The Alpha’s Hidden Mate

Ashwood Territory

Chapter 3: Ashwood Territory

Kade’s POV

Kade hadn’t slept.

He’d spent the night pacing the length of his room

in the pack house, staring out the window at the

skyline past the river, waiting for the sun to come

up so he could stop pretending he had any control

over what was happening to him. The bond sat in

his chest like a hook, pulling toward the Voss

house every time he stood still too long. He hated

it.

He needed it to stop. Neither of those things

mattered anymore.

By seven, he was in the truck, driving down

streets he’d known his whole life — past the

shuttered corner stores on Gratiot, past the

church with the boarded rose window, past the

chain-link edge of pack land where Ashwood

territory started and the rest of the city pretended

it didn’t exist. He pulled up outside the Voss house

and sat there for a full minute before he made

himself get out.

Lena was already waiting on the porch with a

single duffel bag, like she didn’t trust herself to

pack more than she could carry running.

“Morning,” he said.

“Is it?” She looked past him at the truck like it

might bite her. “Feels more like a countdown.”

He didn’t have an answer for that, so he opened

the passenger door instead and let the silence do

the talking.

They drove without speaking for the first ten

minutes.

Kade kept both hands on the wheel and his

eyes on the road, but he could feel her next to

him the way you feel heat coming off a stove —

steady, impossible to ignore, getting worse the

closer

they got to pack land.

“You said someone in the crowd already knew

who I was,” Lena said finally. “You never told me

who.”

“I don’t know yet.”

“But you have a guess.”

He exhaled through his nose. She wasn’t wrong.

He’d been running names since last night, and one

kept surfacing no matter how many times he tried

to push it down.

“My father’s old advisor,” he said. “Marcus Hale.

He’s been with Ashwood since before I was born.

He knew my grandmother. If anyone still alive

remembers why your family got exiled, it’s him.”

“Is he dangerous?”

“He’s careful,” Kade said. “Which is worse.”

The truck rolled through the gate at the edge of

Ash-wood land, past two guards who straightened

the second they clocked Kade’s face — and then

went rigid all over again when they clocked Lena

sitting beside him. Word had already traveled. Of

course it had.

The pack house sat at the top of a rise, red brick,

three stories, older than most of the city around it.

Kade parked in the gravel lot and killed the engine,

and for a second neither of them moved.

“Thirty days,” Lena said quietly, staring up at the

building like it might swallow her. “That’s not very

long.”

“It’s long enough for people to make up their

minds about you,” Kade said. “Whether you want

them to or not.”

He got out before she could respond, circled the

truck, and opened her door — an old habit he

didn’t examine too closely. She stepped out slow,

duffel bag over one shoulder, spine straight, chin

up, like she’d rehearsed the posture of not looking

scared.

It didn’t fool him. He could smell the fear on her,

sharp under the surface, and something about

that — about her walking straight into it anyway —

hit him harder than he expected.

“Kade.” A woman’s voice cut across the lot, clipped

and cold.

He didn’t have to turn around to know who it was.

He turned anyway.

Serah Calloway stood at the top of the pack house

steps in a coat that cost more than most people’s

rent, arms crossed, eyes locked on Lena like she

was something tracked in on someone’s shoe.

“You actually brought her here,” Serah said. “I

didn’t think you had it in you.”

“Serah—”

“Save it.” She came down the steps slow,

deliberate, each footstep landing like she wanted

him to hear it. She stopped a foot from Lena, close

enough that Kade felt his own jaw tighten on

instinct. “You have no idea what you just walked

into, exile girl. But you’re about to.”

“Back off,” Kade said, low.

Serah didn’t. She smiled instead — the kind of

smile that had nothing to do with being happy —

and reached out to tuck a loose strand of hair

behind Lena’s ear, slow enough to be a threat

instead of a courtesy.

Lena didn’t flinch. She held still, met Serah’s eyes,

and didn’t look away.

Something shifted in Serah’s expression — not

quite respect, but close enough to unsettle her.

“Cute,” Serah said, stepping back. “We’ll see how

long that lasts.”

She turned and walked back inside without

another word, leaving Kade standing in the gravel

lot with his mate, his ex-betrothed’s perfume still

hanging in the air, and the growing, sick certainty

that Serah already knew more than she should.

He was still working out how to explain that when

his phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out,

glanced at the screen, and felt his stomach drop.

MARCUS HALE: We need to talk. Now. It’s about

the Voss girl — and it’s worse than you think.