Marked By My Enemy Alpha

Episode13

Camille

“How did you know it was still here?” Hunter’s voice was low, carrying a dangerous edge I hadn’t heard directed at me in years. “I never showed you this necklace. I never told anyone what happened to it.”

Camille’s mouth opened and closed, caught off guard. For once, she didn’t have a quick lie ready to roll off her tongue.

“I — " she began.

“Answer me.” He stepped closer, and even I could feel the weight of his alpha presence filling the room, heavy and commanding. “How did you know, Camille?”

“I heard rumors,” she blurted out, her words tumbling out too fast. “Years ago." Servants talk, Hunter, you know that. Someone must have seen you with it once and assumed—”

“No one has seen this necklace since the week of the funeral,” Hunter interrupted, his tone firm. “I made sure of that.”

Camille’s composure began to crack, her eyes flicking toward the door as if she was calculating her chances of escape.

“You’re overreacting,” she said, forcing a laugh that sounded brittle and wrong. “It’s just a necklace, Hunter. I don’t understand why—”

“Wren,” I said suddenly, watching Camille’s expression shift the moment the name slipped from my lips.

Her entire body went tense.

“You told him she was sent away,” I pressed on, stepping forward despite the warning glare. Hunter shot my way. “For her own safety, right? But he never confirmed that himself. He just took your word for it.”

“This has nothing to do with her,” Camille snapped, her response too quick, too sharp.

“Doesn’t it?” Hunter’s voice dropped to a quiet intensity that felt more threatening than any shout. “You knew about the necklace. You lied about Wren. Two things tied to the same night my parents died, and you expect me to believe it’s just a coincidence.”

“I am your fiancée,” Camille insisted, her voice rising, panic seeping through her polished facade. “Your future, Luna. You would trust her word over mine? The word of an omega who tried to kill you not two weeks ago?”

“I would choose truth over comfortable lies,” Hunter replied. “Regardless of who it comes from.”

Camille’s eyes welled up, quick and unexpected, the kind of tears I had seen her conjure before, designed to disarm rather than reveal genuine emotion.

But beneath that facade, just for a fleeting moment, I caught a glimpse at something else. Fear. Real fear.

“Where is she, Camille?” Hunter pressed. “Where’s Wren?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Camille replied, inching back toward the door.

“The east cellar,” I interjected. “That’s where she is, isn’t it? That’s why the door’s been left unlocked. Someone’s been hiding her down there.”

Camille’s face lost all its color in an instant.

“You have no idea what you’re getting into,” she warned, and for the first time since I had met her, her voice trembled with what felt like genuine desperation. “Some things are better left buried, Hunter. For everyone’s sake.”

“Is that a threat?” Hunter asked, his tone low and steady.

“It’s a warning,” Camille said, already slipping through the door. “You should have let this go when you had the chance.”

Before either of us could react, she dashed down the corridor, her footsteps quickly fading into the shadows of the pack house.

Hunter didn’t waste a moment. He was already moving before I could fully grasp what had just unfolded, striding toward the door with a determination that left no room for debate.

“The cellar,” he commanded. “Now. We need to get there before she can alert anyone else involved.”

I trailed behind him in silence, my heart racing, the pale strand of hair and the note on my room floor burning in my thoughts like a countdown I couldn’t ignore.

In just a few minutes, we reached the east cellar, Hunter’s long strides covering the ground faster than I could keep up. When we rounded the last corner toward the stack of crates concealing that rusted, unmarked door, we both froze.

The door was wide open.

And the room beyond it was empty.

Not abandoned, just empty. A narrow cot was shoved against the far wall, the blankets still rumpled as if someone had rushed out in a hurry. A half-eaten plate of food sat there, still faintly warm. On the floor, a single silver hair tie lay discarded.

Whoever had been kept here … Wren, if it really was her, was gone.

I could hear Hunter’s jaw clenching tight, the sound almost audible. “Someone moved her. Recently. Within the last hour.”

“Camille,” I whispered. “She must have tipped them off the moment she walked away from us.”

Hunter turned slowly, his eyes dark with a fury I had never seen directed at anyone but me. For a brief, unsettling moment, I realized this was the version of him that Cresthaven had feared for thirteen long years, the one capable of reducing an entire pack to ashes.

“Then we’re not the only ones who know she’s here,” he said. “That means whoever’s been hiding her has connections within this pack. People loyal enough, or scared enough, to move a prisoner without leaving a trace.” His gaze swept the empty room one last time before locking onto mine, hard and determined. “Camille didn’t do this alone.”

A faint sound echoed from somewhere deeper in the cellar passage behind us…quiet, deliberate footsteps retreating further into the shadows.

Hunter’s head snapped toward the noise instantly.

Someone had been listening.