Marked By My Enemy Alpha

Episode10

Annalise Pov

I shot up too quickly.

A sharp pain shot through my back, but I barely noticed it because my attention was completely fixed on the doorway where Elias had just paused, his hand pressed against the frame.

“What do you mean, he won’t be looking for her first?” I pressed.

Elias didn’t turn around right away. Rosalind moved past me, placing a cool cloth on the back of my neck with the practiced ease of someone who had done this countless times, but her gaze remained on Elias, waiting for him to respond.

“Elias,” she said again, this time softly. “She’s already asking questions. You know how this will end if she keeps tugging at that thread alone.”

He let out a slow breath and finally turned to face us.

“Sit down,” he instructed me. “Properly this time. This isn’t a conversation for someone half-conscious.”

I complied, mostly because my legs felt shaky beneath me, and partly because there was something in his tone that had changed, dropping the careful neutrality he’d maintained since he picked me up off the kitchen floor.

Rosalind pulled a low stool closer to the cot and settled down, while Elias stood, arms crossed, like a man preparing for a confrontation he didn’t want to have.

“You mentioned Hunter’s parents,” I said, before either of them could backtrack. “In the corridor that first day. You said you were there the night they died. That I should know the real story.”

Elias’s jaw clenched.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” he confessed. “Not like that, not without giving you the full picture.”

“Then give me the full picture.”

He glanced at Rosalind, a silent question passing between them, and whatever answer he found in her expression seemed to settle his resolve.

“What do you know,” he asked me, “about the night Hunter’s parents died?”

“Only what everyone knows,” I replied cautiously. “That my parents killed them. That sparked the blood feud between our packs.”

“That’s the story,” Rosalind said softly. “But it isn’t the truth.”

The room felt like it was tilting slightly.“So, what is it then?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.

Elias took his time, his silence stretching out as he carefully picked his words, much like a man testing the ground beneath his feet.

“I was just a kid,” he finally said. “Barely more than a pup, training under the old Beta. I wasn’t in the room when it all went down, but I was close enough, in the pack house, to witness the aftermath.

Bodies everywhere. Total chaos. Hunter’s father was already gone, and his mother was dying right in front of him.” His voice grew rougher. “And there was Hunter, just thirteen, drenched in blood that wasn’t his, screaming for someone to tell him who was responsible.”

“And someone did,” I said slowly, piecing it together. “They told him it was Cresthaven.”

“They told him it was your father,” Rosalind interjected. “Specifically. By name.”

“Who said that?”

“The pack Elders,” Elias replied. “Corwin, mainly. He had lost his own son that same night, a boy just a bit older than Hunter, killed while defending the pack house. Grief can make people cling to beliefs that aren’t necessarily true.” He shook his head slowly.

“There were no witnesses who actually saw the attacker's faces. No wolf ever confirmed that it was Cresthaven wolves who did the killing. But Corwin needed someone to blame, and the timing was perfect. A skirmish over territory rights that had been brewing for months made Crest haven an easy target.”

My chest tightened, a chill creeping in. “So you’re saying my father didn’t do it.”

“I’m saying,” Elias said carefully, “that no one ever proved he did. Just that everyone decided he had, and once Hunter accepted that, once he built up thirteen years of grief and rage around that one belief, no one dared to challenge it.

Especially not a young Beta with no proof of his own, just a nagging feeling that something about that night didn’t quite add up.”

“What kind of feeling?” This time, it was Rosalind who answered, her voice low.

“The attackers that night didn’t have any pack markings. No Crest haven colors, no scent trails leading back to your territory.

Though honestly, no one was in the right frame of mind to look for them, not with all the grief and anger swirling around.

But there was something else.” She paused, gathering her thoughts. “A necklace was found near the bodies. Not Hunter’s mother’s. It was a stranger’s, silver, with an engraving none of us recognized. It didn’t belong to anyone from Silvercrest, and it definitely wasn’t from Crest haven.”

The necklace. The one Rosalind had mentioned earlier, tucked away in Hunter’s study.

“That’s the necklace you told me to ask him about,” I said, connecting the dots.

“It is.”

“Does he still have it?”

“He does,” Elias replied. “He’s kept it locked away for years. I’m not sure if he’s ever really allowed himself to think about what it might mean. It’s easier, I think, to hate a name than to confront the possibility that the person he’s loathed his whole life might actually be innocent. And that means the real culprits are still out there, unpunished, while he’s burned down an entire feud chasing after the wrong enemy.”

The weight of those words settled over me, sinking deep into the layers of grief and rage I’d been carrying since that fateful night when I lost my parents.

If my father hadn’t ordered that attack... If someone else, someone still out there, had killed Hunter’s parents and let Cresthaven take the fall...

Then the invasion. My parent's deaths. My exile. Everything, built on a lie that had been festering for thirteen years.

“Why are you telling me this now?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper. “Why not tell Hunter?”

“I’ve tried,” Elias said, a weariness creeping into his tone. “Years ago, long before you showed up. He wouldn’t listen. By then, his grief had hardened into certainty, and that’s a tough shell to crack, especially for an Alpha who’s built his whole identity around avenging his parents.”

He held my gaze firmly. “But you’re different. He actually listens to you, whether he wants to admit it or not. The connection you two share makes it tougher for him to brush off what you say like he did with me.”

“So you want me to talk to him.”

“I want you to be cautious about how you approach it,” Elias replied. “Because if I’m right, and someone planned that attack to pit your packs against each other, then whoever did it has succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. War, exile, thirteen years of bloodshed and animosity, all serving a purpose we still can’t grasp.” His expression darkened. “And if they’re still lurking out there, watching how well their scheme worked, then uncovering this truth could provoke more than just Hunter’s anger.”

“It could put a target on both our heads,” Rosalind finished softly.

A heavy silence enveloped the small room.

I thought about the pale strand of hair tucked away beneath my floorboard. The note in the laundry yard, left unfinished before Camille interrupted. The missing omega that no one dared to mention, and the locked cellar door that had clearly been opened recently.

“There’s something else,” I said slowly, as the pieces began to click into place in a way that made my stomach churn. “The missing omega. The one everyone’s too scared to discuss.”

Elias froze.

“What about her?”

“I think,” I said, my voice barely holding steady, “she might have information about that night too. And I suspect that’s exactly why she vanished.”

Rosalind and Elias exchanged a glance I couldn’t decipher, but the color had drained from both their faces, and for the first time since I’d met him, Elias looked genuinely scared.

“What did you find in that cellar, Annalise ?” he asked quietly.

I opened my mouth to respond.

Just then, the door swung open with a bang, and there stood Hunter, his expression a storm of anger. His piercing gaze swept over Elias, then Rosalind, and finally landed on me, as if he’d just caught wind of a conversation none of us wanted him to overhear.