The Alpha's Mark Came Too Late

I was the treaty bride carefully chosen by Silvermoon pack and sent to Shadowridge pack. My presence there guaranteed ten years of peace between the two packs. All because I looked a little like the woman who had saved Theron, the Alpha of Shadowridge. For 1007 nights, Theron left bite marks all over my body, but the one mark reserved for a Luna never appeared. I begged him to let me go. He gripped my chin and laughed. "You're a stand-in. What makes you think you have the right to beg me?" After that, I was trapped in Shadowridge. Not his Luna, not his mate, just a shadow he could forget whenever he pleased. Three years later, the woman who had supposedly saved him returned from the dead: Celine. He announced to the pack that he would take her as his mate. Whatever hope I had left died. That same night, I found the man whose life I had once saved. "Help me fake my death. On the night of the eclipse, I want to die in front of Theron." Chapter 1 It was the thousand and seventh night. When he rolled off me, dawn had not yet broken. I reached for the back of my neck. Bare. Nothing there. He had bitten my shoulder, my collarbone, my wrist. For a thousand and seven nights, he had avoided the one spot at the back of my neck reserved for a Luna's mark. It was a constant reminder that he wanted only the face that bore a faint resemblance to Celine, not me. "Go to the east court after dawn," he said, buckling his belt. My hand stilled. Only then did I nod. "Okay." A room in the east court had been locked for three years. On the fifteenth of every month, I had to go inside. I carried the clothes into the courtyard one piece at a time, aired them in the sun all day, then hung them back up before dark. They were Celine's clothes. I had counted them: 47 pieces in total. I had spent three years here, taking care of a dead woman's clothes. He came to the east court that afternoon while I was putting the last piece away. It was white, with a collar of gray fox fur. "Put it on," he said. I obeyed. He sat in the chair by the door and watched me without a word. He watched until the sun sank low over the courtyard and stretched my shadow to his feet. "Turn around." I turned, exposing the back of my neck. I shivered ever so slightly in the wind. I heard him rise. His footsteps stopped behind me, so close I could feel his breath on the back of my neck. For the first time in three years, I thought he was finally going to bite me. Instead, he reached out and ripped the cloak from my shoulders. "Take it off," he said. "You don't look like her." The next day was the winter inspection. Every year, after Shadowridge's first snow fell, every adult wolf appeared before the Moon Goddess's altar so the Elder could test the strength of their bloodline. I stood at the center of the altar, removed my outer robe, closed my eyes, and searched for the creature that was supposed to live inside me. I had searched for three years, yet found nothing. I opened my eyes. Someone below the altar laughed. Then another. Soon, the whole crowd was laughing. "A worthless wolf who'll never shift. No wonder Silvermoon sent her away as a treaty bride." The Elder closed the register and made another entry, his pen scratching softly across the hide. "Third year. Still no shift." Theron sat in the highest chair on the altar, watching the entire time without saying a word. I bent to pick up my robe, but a young man got there first and held it out to me. I reached for it, but the robe fell back into the snow. Theron had stepped between us before I even noticed. He caught the young man's wrist and pinned it against the stone steps in front of the altar. Crack. The bone snapped. The young man dropped to his knees, letting out a muffled groan. The crowd below the altar fell silent at once. "Keep your filthy hands to yourself. She isn't yours to touch." He released the man, bent to pick up my robe from the snow, shook it out, and draped it around my shoulders again. Then he walked away. I stood where I was and watched the young man crouch in the snow, clutching his hand. Theron was always like that. He would not mark me or acknowledge me as his mate, but if anyone looked at me twice, he would have their eyes gouged out by nightfall. After three years of living like that, I had had enough. Before dawn the next day, the horn at the main house sounded three long blasts and two short ones: the highest-level alarm. In three years, I had heard it only once. By the time I got dressed and ran out, everyone was running north. Beta Gordon pushed against the flow of people, his weathered face more lined than usual. "Ms. Ella, please go back inside." "What happened?" Gordon looked at me and swallowed hard. At last, he said, "A caravan from the northern border found someone in the snow and brought her back. It's Celine. She's alive." Chapter 2 Theron rushed out of the council hall. It was the first time in three years I had seen him run. I stood at the very back of the crowd and watched him wrap Celine in his cloak and carry her down the street. Snow fell on his shoulders, but he never noticed. That same night, he announced that he would hold their mating ceremony. As the hall emptied, I stopped him. "Since the Alpha has chosen his mate, I no longer serve a purpose," I said. "Send me back to Silvermoon and find another way to renew the treaty." He approached me, one step at a time, then pinned me against the stone wall. "Back to Silvermoon? Ella, you're a stand-in. What makes you think you can