The Alpha’s Secret Mark

Chapter 4: Anyone Will Do

(Sloane's POV)

Three days after Mating Night, I pulled my collar aside and stared at my own neck in the mirror.

The mark was gone. Or rather — it had healed over completely, smooth skin where the bite had been, no bruising, no visible trace. Faster than anything I'd ever seen or read about.

I pressed two fingers against the spot. I could still feelit somehow, faint and internal, like a scar that lived under the

surface. But no one looking at me would know it was there.

Small mercy, given everything else.

Today was the Mating Ball. Ironwood's Alpha — Caden — would choose his Luna from among Silverridge's eligible women. The rest of both packs would mingle, and somewhere in that crowd I was supposed to find a man willing to take a wolf-less, secretly-marked girl as his mate before the night ended.

My father's ultimatum hadn't softened with the days. If anything, the memory of his eyes when he'd said it — you will leave this house on a slab — had gotten sharper.

I sat on the edge of my bed and tried to think clearly. I'd gotten myself dressed. I had a plan, loosely defined as go, try, don't panic. It wasn't much, but it was what I had.

When I stood and crossed to the door, the lock clicked.

From the other side, I heard Jade laugh.

"Relax, Sloane. Nobody's going to want you down there anyway." Her voice was bright and cheerful, which was always

worse than when she was mean. "You might as well just stay up here and wait."

I pressed my palm flat against the door. "Jade. Open the door."

"I really don't think I will." A pause, and then her footsteps moved away down the hall.

I stood there for a moment, then looked around the room. The window latch was old. I'd known that since I was twelve.

(Caden's POV)

The drive from Ironwood territory to Ashford Creek took forty minutes, which was thirty-nine minutes longer than I needed to be alone with my thoughts.

Rhett sat across from me in the sedan, going through his tablet with the practiced efficiency of a man who understood

that silence was sometimes the only safe response to my moods. Spread across the seat beside me were the week's incident reports — rogue movement along the eastern border, three scout rotations I needed to approve, a property dispute in the southern sector that had escalated to a formal complaint.

I'd read the same paragraph four times.

"Still nothing?" I said.

Rhett didn't look up from his screen, but his jaw tightened slightly. "No new marked women reported in any affiliated

pack. I've checked every name submitted through the regional registry."

"Expand the search."

"I already did." He set the tablet down. "Caden. If she's from a smaller pack — or if her wolf is dormant enough that the

bond isn't registering on her end — she may not even know the mark is there anymore. It heals over. She could think the whole thing just... disappeared."

That thought had occurred to me too, and I didn't like it.

My wolf had been agitated for three days straight — restless in a way that affected my concentration, my patience, and

apparently my ability to read a two-page incident report. He wanted her found. He wanted her back,and the dead silence where the bond should have been felt like a constant low-grade irritation that no amount of work could dull.

The sedan slowed and stopped in front of Harlow Hall.

I got out, straightened my jacket, and assessed the situation. A cluster of women near the entrance went quiet when I stepped out of the car. A few took a visible step back. One or two held their ground and met my eyes with the particular expression of someone calculating odds.

I knew what they'd heard about me. I didn't spend energy managing my reputation — it was accurate enough to be useful, and the parts that were exaggerated kept certain problems from arising in the first place.

Alpha Dean was waiting just inside the entrance — an older man, thick through the shoulders once but soft now, his

handshake careful and political.

"Alpha Caden." He clasped my forearm. "Welcome to Harlow Hall. We're honored to host you."

"Alpha Dean." I returned the grip. "I need a word before we get into the formalities. The rogue incursion that hit your

eastern border four nights ago — what progress has your pack made in tracking the origin point?"

Something shifted in his expression. His eyes moved briefly to the side wall, the way people's eyes do when they're

about to say something imprecise.

"We've had several competing priorities," he said carefully.

"So none."

The hall went noticeably quiet around us.

"I suggest you make it a priority," I said, keeping my voice even. "Because the same group came through Ironwood

territory the same night, and if the pattern holds, they'll move again at the dark moon. That's your border. That's your

responsibility." I held his gaze a beat longer than was comfortable. "I'd rather not have to clean it up for you."

Dean's face had gone carefully neutral. Beside me, I caught Rhett pressing his lips together to keep them straight.

The formalities resumed.

I moved through the introductions on autopilot — names, families, ranks, all of it washing past me with minimal

traction. The women I was presented to ranged from openly ambitious to visibly terrified, and I had nothing to offer any of them that they actually wanted. I was aware of that.

After twenty minutes, a man in a gray suit approached me with the specific energy of someone whose job it was to

keep things moving.

"Alpha Caden, I'm Marcus — I've been coordinating the event for Silverridge. You've met most of our top-ranked

families at this point. Has anyone caught your interest?"

The room stilled. Everyone in earshot wanted to hear the answer.

I looked across the assembled women and felt nothing except the same dull absence where my bond should have

been live and pulling.

"Not particularly," I said. "But before I ask for volunteers, there's something everyone here needs to understand." I

raised my voice just enough to carry. "I won't be marking anyone I select today. I have a marked mate already.

Whoever agrees to this arrangement does so knowing that — a nominal match, nothing more."

The silence that followed had a specific texture to it. Calculation, wariness, wounded pride from a few corners.

Good. I wasn't here to mislead anyone.

"So the specifics matter less to me than the willingness," I said. "I'll take anyone reasonable. Marcus — what about

your own family?"

Marcus blinked. "I — my daughter is already mated. To Cole." He stumbled slightly over the recovery.

"Father." A woman's voice cut through the room, smooth and deliberate. She stepped forward from the side of the

crowd, turned to face me directly, and smiled the particular smile of someone who has been waiting for their moment. "You're forgetting about Sloane."

She was dark-haired, well-dressed, and composed in a way that felt slightly too rehearsed.

"I'm Jade," she said. "Marcus's daughter — by his first marriage. Sloane is my sister. She's been unwell today and

couldn't make it down, but she's always admired you, Alpha Caden." The smile stayed perfectly in place. "I think you'd like to meet her."

Something in the phrasing didn't land right. Couldn't make it down. The carefully neutral expression. The slight

emphasis on unwell.

But all women except the one who was already mine were equally irrelevant to me. The arrangement only needed to

be agreeable on both sides.

"Fine," I said. "Bring her."