Claimed By The Ruthless Alpha

Chapter Eight: Blood or Lies

Elara did not speak for a long moment.

"Say that again," she finally whispered.

"The mark," I said. "It only appears in daughters born into my mother's bloodline. If it is real, that would make you family."

"That is impossible," she said, shaking her head. "My mother was a seamstress. My father sold cloth in the market before he sold me instead. There was nothing noble about my family. Nothing hidden."

"Are you certain," I asked. "Bren said he has known you longer than I have. He said you were not a stranger to him."

"I thought he meant he simply found me easy to hurt," she said, her voice trembling now. "Not that he actually knew who I was."

The healer stepped forward carefully. "Alpha, if I may. A mark like this can appear naturally through blood. But it can also be made."

"Made how," I asked.

"With old magic," she said. "Painful, forbidden magic. A false mark can be burned into skin to mimic a true bloodline. It fades over years unless it is renewed."

Elara looked down at her own arm like it belonged to someone else.

"Bren wanted you angry enough to trust me completely," I said slowly, working through it out loud. "What better way than making me believe you share my blood."

"So none of it is real," Elara said, something between relief and hurt crossing her face. "I am nobody again."

"You were never nobody," I said, sharper than I meant to. "Real mark or false one, that never changed."

She looked at me, surprised by the certainty in my voice, and for a moment neither of us said anything else.

Ronan cleared his throat from the doorway, his expression tense.

"Alpha, forgive me, but there is something more urgent. A messenger arrived from the southern border. Bren was seen an hour ago, gathering men outside pack territory. Witnesses say he is recruiting fighters from three rival packs."

"For what purpose," I asked.

"They are saying he plans to challenge your claim to the alpha title," Ronan said. "Publicly. Within the week."

"That is not how succession works," I said. "He has no right to challenge anything. My father earned this title fairly."

"Bren does not care about fairness, Alpha," Ronan said. "He cares about the version of the story that gets him back his crown. And he already has half the border packs believing your father stole it from him twenty three years ago."

I clenched my jaw, the weight of everything pressing down at once. My mother alive somewhere, hiding secrets. Callum missing, hunting Bren alone. Elara marked with a lie designed to manipulate me, and now Bren building an army to take the one thing I had spent my entire life protecting.

"Let him challenge me," I said finally. "I have fought for this title every day since I was fifteen years old. I will not lose it to a coward who needed fifteen years and a fake mark to work up the courage."

"There is one more thing, Alpha," Ronan said quietly.

"What."

"The healer said the false mark magic she described requires blood from the true bloodline to create it. Someone provided Bren with your family's blood to forge that mark on the girl's skin."

The room went cold around me.

"Whose blood," I asked, though something inside me already feared the answer forming in my chest.

Ronan hesitated, glancing at Elara before looking back at me.

"The healer believes it came from your mother," he said. "Which means, Alpha, wherever she is hiding, she may already be working with Bren against you."