MARKED FOR PRETEND - Chapter 7: Chapter 7
You are reading MARKED FOR PRETEND, Chapter 7: Chapter 7. Read more chapters of MARKED FOR PRETEND.
The Alpha Who Does Not Choose
They called him the Alpha who never loves. The courtiers whispered it like a prayer, or a curse, depending on which side of his temper you’d tasted.
He’d heard them. Always had.The girls who flinched when his name was spoken. The Elders who muttered when he turned from every match the Council arranged.
“No fated bonds.”“No Luna.”“No heart.”
They weren’t wrong.
Not after what happened to his mother.
Not after the way his father Alpha Castien had fallen apart when the bond broke.
A mating bond wasn’t a gift. It was a chain.
And Kaden had no intention of being shackled. And Kaden had sworn long ago that he had never be anyone’s pawn again.
The Council chamber stank of desperation.
Five Elders. Three advisors. Two sycophants pretending to be political minds.
And him.
“You cannot keep delaying this, Alpha,” Elder Mira said sharply. “The people need a Luna.”
Kaden didn’t flinch. He folded his arms, calm and cold.
“The people need a leader,” he said. “And they already have one.”
“They need unity,” another snapped. “A symbol. A bond.”
“So she can lie to me?” Kaden’s voice sliced through the air. “So she can vanish like my mother? Ruin me like she ruined my father?”
Silence.
They never spoke of Castien — not openly. Not since the former Alpha had gone mad with grief and taken three warriors down with him before his second death.
But Kaden had seen what loving the wrong person could cost.
Still, they pushed.
And so he stood, as demanded, in the shadows of the Selection Grounds — silent, arms crossed, watching the endless line of silken strangers parade across moonlight.
He never chose.That was the rule. The Elders chose, the Council chose, but he watched. Watched the girls bow and blush and preen like painted wolves.
Until she stepped forward.
The strange girl.
The one whispered to be of witch blood.
The one everyone pretended wasn’t supposed to be there.
There was nothing soft about her. No obedience in her spine. No warmth in her aura.
And yet… something stirred.
Something wrong.
Something familiar.
“You belong to the Alpha that cannot be loved.” He didn’t know where the voice came from.
Memory? Madness?
Or something deeper crawling from beneath the bones of a forgotten prophecy.
He turned away that night before the scroll was read. He told himself he was done.
But when her name burned onto the parchment, and no one claimed it—
“Chelsea Ravenspell.”
The name rang out like a mistake.
Because he’d read the scroll before. She wasn’t on it.
The parchment shimmered. Shifted. And there it was — her name, etched in ink, pulsing like a brand.
He didn’t step forward.
He didn’t raise a hand.
But the ink did. For him.
And in that moment, the world shifted.
Not because he chose her.
But because the power within him marked her.
They called him the Alpha who never loves. The courtiers whispered it like a prayer, or a curse, depending on which side of his temper you’d tasted.
He’d heard them. Always had.The girls who flinched when his name was spoken. The Elders who muttered when he turned from every match the Council arranged.
“No fated bonds.”“No Luna.”“No heart.”
They weren’t wrong.
Not after what happened to his mother.
Not after the way his father Alpha Castien had fallen apart when the bond broke.
A mating bond wasn’t a gift. It was a chain.
And Kaden had no intention of being shackled. And Kaden had sworn long ago that he had never be anyone’s pawn again.
The Council chamber stank of desperation.
Five Elders. Three advisors. Two sycophants pretending to be political minds.
And him.
“You cannot keep delaying this, Alpha,” Elder Mira said sharply. “The people need a Luna.”
Kaden didn’t flinch. He folded his arms, calm and cold.
“The people need a leader,” he said. “And they already have one.”
“They need unity,” another snapped. “A symbol. A bond.”
“So she can lie to me?” Kaden’s voice sliced through the air. “So she can vanish like my mother? Ruin me like she ruined my father?”
Silence.
They never spoke of Castien — not openly. Not since the former Alpha had gone mad with grief and taken three warriors down with him before his second death.
But Kaden had seen what loving the wrong person could cost.
Still, they pushed.
And so he stood, as demanded, in the shadows of the Selection Grounds — silent, arms crossed, watching the endless line of silken strangers parade across moonlight.
He never chose.That was the rule. The Elders chose, the Council chose, but he watched. Watched the girls bow and blush and preen like painted wolves.
Until she stepped forward.
The strange girl.
The one whispered to be of witch blood.
The one everyone pretended wasn’t supposed to be there.
There was nothing soft about her. No obedience in her spine. No warmth in her aura.
And yet… something stirred.
Something wrong.
Something familiar.
“You belong to the Alpha that cannot be loved.” He didn’t know where the voice came from.
Memory? Madness?
Or something deeper crawling from beneath the bones of a forgotten prophecy.
He turned away that night before the scroll was read. He told himself he was done.
But when her name burned onto the parchment, and no one claimed it—
“Chelsea Ravenspell.”
The name rang out like a mistake.
Because he’d read the scroll before. She wasn’t on it.
The parchment shimmered. Shifted. And there it was — her name, etched in ink, pulsing like a brand.
He didn’t step forward.
He didn’t raise a hand.
But the ink did. For him.
And in that moment, the world shifted.
Not because he chose her.
But because the power within him marked her.
End of MARKED FOR PRETEND Chapter 7. Continue reading Chapter 8 or return to MARKED FOR PRETEND book page.