bargain with me?" "You're taking her as your mate. Why keep me here?" "You don't need to know." And with that, he left without looking back. Celine spent six days recovering. On the seventh, she could finally get out of bed. The first thing she did was summon me to the east court. Her gaze dropped to my collar. Her hand shot out too quickly for me to dodge. She pulled out my moonstone and cradled it in her palm. Her hand began to shake. "This..." I did not answer because I was staring at the open collar of her robe. A stone identical to mine hung there, gray-white and crescent-shaped, with a thin silver line through its center. My blood went cold. My mother had left me a matching pair. I had just turned 19 when I lost one, before I was sent to Shadowridge. At the cliff on the border between the two packs, I came across a black wolf covered in blood. An arrow had struck him. A hole gaped in the right side of his chest, and the surrounding fur was clotted with blood. I had no medicine, so I pressed the stone against the wound to stop the bleeding. I held it there until nearly dawn, when someone finally came from the far side of the cliff. Afraid the border patrol would catch me, I snatched back the stone I still had, dropped my cloak, and ran. I never once looked back at his face, and I assumed the cloak had rotted away in the snow at the foot of the cliff long ago. It had not. It was hanging from this woman's neck. "This stone." Celine's voice trembled. "On the night of the blood moon three years ago, I took the one Theron was clutching in his fist." She lowered her voice as she finished speaking, but I still heard every word. So that was how Celine had gotten the moonstone. She had stolen it from him. Standing in the middle of that room, I suddenly understood everything. I was the one who had saved Theron at the cliff that night. I had held his wound closed. I had stayed with him until dawn. For three years, I had been used as a stand-in for the woman who stole my moonstone. I had been favored in her place, cursed in her place, cared for her clothes, slept at Theron's side in her place, and still been told that my eyes didn't look enough like hers. I started laughing. Ignoring whatever Celine said behind me, I walked out of the house. That night, I went to Theron myself. I wanted to see how Theron would react to the truth. The moment I saw him, I said, "I saved you three years ago, not Celine." The room was quiet for a long time, long enough for me to hear the fire crackling in the hearth. Theron laughed and tucked my hair behind my ear. "Ella, a wolf dragged me back from that cliff three years ago, but you can't even shift." "But what if Celine made up the story about a wolf dragging you back? If you would just investigate what happened that year, you would know..." "Enough!" Theron frowned. "Celine will soon become the Luna of Shadowridge. Ella, you need to show her respect!" I looked into his eyes and suddenly did not want to argue anymore. He had never believed me. There was no longer any reason for me to stay. That night, someone knocked three times on the back window of the medicine hut. I opened it. Raynor climbed in. He was a rogue who had come to Shadowridge that winter and been assigned to the outermost patrol. Last year, I had secretly dragged him out of the woods near the border and treated him in that hut. He owed me his life and had promised to grant me one request, whatever it was. I looked at him and demanded, "Help me fake my death in front of Theron." Chapter 3 "When?" "The next eclipse," I said. "Scents are hardest to distinguish that night. No one will be able to pick out mine. "I've checked the cliff. Twenty paces down, there's a stone ledge hidden from anyone standing above. Rig a net there. Beneath the net is an underground river that never freezes in winter. It will carry me downstream." "But you'll still be alive." He stared at me. "If you go over that cliff alive, all he has to do is follow your scent downstream. He'll know you survived." I pulled a crystal vial from the lowest shelf of the medicine rack and set it on the table. "I've prepared deathgrass potion. It will stop my heart for six hours." I looked out the window. There were three days left until the next eclipse. Around midnight, an uproar erupted outside the medicine hut. I pushed the door open and found a crowd gathered outside. At the front, a mother knelt in the snow, cradling a pup whose body had already gone stiff. I knew that pup. Two nights earlier, his fever wouldn't go down, so I had given him half a spoonful of a fever-reducing potion. "You killed him." The mother lifted her head. "You gave him that medicine." I crouched down and reached for the pup, but his mother shoved me away. "Don't touch him!" "Bring the medicine here," I said. "I'll drink it in front of all of you." Someone fetched the small clay bowl from the hut. I took it and drank from it. A quarter of an hour passed. I remained standing in the snow, completely unharmed. I was about to speak when I heard footsteps approaching from the direction of the altar. Celine had arrived. Supported by two maids, she approached the mother and crouched beside her. She brushed the snow from the pup, then looked up at me. "Did you touch this pup?" I froze. I had touched him. I had pressed his belly to check for bloating, but only for a few seconds. I nodded. "I did." "Then it wasn't something he swallowed." She turned to the mother. "His skin is flushed and his face has turned blue. He must have touched