After My Mate Chose My Sister

The pack training grounds always smelled of churned earth, sweat, and bruised pine needles.

As contracted Luna, my place was two paces behind Harrison’s right shoulder. Close enough to look like a united front for the pack warriors, far enough that he didn't have to look at me. I stood with my heels together and my back straight, running through old dance counts in my head to keep my fingers from trembling.

Bethany showed up halfway through the drill.

She wore a tailored cream coat that set off her fiery copper hair, walking across the mud as if the dirt wouldn't dare touch her boots. My sister had never cared about Delta training before. But over the last two weeks, she had become a regular fixture.

She approached the fence where Harrison stood watching the young wolves spar.

"You're working them hard today, Alpha," Bethany said. Her voice was like warm honey, soft and teasing.

Harrison made a brief, dry comment about winter patrols. It wasn't particularly funny, but Bethany let out a bright, melodic laugh. She reached out and placed her manicured hand directly on his forearm.

A sudden gust of wind swept across the field, cutting between them and blowing straight toward me.

The scent hit my nose.

It wasn't Bethany's usual heavy vanilla perfume. It was something else—faint, sweet, and laced with a cold, crisp undertone. A sudden pang shot through my skull, an echo so familiar it made my chest ache, like a childhood memory slipping through my fingers before I could grab it. I couldn't name it. But it felt like home. It felt like something stolen from my own skin.

Before I could breathe, Harrison reacted.

His entire frame locked up. His jaw tightened so hard I heard the click of his teeth. He turned his head toward Bethany with a violent, desperate jerk—the look of a starving man who had just caught the scent of water in a desert. His dark eyes flared wide, dilated with raw, unvarnished hunger. For fifteen years, he had been searching for the ghost who had pulled him out of the fire at summer camp.

Now, his gaze bore into Bethany as if she held his very soul in her hands.

Bethany smiled up at him, her fingers curling slightly against the fabric of his sleeve.

Behind them, in the cold breeze, something terrifying happened inside my chest.

My dormant wolf didn't whimper. She didn't scratch at my ribs. She went completely, utterly silent. A heavy, suffocating stillness settled over her—the kind of quiet a wild beast makes right before the trap snaps shut.

***

Two days later, Daniel Mercer, Harrison's Beta, knocked on my bedroom door and told me the Alpha wanted to see me in his study.

I walked down the quiet hallway, smoothed the front of my simple gray dress, and pushed the door open.

Harrison was sitting behind his mahogany desk. The room was immaculate, everything aligned with military precision. File folders neatly stacked, ledger open, a glass of water on a slate coaster. The air was thick with dark cedar and cold iron—the scent that still made my pulse race with hollow, unrequited longing.

He looked up as I stepped in.

"Sit, Estrella," he said.

"I'm fine standing," I replied, resting my hands at my sides. My dancer's posture was the only shield I had left.

Harrison didn't argue. He set his pen down, interlacing his fingers on the blotter. He looked like an executive about to deliver a quarterly performance review. Calm. Detached. Efficient.

"There is something we need to address regarding our arrangement," he said evenly.

"The council audit?" I asked.

"No." He paused, his dark eyes studying my face for half a second before sliding away toward the window. "It’s about Bethany."

A cold knot formed in my stomach. "What about her?"

"I have reason to believe she may be my fated mate," Harrison said. The words rolled off his tongue without hesitation, smooth and certain. "The scent she carries... it matches the one from summer camp fifteen years ago. I intend to investigate the connection fully."

The air vanished from the room. My throat went dry as dust.

He didn't know. He had no idea that every drop of my blood had recognized him the moment I stepped into this house. He didn't know that my silent wolf was suffocating beneath my skin, unable to cry out that he was looking at the wrong sister.

"I see," I said. My voice was remarkably steady.

Harrison picked up his pen again, tapping it against the blotter. "You don't need to worry about your father. The terms of our contract will be honored. Bloodfang will not touch you, and you will remain under my protection until the year concludes. When the time comes, we will dissolve the agreement quietly. Nothing changes for your daily routine."

He didn't ask how I felt about it. He didn't ask if I minded my own sister taking my place beside him. To him, this was simply an adjustment in logistics. A minor footnote in his grand destiny.

He tilted his head slightly and scented the air once, an absent, mechanical reflex. He caught nothing from me, as always. Just soap and empty space.

Satisfied, he looked down at his open ledger and began to write.

"That's all, Estrella."

I usually hummed under my breath when my nerves began to fray—a quiet, private habit to steady my pulse before walking onto a stage. But now, my throat was locked tight. No sound came out.

I lifted my chin. "I understand, Alpha."

I turned on my heel and walked out of the office.

The heavy oak door clicked shut behind me, cutting off the cedar and iron.

I stood alone in the dim hallway, the carpet muffling the sound of the house. I pressed a trembling palm against my chest, right over my sternum.

Deep down in the dark, my wolf didn't stir. She pressed herself completely flat against the floor of my soul, curling into a tight, shivering ball.

It wasn't dormancy. It wasn't the broken numbness I had lived with since I was thirteen.

It was grief. Pure, suffocating grief.