Under His Mark, I Fell Apart

POV of Rachel

"Rachel, are you excited to be in the meeting room?"

The question hung in the air as Keanu's voice dropped to that dangerous rumble that always made my pulse quicken. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, the Silverfang Pack territory stretched out beneath the afternoon sun—my new home for the past two years. I should have been reviewing quarterly financial reports, but my mate had other plans.

His hand caught my wrist, spinning me away from the mahogany conference table. My back hit the cold marble wall with enough force to knock the breath from my lungs.

Inside my mind, Aria—my inner wolf—snarled a warning. Danger. This is wrong.

But the mate bond pulsed between us like a living thing, drowning out her protests.

"Keanu, not here," I managed, pressing my palms against the solid wall of his chest. My fingers caught in the expensive fabric of his suit. "The pack elders could walk in. Your Beta—"

"Let them." His mouth curved into that predatory smile that had first captivated me two years ago when he'd saved me from rogues at the border. Now that same smile made something twist uncomfortably in my gut. "You're my Luna, Rachel. I take what's mine. When I want it."

The words should have sounded romantic—possessive in that Alpha way that made she-wolves swoon. Instead, they felt like a claim of ownership.

His wolf Fenrir rose to the surface, eyes flashing gold. The Alpha dominance rolled off him in waves, pressing down on Aria until she whimpered and retreated to the back of my consciousness.

"Tell me," he murmured against the shell of my ear, his breath hot on my skin. One hand slid up my thigh, bunching the fabric of my skirt. "Doesn't the risk make it better? Knowing anyone could walk through that door?"

Before I could answer, he lifted me effortlessly—an unnecessary display of Alpha strength—and deposited me on the polished conference table. Financial reports scattered beneath me. The cold wood bit through the thin fabric of my clothes, making me gasp.

My legs instinctively pressed together, but his hands were already there, spreading them apart with an ease that spoke of practice. Of ownership.

"He's humiliating us!" Aria suddenly roared back to consciousness, fighting against Fenrir's suppression. "This isn't love! This isn't how true mates behave! Rachel, LOOK at him!"

I tried. I really tried. But the mate bond was a drug in my veins, his scent—cedar and winter frost—overriding every instinct of self-preservation.

That's when I saw the phone in his hand.

The camera lens pointed directly at me.

"What are you—" My voice cracked. "Keanu, please. Not again."

"Relax," he said, but there was something cold in his eyes now. Something that had been appearing more and more frequently lately. "You look beautiful like this. Spread out for me. Desperate."

"The mate bond is FAKE!" Aria was screaming now. "I can't sense his wolf properly! Something is wrong! Rachel, he's using us!"

"But the bond..." I thought weakly, even as tears pricked at my eyes. "I can feel it. The pull. The need."

"Magic can fake a bond!" she snarled. "Wake up!"

But I couldn't. Or wouldn't.

Two years ago, I had been Rachel Moonshadow—daughter of an Alpha, trained in diplomacy and pack politics, destined for a arranged mating that would strengthen tribal alliances. Then Keanu had appeared like something out of a romance novel: powerful, mysterious, saving me from rogues with casual violence and that devastating smile.

The mate bond had snapped into place so intensely it had stolen my breath. My parents had been suspicious—true mate bonds were rare, especially with Alphas from unknown packs—but I'd been twenty-three and stupid and so desperately in love.

Now, at twenty-five, I was Luna of the Silverfang Pack. And I barely recognized myself.

The cold table beneath me. The heat of his body above me. The humiliating click of the camera.

I closed my eyes and let the tears flow silently into my hairline, disappearing like they'd never existed.

Aria's mournful howl echoed through my consciousness—a sound of grief and shame that I'd been hearing more and more lately.

When it was over, I reached for him. A desperate, pathetic gesture seeking some kind of aftercare, some tenderness to justify what had just happened.

His phone rang.

Keanu didn't even hesitate. He pulled away, already adjusting his clothes with practiced efficiency. A glance at the caller ID, and his entire demeanor transformed.

"Sweetheart, don't worry," he murmured into the phone, his voice soft and gentle in a way I hadn't heard in months. Maybe longer. "I'm on my way. I'll take care of everything."

My heart plummeted into my stomach.

I'd never heard him speak like that. Not to me.

"What's happening?" I grabbed at his shirt sleeve, my voice small. Pathetic. "Who was that?"

He shrugged me off without looking at me, still talking into the phone. "There's pack business that needs immediate attention. I'll be back later."

"Keanu—"

But he was already striding toward the door, phone pressed to his ear, speaking in those gentle tones that should have been reserved for me. For his mate.

The door clicked shut.

I sat there on the conference table for a long moment, surrounded by scattered financial reports, my clothes disheveled and my body aching.

"He doesn't love us," Aria whispered, finally. "He never did."

It took ten minutes to make myself presentable.

In the restroom mirror of the pack building, my reflection stared back at me: pale, hollow-eyed, with a purple bruise blooming on my collarbone. I adjusted my collar to hide it.

Still no mating mark.

Two years, and he'd never marked me.

"Why?" Aria's voice cracked with confusion and hurt. "Why hasn't he claimed us? If we're truly mates—"

"I don't know," I admitted.

The first wave of nausea hit without warning. I barely made it to the toilet stall before I was dry heaving, my body rejecting... something.

As the nausea subsided, a cold realization settled over me.

Late period. Morning sickness. The exhaustion I'd been attributing to stress.

"You're pregnant," Aria confirmed quietly. "I can sense the pup."

My hand flew to my stomach—still flat, but harboring a secret that changed everything.

A baby. Our baby.

Joy flooded through me so intensely it was almost painful. This was it. This was the proof that our bond was real, that he loved me, that everything I'd endured had meaning.

I pulled out my phone with shaking hands, ready to call him.

"DON'T!" Aria's snarl stopped me cold. "Rachel, think! He doesn't love us. He won't want this child. He'll—"

"You're wrong," I insisted, clutching the phone like a lifeline. "He loves me. I know he does. This baby will change everything. He'll mark me now. We'll finally be a real family. Like we were meant to be."

I remembered that first meeting—how he'd appeared through the smoke of battle, dispatching the rogues with lethal grace. How his eyes had found mine across the clearing. How the world had narrowed to just the two of us.

Those rare moments of tenderness when he'd held me afterward, murmuring promises against my skin.

Those couldn't all be lies.

"Please," I whispered to Aria, to myself, to the universe. "Please let this be real."

I touched my stomach where our child was growing—tiny, fragile, perfect. The physical proof of our bond.

Keanu would be thrilled. I was sure of it.

I had to be sure of it.

Because if I wasn't... if Aria was right...

Then I'd given up everything—my family, my pack, my dignity—for nothing.

My phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number.

"Ask your mate where he really goes when he leaves you. Ask him about Elena. - A Friend"

The phone slipped from my suddenly nerveless fingers, clattering against the tile floor.

Outside the bathroom window, storm clouds were gathering over Silverfang territory.

And deep in my chest, the mate bond pulsed with what I'd been desperately trying to ignore:

The feeling of something fundamentally, irrevocably wrong.