MARKED BY THE ALPHA

"

"Who do you think you are?"

His voice thundered through the clearing, deep and sharp like a blade slicing through midnight.

I didn't flinch. I didn't bow. I didn't tremble like the rest.

I looked him dead in the eyes-the eyes of the Alpha feared by everyone in Black Hollow-and said,

"A queen. Her Royal Highness. And you just interrupted my coronation."

A thick silence fell over the pack.

Kael Ryker-Alpha of the Shadowfangs-stepped forward slowly, the golden ring in his left iris catching the light like fire. The mark of a born Alpha. He reeked of dominance, the kind that made even trees lean away.

"You're standing on my land," he growled. "My rules."

I tilted my chin. "Then maybe the land should find itself a new king."

A few gasps cut through the crowd. One of the wolves shifted nervously, his claws dragging across the gravel. Another dropped his eyes to the ground, refusing to watch the bloodbath that should have followed.

But Kael didn't strike.

He studied me. Watched me. As if trying to understand what kind of storm I was.

And I didn't blink.

I couldn't afford to. Not when I knew the truth: one wrong breath, and he'd smell it. The fear. The lie. The fact that I wasn't some royal. Not really. Just a girl with a strange mark on her wrist, a scar she couldn't explain, and a secret that might get her killed.

I was betting my life on a bluff.

And Kael Ryker was the kind of monster who always called them.

He stepped closer. "You're not from here."

"Neither is the moon," I said. "But it still rises."

He stopped. His mouth twitched.

A laugh?

No.

A warning.

"I'll ask one last time," he said, voice low. Dangerous. "What's your name?"

My hand tightened at my side. I thought of my parents. The wreckage. The fire. The unanswered questions that followed me like ghosts. And I remembered why I was here.

I stepped closer, until I could see the faint line of a claw mark across his neck-old, faded, but deep. A wound that never healed.

I said,

"Aria Blake. Daughter of no one. Marked by something older than you."

His eyes darkened. "Marked?"

I didn't answer. Instead, I pulled back my sleeve. Showed him the glowing scar on my wrist-the crescent-shaped burn that had appeared the night I turned seventeen.

The mark pulsed under his gaze.

And for the first time since I arrived in Black Hollow, I saw it.

The Alpha's breath hitched.

He recognized it.

And that meant I wasn't bluffing anymore.

I was a threat.