown teeth. She could feel the carriage shift with every bump in the road, and still, he did not move. Didn’t blink. Barely breathed.
Was this what the mate bond was supposed to feel like?
No.
She’d heard the stories.
Fated mates were supposed to burn when they touched.
They were supposed to know—instantly. Unshakably.
But she didn’t.
And maybe that was part of the problem.
The witch who raised her had taught her many things on how to survive, how to read the stars, how to harness quiet power in secret. But when it came to mating, bonding or even love, she had said very little. Perhaps she didn’t know, or perhaps she’d believed Chelsea would never need to.
So Chelsea clung to the scraps she’d overheard. Campfire tales. Whispered myths. Echoes of other wolves’ memories. And from those fragments, she was certain of one thing:
This wasn’t that.
This was cold. Distant.
Calculated, maybe. But not empty.
She did not know what a bond was supposed to feel like, not truly. The witch had never taught her that.
But she knew something passed between them in that moment.
She knew her body, and her mark always reacted when he was near.
Something sharp.
Something silent.
And though she could not name it, she could feel it coiling from the mark on her skin,
as if it had already started this.
And something in her knew…he felt it too.
Through the corner of her eye, she studied him. Not directly though, she did not have the courage, but just enough to see the sharp line of his jaw, the way his fingers tapped once against his thigh, then stopped like he caught himself feeling something.
There was a rumor she had heard once.
Alpha Kaden Black never chose a Luna because he couldn’t.
Because he was cursed.
Because if he ever loved, it would destroy him.
And now she was the girl sitting across from him.
The girl whose name appeared beside his.
The girl who didn’t shift. Who had no wolf. Who had no place.
She should’ve stayed quiet.
But Chelsea had never been good at that.
“Why me?” she asked again, this time without the heat, without the challenge. Just… exhaustion.
His gaze cut to her. Sharp and sudden.
“I don’t know.”
She blinked. He could have lied. Could have spun something poetic or cruel. But he didn’t.
“What I saw on that scroll wasn’t a choice,” he said, voice low. “It was a decision made without me. Without either of us.”
Chelsea’s heart thudded.
“But it had your name—”
“I know.”
Another silence. But this one didn’t settle. It trembled.
“So what happens now?” she asked.
“Now,” he said, eyes locking with hers, “you come to Duskveil.”
“And after that?”
He looked away again. Not out the window this time. Down at his hands.
They arrived at the outskirts just as the first mist began to rise from the ground — thick and gray like breath held too long.
And in the distance, Chelsea saw it:
Duskveil.
Stone towers. Black flags. A silver river cutting through the hill below.
It looked like a castle built to keep things out… or in.
The guards didn’t cheer. The gates didn’t creak. No warm welcome or flutter of banners.
Just cold eyes. Watchful stares. And whispers that would not stop.
Chelsea stepped down from the carriage, her boots crunching against stone.
She could feel it now.
This place knew her.
And it had been waiting.