Chapter 1

My sister Serafina secretly met Aidan, the Future Alpha.

She always took me with her to cover for them.

Then word leaked.

Queen Luna’s guards raided the glade and caught only me.

The Queen ordered a forced mating.

“Your bond already runs deep. Why hide?”

I was forced to become Aidan’s Mate.

Aidan blamed me for losing Serafina. He turned cruelly cold.

Even during the mating ceremony, he pinned my wrists and forced me to admit I was my sister’s replacement.

I opened my eyes. It was the day Serafina invited me to the Moonlight Glade.

I buried my face in the furs and muttered,

“I’m not going.”

...

Serafina froze.

“Why not?”

“I...” She bit her lip. “I already promised him we would come.”

“Him” meant Aidan.

In public, the Future Alpha was cold and distant.

Nobody suspected a thing.

He had been secretly meeting a Beta female for months.

I was the Omega serving as their shield.

Aidan talked to my sister. I counted leaves.

He shifted to show off his wolf. I stood watch at the edge of the glade.

Mother always asked about our absences.

Serafina squeezed my palm. She lied with a straight face.

“Ayla gets restless inside the territory. I took her out for fresh air.”

She knew her place, and valued her reputation as the Future Alpha’s mate candidate above all.

That was why, during that secret meeting on the Sacred Mountain—

A sudden rainstorm hit.

Queen Luna’s guards came looking for Aidan.

She ran off into the rain without looking back.

Left me all alone.

I scrambled after her. My heart hammered.

The mossy stone steps were slick with rain. My foot slipped.

Aidan snatched my arm.

“Careful.”

A huge leaf umbrella appeared above us.

Queen Luna’s most trusted elder stood underneath it. He glared down at us.

“Found him.”

“The Future Alpha’s secret lover is the second daughter of House Mooncrest.”

Aidan’s face hardened. He dropped my hand.

What a cruel mistake.

One mistake turned the man who should have been my brother-in-law into my Alpha.

In the long years that followed.

Losing the mate he wanted made Aidan cruel and paranoid.

Every forced mating was torture.

Tears streamed down my face. He forced me to cry out Serafina’s name.

Only then would he stroke my wet hair and bury his face in my neck, his voice hoarse with cruel possessiveness.

“Good.”

“My Mate’s sister.”

The entire Pack thought the Future Alpha had fallen for his Omega at first sight. They thought he was fiercely possessive of her.

Nobody knew the pure hell I endured behind closed doors.

The memories made me shudder. The shame of living as her shadow nearly consumed me.

I pulled the furs over my face.

“I’m sick.”

“I can’t go.”