MARKED FOR PRETEND - Chapter 9: Chapter 9

There were whispers in the halls.
That wasn’t new.
He ruled a pack full of silver-tongued schemers and silk-skinned sycophants. Whispers were a language of their own in this place.
But this?
This was different.
“They say she changed the scroll.”
“That the Council never meant for her to stay.”
“Witch-blood. Cursed-blood. Burn-her-alive blood.”
Chelsea Ravenspell.
He hadn’t meant to remember her name.
He hadn’t meant to see her at all.
But that night on the Selection grounds, when her eyes met his, when something hot and ancient rippled through the air he’d felt it.
A pull.
It felt like a mate bond and also like something more.Something older.Something darker.
“She’s dangerous,” his Beta said that morning, voice low as they walked the stone corridors.
“Everyone in this palace is,” Kaden replied, not looking up.
“Not like her. The girl has no wolf. No bloodline. She wasn’t even listed until the scroll… glitched. Or whatever that was.”
Kaden said nothing.
Because he’d watched it.
He saw the Elder fumble. Saw the ink shimmer on the parchment. Saw Chelsea’s name scrawl across the scroll like it had carved itself in.
That wasn’t witchcraft.
Witchcraft needed spellwork. Movement. Intent.
That was something else.
“Whatever it is in you… is starting to wake up.”
He hadn’t meant to say it.
But when he’d seen her in the hall after curfew standing barefoot in moonlight, looking like a question the world was too afraid to ask, he couldn’t stop the words.
Her presence buzzed in his head now. Every quiet moment, it returned.
And the mark?
He hadn’t seen it yet.
But he knew it was there.
He’d felt the same hum once before. Years ago. During the war with Halemoor. Right before the forest burned for seven days. Right before the witch Queen died.
Back then, he didn’t understand it.
Now… he feared it.
“She’s not one of us,” his Beta said again.
“No,” Kaden murmured. “She’s not.”
But she wasn’t one of them either.
And that made her worse.