Chapter 5: Your Fiancé Is Waiting
1207 Words
(Sloane's POV)
The lock turned, and Jade walked in wearing the expression of someone who had just won something.
She dropped a pile of clothes onto my bed without ceremony and looked me over with open satisfaction.
"Good news," she said. "You get to live. Your marriage has been decided."
I'd been sitting on the floor with my back against the window — the one I'd been considering climbing out of for the last twenty minutes. I looked at the pile of clothes, then back at her.
"Who?" I said.
"Alpha Caden."
The name landed like a punch to the sternum. For a full second I couldn't breathe.
Caden. The Alpha who'd dismantled twelve packs in four years. The man whose name made senior wolves go quiet mid-sentence.
"That's—" I started.
"Your only option, apparently." Jade pulled me to my feet by the wrist. "He said anyone will do, and Father offered you.
Congratulations."
I grabbed her arm before she could let go. "Jade. If he finds out I was marked, he will kill me."
She looked at me for a moment, and something moved behind her eyes — not sympathy exactly, but at least the
acknowledgment that I'd said something true.
Then she shrugged it off. "He won't mark you. He already has a marked mate somewhere. So you're safe on that
front." She paused, clearly enjoying herself. "And if he does find out somehow — well. Make your peace before he gets the chance to make it for you."
That was the most Jade thing she had ever said to me.
She grabbed the hairbrush from my dresser and went to work on my hair without asking, yanking through the knots
with zero mercy. Within ten minutes she had it twisted up and clipped, and she held out the dress from the pile — draped shot silk, heavily beaded, a high neck that hit just below the jaw.
It was the kind of dress that announced itself before you walked into a room. Nothing I would ever pick for myself.
But when I looked in the mirror, I barely recognized the woman looking back at me, and I supposed that was the point.
I could be whoever I needed to be today. I could figure out the rest later.
Survive first. Feel things later.
"Let's go," Jade said. "He doesn't look like a patient man."
* * * * * * * *
The sun hit my face when we stepped outside and I realized I hadn't felt it in three days. The pack had gathered along
the path to Harlow Hall — people milling, talking low, the whole atmosphere wound tight with a mix of excitement and nerves that comes from knowing a powerful stranger is in your territory.
I spotted Nora near the edge of the path before she spotted me. When she did, she was at my side in seconds.
"Sloane." She fell into step with me, dropping her voice. "Are you okay? What is happening — are you actually going
through with this?"
Nora was one of the few people in Silverridge who had never once made me feel like a liability. She'd never
commented on my dormant wolf, never laughed at the things Jade's crew said. She was the one who quietly passed
me updates about my mother when she could.
I wanted to tell her everything. I looked at her face — open and worried — and the impulse was strong.
But telling her would pull her into something she couldn't protect herself from.
I hugged her instead, holding on a beat longer than necessary, trying to put everything I couldn't say into it. When I
pulled back, her eyes were full of questions she was smart enough not to push.
"I'm okay," I said. It wasn't exactly true, but it wasn't entirely a lie either.
Jade steered me forward. Under her breath: "Good call, keeping quiet. Let the grown wolves handle it."
I ignored her.
We were maybe thirty feet from the hall entrance when Cole stepped directly into our path.
I hadn't seen him since Mating Night. Seeing him now — jaw set, shoulders squared, looking at me like I'd done
something wrong — sent a cold, sharp feeling through my chest that I recognized as old grief trying to resurface. I shut
it down.
"Ane." He used my old nickname, which he knew I hated when said like that. "Didn't take you long."
"Excuse me?"
"Running to another Alpha." His voice had a hard edge, the kind that comes from guilt that's been converted into
offense. "I didn't think you had it in you."
For a moment I just looked at him. This was the man I'd bought lingerie for. The man who'd told me to get out while his
hands were on my sister.
"You want to talk about who moved fast?" I said. "Really?"
His jaw tightened. "That's different—"
"It really isn't." I held his gaze. "You knew what you were doing, Cole. At least be honest about that much." I glanced
between him and Jade. "You two are genuinely perfect together. I mean that."
Jade made a small sound of amusement and leaned into Cole's side. "Don't let her do the wounded act. She's not as
innocent as she looks." She ran her fingers along his lapel and tilted her mouth up toward his ear. "Someone marked
her that night, by the way. She was so desperate to get back at you she let a stranger—"
Cole moved before I could react. His hand shot out and grabbed the high collar of my dress.
"What?"
The silk tore clean to the collarbone. The beading scattered across the path in a clatter of small sounds. My neck was
completely exposed.
Cole and Jade both stared.
"The mark's gone," Cole said, his voice dropping. "She healed that fast?"
Jade's fingers were already reaching for my neck — and then a hand closed around her wrist, firm and absolute, and
she went still.
The grip didn't look rough. It didn't need to be. Jade released me immediately.
I looked up.
The man standing over us was tall, broad through the shoulders, dressed in dark clothing that made the fading late-
afternoon sun work to outline him. He moved Cole and Jade back with a single unhurried push, the way you'd move
furniture — not angry, just done with the obstruction.
Then he turned to face me.
He was handsome in the way that serious men sometimes are — a strong jaw, dark eyes that were currently focused
on me with an expression I couldn't immediately read. Composed. Certain. And carrying an Alpha aura so thick it pressed against the air around him like weather.
Something about him snagged at the edge of my memory. A familiar quality I couldn't quite place.
I pulled the torn edges of my dress together with one hand. "Thank you for—"
"So you're my chosen bride." His eyes moved over me once, measured and assessing, and then narrowed slightly.
"Then explain something to me." His voice was quiet, but it carried. "Why did I just hear someone say you'd been
marked?"
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