I could still hear her howling triumph as she posed as me, her voice echoing through the night like a death knell.
In my past life, I raged at the betrayal, storming the mating hall with fire in my eyes.
Isla, the picture of innocence, feigned shame.
She lunged for a stone pillar, as if ready to throw herself to her doom.
But Thorne-her alpha, the man who was supposed to be my mate-blocked her, growling that her unborn pup must be born pureblood.
"Join my pack as a secondary luna if you crave my manor," he sneered, his eyes cold and calculating. When Isla "fell" during our scuffle, claiming I'd harmed her litter, Thorne banished me to the pack's holy manor.
I was forced to pray for his heir, while she became Luna, bore an alpha son, and earned a moonstone title.
I wasted away in that stone prison, my spirit broken and my heart shattered.
Now I jerk awake, heart pounding like a drum.
Outside, mating howls rise.
"Fetch the second daughter to the alpha's carriage!"
The mating priestess bursts in, her ceremonial robes flaring like a wildfire.
At the sight of me, she recoils like a wolf scented with silver, howling in horror.
"First Daughter Aurora! Why do you linger here?"
Cousins and elders flood the threshold, their voices a cacophony of confusion and accusation. "Where is Isla? Did she climb into the carriage?"
Aunts gasp, their hands flying to their mouths in shock.
My stepmother, Madeline, rushes in, her palm flying to her throat.
"Aurora! You've shamed the pack! If you spurned Alpha Marquis Thorne, speak up-how could you trick your sister into this charade?"
Her words are like a whip, lashing out at me with cruel intent.
I catch the triumphant gleam in her eye-the same hunger that drove her to plot with Isla in my past life, when they stole my mating to secure Isla's place in Thorne Manor.
Father, fighting on the borderlands, couldn't attend.
Madeline, mistress of Hamilton Manor, had convinced him I'd grown willful, that I'd bullied Isla into the substitution.
"She forced your sister," she'd howled in her missives,
"then dishonored both packs by raging at the ceremony."
This life, I won't let her twist the truth.
I clutch my head, letting my knees buckle.
"Isla. she gave me a wolfsbane soup last night."
My voice trembles, faking delirium.
"I've never slept so deep. My skull feels split by a lunar eclipse."
Gasps ripple through the manor, a wave of shock and disbelief.
My aunt lunges to catch me, her eyes filled with pity and anger.
"My poor cub! You've been betrayed by your own sister-she's stolen your mating to Thorne Manor!"
Madeline snarls, her mask of concern slipping.
"Lies! Isla is pure of heart-she'd never-"
I point to the empty goblet, my hand shaking with rage and determination.
"Aunt, have the soup checked. I refuse to believe Isla would drug me. but this stupor is not natural."
Inside, I'd sprinkled moonflower pollen- enough to daze a young wolf.
Aunt Everen snatches the goblet, shoving it under Madeline's nose.
"You're Isla's dam. With your daughter now mated to a marquis, I trust you no more than a rabid coyote. Summon a healer from the Bloodroot manor-now!"