something that triggered an allergy. "Ella treats so many patients every day. She could easily have come into contact with something without realizing it." A murmur swept through the crowd around us at her words. The color drained from my face. She had not accused me of poisoning him. She had accused me of carrying an allergen on my hands. The accusation had no evidence behind it, but it didn't need any. I did not dodge when the mother threw herself at me. Her nails scratched my face from my brow to my jaw, but no one stepped forward to stop her. The trial took place before the altar, with torches arranged in a ring and the entire pack assembled. Theron sat above me on the altar while I knelt before him. The Elder raised his head. "Why did that pup die?" I opened my mouth, but no words came out. A three-month-old pup had died overnight. I could think of seven or eight possible causes, but I could not name even one with certainty. I had not been given enough time to examine the body, and I would not guess at a diagnosis. Theron remained silent until the Elder finished reading the final charge. Then he stood and declared, "Her negligence caused a pup's death. Make her kneel on the silver sand until dawn." The bed of crushed silver before the altar was where those who broke pack law were made to kneel. When I knelt, the sharp silver grit dug into my knees, sending pain deep into my bones. The snow fell harder. Theron remained on the altar until midnight, silent and unmoving. By the time Gordon came to help me up, both my legs were numb. He escorted me to my door, pressed a small cloth bundle into my hand, then turned and left. It was not medicine, but moss soaked in snowmelt to dress my wounds. I sat on the threshold and laughed aloud. He had buried his concern so deep that in the three years I'd been there, I had never once seen a trace of it. I looked up at the sky. Three days until the eclipse. Chapter 4 The night of the mating ceremony, there was an eclipse. The torches before the altar had been burning since afternoon, and the pack members stood in rows all the way down to the foot of the hill. Theron stood in the middle of the altar dressed in black, with Celine beside him, her white robe trailing on the ground. The Elder raised his hand to announce the start of the ceremony, but Celine suddenly knelt. "On the night of the blood moon three years ago," she said, lifting her face to Theron, "someone put wolfsbane in your waterskin." She raised a hand and pointed at me below the altar. "And the person who poisoned you is still standing here tonight." Every head turned at once. "Three years ago, I was still in Silvermoon territory," I said. "Why would I travel all the way here to poison Shadowridge's Alpha?" Celine's voice was soft. "Then explain this." She pulled open her collar and held up the stone. "I used this stone to stop Theron's bleeding. It matches the one around your neck. Tell everyone where you got yours." "It was my mother's," I said. "One she gave to me. The other was sewn into the cloak she left me." "And the cloak?" Celine asked. "Lost." "Lost where?" I said nothing. Celine smiled faintly, then turned to Theron. "Alpha," she said. "What were you clutching in your fist that night three years ago?" The crowd below the altar fell silent. Theron stood in the middle of it all without moving. "A moonstone," he said. Celine shuffled forward on her knees. "Alpha, Ella cannot shift, yet she possesses the moonstone you were clutching at the scene. What reason could she have had for being there, except to poison you?" Theron slowly turned toward me. "Ella. Say she's lying." "Theron, does anything I say matter?" He did not move. I stepped back. "I told you that I saved you that night, but you never believed me." I took another step. Crescent Cliff lay directly behind the altar. I stopped three paces from the edge, turned my head and looked at Celine. "You say you took the poison for him that night." She lifted her face slowly. "Then tell the whole pack which side of his body was wounded." A torch popped. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. Everyone on the altar began turning toward Celine. Even Theron slowly turned to look at her. She could not answer, because she had never touched him. That night, she had hidden behind the rocks until I fled, then emerged to pick up the stone I had left behind. I watched her face go pale. Then something shifted beneath her white robe, and a short blade slid free, its edge stained purple with wolfsbane. Celine cursed, "Bitch!" Theron's pupils contracted, and he lunged for me like a madman. "Ella!" For the first time in three years, he had chosen me. It was too late. The moment Celine's blade sank into my shoulder, the ground vanished beneath my feet. I fell backward. The last thing I saw was Theron sprawled at the cliff's edge, his fingertips less than half an arm's length from mine. He was shouting something, but I could not make out what he was saying. With one free hand, I bit open the crystal vial hidden in my sleeve and swallowed its contents. Blood poured from my shoulder, running down my arm and over the back of my hand. At that instant, a bright, intricate pattern surfaced on the back of my hand and climbed along my veins. Heat flared in my chest. The moonstone I had worn for nineteen years rose from beneath my collar and blazed with light. I opened my mouth to cry out, but my heart stopped at that exact moment. As darkness closed over me, a faint wolf's growl sounded in the depths of my mind.