Moon Marked

9| Mark of Disbelief

My breathing felt hollow in my chest as I pulled my gaze away from the hearth, realigning my senses for everything that was to come next.

Meena's claiming had thrown me completely off kilter, and for a moment I had forgotten what I had feared in the first place.

There were only two more Alphas to be called upon and one of them I had already met. In the next few moments, he was going to claim someone else in this room, and in doing so he would shatter my heart completely.

This time when the head matron moved to the edge of the cavern once again, a frown settled in little groves on her forehead before she cleared her throat.

"Alpha Adriel." The name bounced across the stone walls and echoed straight through my bones, the familiarity catching in my throat even though I knew I had never heard that name uttered before.

A shot of electricity flared through my veins and skittered across the crevices of my body, filling me up with a heavy feeling that burned all the way to the depths of my soul. For a moment I had thought something had possessed me, but then my gaze landed on him as he made his way down the candle lit path towards me and the rest of the marked women.

I gritted my teeth as a possessive urge unearthed itself from inside of me, my gaze clasping onto his bare skin just like everyone else, all of them waiting for a chance to find the replica of their mark plastered on his chest.

I dug my feet into the uneven surface beneath me, the ridiculousness of my territorial thoughts making me feel stupid.

I already knew he wasn't mine, but my own wolf had already staked her claim regardless of how insignificant the purpose of it was.

His name suited him well—soft with his touch and sharp with his gaze, blunt with his words and kind-hearted with what they meant. I wanted to test the name on my tongue, to feel the way it rolled and released, instead I kept myself from the temptation as my eyes ran over the broadness of his shoulders.

He was nothing like the Alpha that had come before him, he was leaner and much more instinctive. His skin gleamed under the rays of light that peeked into the room from up ahead, his eyes dark with purpose as he looked over the line of women he would soon get to pick from. I counted each of his steps, my nails digging more harshly into my flesh as I simpered under the circumstance, drawing blood that dripped onto the slated floor.

The moment I saw his mark, I would know which of my sanctuary sisters he was bound to—not that he would make it all the way down the line before he had found her anyway, so I kept my gaze high and focused on his face.

To the surprise of everyone else in the room and much unlike the Alpha before him, he veered from the path that had been set for him—breaking through the poised atmosphere of the space as he moved past the line of girls like he was looking for someone in particular.

He ignored the marks of the women that were being presented to him, instead he moved with the purpose of a man who already knew exactly what he had come for. My heart was beating in a frenzy as he drew nearer, barely sparing the rest of the women a glance when he finally found me standing at the end of the line.

He set a powerful pace much to the excitement of my wolf— and then he was right in front of me.

In the history of these ceremonies, no Alpha had ever done something like this before but still I preened at the significance of his movements. If it was my mate who had walked up to me like this, I would have let him do whatever he wanted to me—I would have let him have his way with me on the ground of this sacred place as the audience watched on. But I already knew that Alpha Adriel wasn't my mate, he was someone else's.