The Alpha’s Hidden Mate

What Marcus knew

Chapter 6: What Marcus Knew

Lena’s POV

Kade didn’t let go of her hand until they reached

the study door, and Lena didn’t ask him to.

Inside, Marcus Hale sat behind a heavy wood desk,

a woman standing near the window — the same

voice Lena had heard through the wall, older,

silver-streaked hair pulled back tight, watching the

two of them walk in with an expression Lena

couldn’t quite read. Not surprise. More like she’d

been expecting this exact moment for a long time

and was almost relieved it had finally arrived.

“Someone grabbed her outside,” Kade said, no

greeting, no patience left in his voice. “Ashwood

pin, but he wasn’t ours. And he knew her name

before I told anyone she was here.”

Marcus’s face didn’t change much, but his hands

went still on the desk. “Describe him.”

“Tall. Gold eyes in low light. Gone before I could

get more than that.”

“Rowan,” the woman by the window said quietly,

and Marcus shot her a look sharp enough to cut.

She didn’t back down. “He deserves to know,

Marcus. They both do. This has gone on long

enough.”

“Who’s Rowan?” Lena asked.

Marcus exhaled slowly, like a man setting down

something he’d been carrying for years and wasn’t

sure how his arms would feel without the weight.

“Sit down,” he said. “Both of you. This is going to

take a while, and you’re not going to like most of

it.”

Lena sat. Kade didn’t, standing instead with his

arms crossed and his eyes fixed on Marcus like a

man bracing for a blow.

“Eighteen years ago,” Marcus began, “your

grandmother, Eleanor Voss, uncovered something

inside Thornridge territory. A weapon — not silver,

not anything from our world exactly. Something

the Thornridge alpha at the time was building to

use against Ashwood, something that could kill

wolves in wolf form without a single scratch of

silver touching them. Eleanor stole the plans

before Thornridge could finish it. She brought

them here, to Ashwood, to keep them out of

Thorn ridge hands for good.”

“That doesn’t sound like something you get exiled

for,” Lena said. “That sounds like something you

get thanked for.”

“It would have been,” Marcus said. “Except the

plans went missing again, right here on Ashwood

land, less than a year later. Eleanor was blamed —

accused of selling them back to Thornridge for a

price

nobody could ever prove. The elders exiled your

whole family rather than risk keeping a traitor’s

bloodline this close to the Alpha line.”

“She wasn’t a traitor,” the woman by the window

said, voice tight. “I worked beside Eleanor for six

years. She’d have died before she handed those

plans to Thornridge.”

“Then who took them?” Kade asked.

“That,” Marcus said, “is the question I have spent

eighteen years failing to answer. But Rowan

grabbing Lena tonight tells me someone still cares

enough to keep looking — which means either the

plans never really left Ashwood territory, or

someone here still knows exactly where they

went.”

Lena’s chest went tight. “You think I know where

they are.”

“I think,” Marcus said carefully, “that you carry

Eleanor’s blood, and blood remembers things

minds forget. Wolves with a strong enough

connection to a bloodline sometimes inherit more

than looks and instinct. If Eleanor hid something

before she died, there’s a chance it’s tied to you in

ways you don’t understand yet.”

The room went quiet enough that Lena could hear

her own pulse in her ears.

“So Thornridge doesn’t just want me gone,” she

said slowly, piecing it together as she spoke. “They

think I might lead them straight to a weapon that

could win them the war.”

“Yes,” Marcus said.

“And if Rowan’s working for them,” Kade said,

voice dropping low and dangerous, “he’s not the

last one they’ll send.”

Marcus nodded once, grim. “Which is exactly why

the two of you finishing this trial and confirming

the bond publicly might be the safest thing you

can do right now. A claimed mate under an Alpha’s

protection is a much harder target than an

unclaimed girl from an exiled family standing

alone.”

Lena looked at Kade, and Kade looked back at her,

and for the first time since the ceremony, the pull

between them didn’t feel like an accident of fate.

It felt like the only solid ground left standing.

“Then we finish it,” Kade said. “All thirty days. And

whoever’s hunting her is going to have to go

through me first.”

Behind them, the study door creaked — just

slightly, just enough.

Lena turned in time to see it swing shut, and the

hallway beyond it stood empty.

But the floor, she noticed, still held the faint,

fading warmth of somebody who’d been standing

there listening, and had left only seconds before

she looked.