MARKED BY THE ENEMY

Chapter 6 — the Bond

NOVA

Kade didn't come back.

I sat on the edge of that bed for what felt like an hour, replaying his face right before he walked out — that c***k in his composure, the way he'd said, it didn't just save your life like the rest of the sentence was too heavy to finish — and I hated how much I wanted him to come back and finish it.

That wanting scared me more than anything else that had happened since the door splintered open on my old life.

I was still sitting there, arms wrapped around my knees, when the door opened again — no knock, just a soft creak — and a girl I didn't recognize slipped inside carrying a folded stack of clothes and an expression that was trying very hard to look casual and not quite managing it.

"Hi," she said fast, a little breathless, like she'd rehearsed this on the way over. "I'm Lena. Kade's sister. He asked me to bring you something to change into, and — honestly, probably to make sure you hadn't tried to climb out the window."

Despite everything, something in me almost laughed. Almost.

"Did he tell you what I am now," I said instead, flat, testing her.

Lena's expression softened, careful. "He told me enough."

She set the clothes on the end of the bed and sat, uninvited, in the chair a few feet away — close enough to talk, far enough not to crowd me, which told me she'd probably done this before, or at least thought hard about how to do it right.

"I know this is a lot," she said. "I know 'a lot' doesn't even cover it. But I figured you'd rather hear some of it from someone who isn't currently the reason your life fell apart."

"That's your brother's job," I said, sharper than I meant to.

"Yeah." Lena didn't flinch. "It was. And he knows it. For what it's worth — he hasn't left this hallway in six hours. He's been standing out there like a guard dog the whole time you were unconscious. I've never seen him like that over anyone."

I didn't know what to do with that information, so I set it aside, filed it somewhere I wasn't ready to look at yet.

"The bond," I said instead. "He said I'd feel it too. What does that actually mean?"

Lena hesitated, and for the first time her easy, warm demeanor cracked into something more careful.

"A mate-bond," she said slowly, "is permanent. It's not a crush, it's not chemistry — it's biological, instinctual, something our wolves recognize in each other the way your body recognizes when you're hungry, or in danger. Once it forms, it doesn't unform. Ever."

My stomach dropped. "Ever?"

"Ever," she confirmed, gently. "It can be resisted. Ignored, even, for a while, if both people are stubborn enough. But it doesn't go away. And the longer it's denied, the harder it gets — on both people."

"So I'm just — stuck." My voice cracked on the word, and I hated it. "Bonded for life to the man whose pack destroyed my home. That's just — that's just how this works now."

"I know it feels like a life sentence." Lena's voice was quiet, careful. "But for what it's worth, bonds aren't usually random. They form because something in each of you recognizes something worth recognizing in the other. That doesn't make what happened to your town okay. It doesn't erase any of it. But it's not nothing, either."

I wanted to argue with her. I wanted to tell her that my body didn't get a vote, that whatever "recognition" my wolf felt toward Kade didn't change a single thing about the house I'd never see again, or the fear still sitting like a stone in my chest every time I thought about how close Elena had come to dying too.

Before I could say any of it, a commotion rose from somewhere outside — voices, several of them, low and urgent, moving fast down what sounded like the front of the cabin.

Lena's whole posture changed in an instant. She stood so fast the chair scraped back hard against the floor, her easy warmth gone, replaced by something tight and alert.

"Stay here," she said.

"Lena—"

"I mean it. Stay here." She was already moving toward the door, glancing back at me once with an expression I didn't like at all — somewhere between apology and fear. "The council sent enforcers. They must have heard already."

My blood went cold. "Heard what?"

She didn't answer right away. The voices outside were getting closer, sharper, and underneath them, I could hear Kade's voice now too, low and furious, arguing with someone I didn't recognize.

"Lena." My heart was hammering. "Heard what?"

She looked at me from the doorway, and for the first time since she'd walked in with her careful, rehearsed kindness, she looked genuinely scared.

"That there's an unauthorized turned wolf in this pack," she said. "And they're here to decide what happens to you."

The door shut behind her before I could say another word, and a heartbeat later, I heard the unmistakable sound of a lock sliding into place from the outside.