MARKED FOR PRETEND - Chapter 32: Chapter 32

Kaden's pov
Her name was Lysaria. She was not a witch, not a wolf but a human, and he had loved her. She was blonde, gentle. All wide eyes and sweetness. She smelled like lavender and paper and warmth.
And for a time… he thought she was it—his calm after chaos.They met before he was Alpha, before the politics, before the selection, before everything sacred in him turned into armor.
She worked at a healing outpost just beyond the edge of Duskveil territory. She had too many questions and no fear of wolves.
He’d stumbled into her life half bleeding and half-furious after a border skirmish. She made him wait on a wooden bench while she cleaned her tools.
He remembered that first moment how she didn’t ask for his name or his rank. She just looked at the wound, clucked her tongue, and said, “You’re lucky whoever slashed you didn’t know how to aim for the artery.”
She had soft hands. But bold ones.
She didn’t care who he was.
She cared about how quiet he became when someone mentioned his father.
She touched him like he wasn’t dangerous.
She kissed him like she could tame him.
And Kael—Kael adored her. His wolf, who growled at everyone, would go silent the moment she entered a room.
She was the only one Kael didn’t want to rip apart.
His wolf, wild and untamed, snarled at everyone. Even pack. Even blood.
But when Lysaria touched Kaden’s face, Kael went silent. Peace.That’s what it felt like.
Not the kind that comes from control or command. But the rare, aching kind that makes a man believe maybe just maybe he doesn’t have to be a weapon forever.
They never shared a mark. But sometimes… the bond doesn’t need a ceremony to take root.
And it did. Deep.
He would have chosen her. Even if it broke tradition. Even if it burned his title.
But fate doesn’t care about softness.
Or love.
⸻
Then came the night she died.There was no battle, no enemy at the gate.
Only Lysaria.
Collapsed. Bleeding. Poisoned.
Kaden held her, panicked, shaking.
She smiled through the pain.
Told him it was okay.
Said she’d drink that poison again if it meant he lived.
She told him she knew it had been meant for him.
That she’d seen the signs.
That she’d accepted it.
“Let them use me,” she whispered. “As long as they don’t take you.”
He believed her.
She gripped his arm, tears streaking down her face.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, over and over again.
“Please… Kaden… forgive me.”
He didn’t understand.
“Forgive you for what?” he rasped, trying to hold her together, trying to keep her here.
But she just sobbed harder.
Shaking her head.
Saying she was sorry. Saying she loved him.
She pressed her hand to his cheek like she always did when he couldn’t breathe.
And then—she stopped breathing herself.
Kael had howled, a sound so deep and wounded it fractured something in Kaden’s ribs.
He tried to tear free, tried to save her but it was already too late.
Her breath faded in Kaden’s arms.
Her heart stopped against Kael’s fur
And Kaden shattered.
The rage that followed burned half a city’s worth of trees.
But after the fire, came silence.
Kael went dormant.
He refused to shift, refused to speak to him for years.
Kaden buried her by the river she loved, left no grave marker,no name.Just flowers she once pressed into a journal.
He mourned her for years.Thought she had drunk the poison by accident.
Thought she was caught in a trap meant for him.Thought she died saving him.
And worst of all, he thought he was the reason.
That his love had doomed her.
So he shut himself off.
Built walls.
Chose control over connection.
Ruled like stone.
Because softness had a cost.
And love?
Love had a body count.
He ruled in silence, kissed strangers who meant nothing.
Trusted no one.
Felt nothing.
Because Lysaria had died for him.
Because loving him had killed her.
Or so he thought.
Until the truth came years later. A scout returned with intercepted council documents. An ex-spy confirmed details no one else could’ve known.
Lysaria had made a deal, she had traded secrets. His secrets.
And when the Council’s plan spun too far out of control—
when the poison arrived—
she drank it.
Not to save him.
But to escape the consequences.
To die with his love instead of live with his hatred.
And her last words— “Forgive me.”—finally made sense.
He didn’t think love was something he’d feel again.Not after Lysaria.Not after silence, poison, and years of pretending it didn’t still hurt.Not after betrayal wore the face of tenderness.
Until Chelsea.
Until a girl marked by nothing, and yet somehow claimed by fate, walked into the Selection with defiance in her eyes and a secret stitched into her skin.
Until a girl who wasn’t sweet or safe walked into his life and smelled like the start of a storm.
Until Kael stirred.First a twitch, the a whisper , then a growl.
Until Kael breathed.
And when she touched him—barely a brush—
Kael breathed.
He had killed Lysaria in his heart a hundred times. But now… he finally let the truth bury her.
And Chelsea?
She was not Lysaria.She wasn’t safety, she wasn’t stillness.
But maybe—just maybe she was truth.
And Kael, after all this time, was ready to find out.
⸻