Marked to Hunt my Fated Mate

"Kneel," Sierra said. The word left her mouth in the typical manner, which was common to her approach of expression. Flat and final without room for argument. But then… The wolf in front of her did not kneel immediately… His name was Caden Moss, twenty-six years old, a mid-ranking pack member from the Eastern Quarter, who had rejected his fated mate three weeks ago in front of witnesses. He had signed the bond dismissal form himself, bold and stupid, like he actually believed his signature meant something more than a death sentence. He was shaking now… Good. "Are you not the one I'm talking to? I said, kneel, Caden." This time, his legs surrendered. He dropped to the stone floor of the Tribunal Hall with a sound that echoed across the high ceiling. The hall was large, cold and built to feel exactly that way. Every surface was grey, every torch burned low. The Council had designed this space to remind people that power did not bend, and neither did the law. Sierra stood before him with her hands clasped behind her back. She wore her uniform in the usual style associated with her, which was pressed, dark, every button fastened. Her black hair was pulled back tightly, not one strand loose. She had learned early that appearance was authority, and authority was everything. Two enforcers stood on either side of Caden, their faces blank. They had worked with Sierra long enough to know that silence was required during a sentencing. No one spoke unless she gave them permission. Caden lifted his eyes to her. They were red from crying, or maybe from sleeplessness. It did not matter which. "Please," he pleaded. His voice cracked somewhere in the middle of the word. "She was not right for me. The bond, it did not feel the way people say it should feel. I am not lying. I swear I am not lying." Sierra looked at him for a moment without speaking. She had heard variations of this before people giving stupid excuses that the bond felt wrong, the bond felt forced and the bond did not feel like love. They always said something like that. "The bond is not required to feel like what you imagined," she answered. "It is required to be honored. You knew the law before you signed that form. You knew what would follow." "I was scared." "Everyone is scared." She stepped closer to him, closely to the extent that she could see the dried tears on his face. "Fear is not an excuse. It never has been." She gave the signal with a single lift of her chin. The enforcers moved. Caden Moss received his punishment with the kind of sounds that would have made a softer person look away. Sierra did not look away. She never did, as looking away would have suggested that what was happening was something to feel guilty about, and guilt was not something she carried. The law existed for a reason. Without it, bonds would be dismissed like inconveniences. Society would fracture, order would collapse. She had been told this her entire life, and she had seen enough chaos in the lower packs to believe it. When it was finished, Caden was dragged out. The hall returned to silence. Sierra turned and walked toward the exit without a word. ÷÷÷ The Council chamber was warmer than the Tribunal Hall, which was the first thing she always noticed when she entered it. The high elders liked their comfort. They sat at a curved table of dark wood and watched her approach with expressions that ranged from pleased to politely indifferent. High Elder Malrick sat at the center. He was tall even while seated, his gray hair neat, his dark eyes carrying the quality she had always found difficult to name. And she could call it awareness, maybe. Like he was always listening to something no one else could hear. "Chief Enforcer Vale," he mentioned. "Another clean sentencing." "Yes, Elder." "The pack witnessed it?" "Forty-three witnesses. The records are already filed." Malrick folded his hands on the table and smiled, but the smile never quite reached his eyes. It never did. "You continue to be our most reliable instrument, Sierra." She accepted this without expression, and she did not thank him as a result of what she had learned that expressing too much gratitude in this room suggested weakness, and weakness invited unwanted attention. "You are dismissed," Malrick said. "Rest well. There is a gathering this evening and your presence will be required." She paused. "A gathering?" "A bond reveal ceremony for the elite ranks." He did not elaborate further. He simply looked at her with that listening expression and waited for her to leave. She left. Her chambers were on the upper floor of the Council Citadel, a room that reflected her rank. It was large enough, furnished simply, and entirely silent. A window looked out over the territory below, where torches lined the paths between buildings and wolves moved in pairs and small groups through the evening air. Sierra stood at that window for longer than she intended. The sentencing had gone exactly as it should have. Caden Moss had broken the law and he had been punished. The system had functioned correctly, and she had done her job. She pressed two fingers to the glass and watched her breath fog it faintly. There was nothing wrong, there was nothing missing. She was not sad and she was not lonely plus she did not wish that anyone had asked her how she was after she walked out of that hall. She did not wish for any of that. She stepped back from the window and moved to the basin in the corner to wash her hands. The water was cold, and she welcomed that. She dried her hands and sat on the edge of her bed, staring at the opposite wall. She was twenty-four years old. She had reached the rank of Chief Enforcer faster than anyone in recorded Council history. She was feared and she was respected and she was, by every measure that mattered, exactly where she was supposed to be. She sat there until the room grew dark. The summons came by messenger just after nightfall. A young enforcer, barely eighteen, knocked twice and slid a folded note under her door without waiting for a response. She picked it up and read it standing in the centre of her room. “The Ceremony of Bonds will commence at the ninth hour. Your attendance is mandatory. And also, have it in mind that you're to be in your full uniform.” Sierra folded the note and set it on the table. She had attended these ceremonies before, always as security, usually standing at the edge of the room while others discovered who they were bound to. She had watched people cry, watched them reach for each other with trembling hands. She had watched the system work exactly the way it was designed to work. She had never once felt the pull herself. She dressed carefully, fastened every button and pulled her hair back. She also checked her reflection in the small mirror by the door, not out of vanity but out of habit. Everything in order, and everything controlled. The Citadel's main hall was already filled when she arrived. Candles burned in tall iron holders along the walls. The air smelled of cedarwood and an older scent. Wolves stood in clusters, dressed in their finest. The low hum of conversation filled the space, and overhead, the high Council banners hung still in the windless room. Sierra took her position near the entrance and observed. Malrick moved to the center of the hall. The room quieted immediately. "We gather tonight," he started, his voice carrying without effort, "to honor what was written before any of us drew breath. The bond is sacred and it does not choose carelessly." Sierra kept her expression neutral. She had heard this speech before and she would hear it again. She let her gaze move slowly across the room, reading faces, checking exits, watching for anything that required her attention. It was automatic and comfortable. And then something happened that was neither. It started low, beneath her ribs. A pressure, quiet at first, like a sound heard through a wall. Then it shifted, tightened, moved upward through her chest and into her throat, and her wolf, the part of her she kept leashed, disciplined and controlled at all hours, lurched forward like something had grabbed it by the throat. Sierra's hand moved to her sternum without her deciding to move it. Her breath caught. The bond mark beneath her skin, the one every wolf carried dormant from birth, flared to life like an ember dropped into dry wood, and the heat of it spread through her so fast and so completely that for one horrible, unguarded second, Sierra Vale forgot where she was.