After My Mate Chose My Sister

The banquet hall was filled with crystal glasses, white linen, and the low hum of pack elders discussing our southern border alliance. As Harrison’s contracted Luna, I wore a modest navy silk dress. My job was simple: sit at the head table, keep my posture straight, and smile when someone looked our way.

I didn't eat. The scent of cedar and iron rolled off Harrison's tailored suit, tight and suffocating. It settled in the back of my throat, reminding me of a bond only one of us could feel.

Across the room, Bethany sat among the young warriors. She wore an off-the-shoulder crimson gown that caught every light in the room. Every time the heavy oak doors opened, a cold draft pushed her perfume across the floor. It was that sickening, synthetic ghost-scent. A pale copy of something stolen from me, laced with heavy vanilla to cover the seams.

Then, the stained-glass terrace windows exploded.

The sound tore through the room like a bomb. Shards of colored glass rained down on the hardwood. High-pitched screams cut through the music as four massive rogue wolves leaped through the opening, snapping their jaws, foam and blood dripping from their jowls.

"Rogues!" someone shouted.

Warriors scrambled. Tables flipped over, dishes crashing into ceramic dust.

Before my breath could catch, a deafening crack echoed beside me. Harrison didn't bother using the stairs. He shifted mid-stride, his bones snapping and reforming in a split second. A massive black Alpha wolf burst from his shredded clothing, black fur bristling with lethal power.

My heart leaped into my throat. For half a second, I thought he would turn to shield the head table. I thought he would shield me.

He didn't even look my way.

With a thunderous snarl, Harrison leaped entirely over the banquet table and launched himself across the hall. He tore through two Delta warriors, barreling straight toward the eastern pavilion.

Toward Bethany.

A rogue lunged at her. Harrison met the beast in midair, his jaws clamping shut on its throat with a sickening crunch. He threw the body aside like a rag doll, spun around, and planted his massive paws on either side of Bethany's crimson dress.

He didn't hunt the other intruders. He didn't direct his fighters. He simply curled his body over hers, teeth bared, pressing her flush against the wall.

I stood completely alone at the head table.

Around me, pack warriors engaged the remaining rogues, their claws gouging the floorboards. A spray of dark blood hit the edge of my white tablecloth. No one came to my side. I had no wolf to protect me, no claws to raise, and the man who wore an alliance ring on his finger was fifty feet away, burying his muzzle into my sister’s neck.

From across the smoke and chaos, I saw Bethany's hands reach up. She buried her manicured fingers deep into Harrison’s thick black fur. Her shoulders trembled with delicate, practiced terror. She leaned her throat directly against his nose, letting that stolen scent drown him at point-blank range.

The fight ended as quickly as it began. The remaining three rogues were pinned and dragged away by our Deltas. The hall fell into an eerie, ringing silence, broken only by heavy panting and the drip of blood onto the floor.

Harrison shifted back. He didn't care that he was bare-chested and covered in soot. He hauled Bethany up by her waist, keeping her tucked against his side. His chest heaved. His pupils were completely dilated, swallowed by amber light. The adrenaline of the kill had mixed with the perfume on her skin, setting every childhood memory inside him on fire.

He raised a blood-streaked hand. "Listen to me!"

His Alpha tone slammed through the room, heavy and absolute. Every wolf dropped their head in submission.

"The Moon Goddess has shown mercy tonight," Harrison called out, his voice ringing against the vaulted ceiling. He pulled Bethany closer. "For fifteen years, I have searched for the girl who pulled me from the fire at summer camp. Tonight, her scent was the only thing my wolf answered to. She is my fated mate."

A shocked beat hung in the air. Then, the room erupted.

Cheering broke out among the warriors. Carl stood from his seat, clapping with a smug, victorious grin. Virginia dabbed a tissue at the corner of her eye, beaming at her eldest daughter. Bethany buried her face in Harrison’s chest, weeping with perfect, breathtaking grace.

Then Harrison turned his head.

His eyes locked onto mine across the wreckage of the hall. The warmth vanished from his expression, replaced by a cold, clinical detachment. He walked two paces forward, leaving Bethany, and faced me.

The pack went dead silent.

"I, Harrison Brooks, Alpha of the Ironveil Pack," he announced, his voice steady, flat, and loud enough to scrape the walls, "reject you, Estrella Bishop, as my mate and future Luna."

The words hit my chest like a cluster of silver wire.

A tearing, ripping agony exploded behind my ribs. It wasn't clean. Because my wolf was dormant, the one-sided bond didn't snap cleanly—it shredded my flesh from the inside out, burning hot as molten iron.

My vision flared white. My breath was cut off at the root.

I stumbled back. My knees buckled, and my heel caught on the hem of my gown.

*No!* a voice howled soundlessly inside the dark vault of my soul.

I caught the edge of the head table with one hand. My knuckles turned stark white. Blood rushed to my ears, pounding like a war drum.

I looked down the row of elders. Carl caught my eye and gave a small, satisfied nod. Virginia kept her gaze glued to the Persian rug, refusing to meet my stare. Not a single person moved. Not a single hand reached out to steady me.

To them, I was just an Omega whose contract had expired early.

Harrison stood watching me, his jaw tight, waiting for the tears. Waiting for me to fall to the floor and beg.

I didn't fall.

Deep inside my chest, right where the bond had torn loose, the suffocating grief suddenly shifted.

The cold ache turned boiling hot.

My dormant wolf didn't whimper. She didn't curl up to die in the corner.

She stood.

A savage, guttural snarl ripped through the back of my mind. It was a sound I had never heard in twenty-one years of life—deep, wild, and vibrating with an ancient, terrifying fury.

My internal temperature spiked so violently that beads of sweat instantly broke across my forehead. A jolt of electric current surged from my spine down into my right arm.

My fingers clamped down on the table edge.

*Crack.*

The two-inch-thick solid mahogany splintered beneath my bare fingertips.

A tiny hairline fracture shot through the polished wood under my palm.

I stared down at it in distant, stunned disbelief. A wolf's strength. But my skin was smooth. No fur. No shift. Just an invisible, molten fire burning beneath my marrow.

*Not yet,* my instincts whispered. *Not here.*

I forced the fire down. I drew a slow, shuddering breath of soot-filled air and loosened my grip on the ruined table.

Harrison was still watching, his brow furrowing slightly, as if he sensed a sudden shift in the pressure of the room.

I didn't give him the satisfaction of a word.

I straightened my spine. I squared my shoulders. I lifted my chin, locking into the exact, proud posture I had drilled for hundreds of lonely nights in the ceremonial dance studio.

Without lowering my head to a single soul, I turned my back on the Alpha, on my sister, and on my parents.

I walked out of the banquet hall under my own power, the sound of my heels clicking sharply against the bloody floor, completely in silence.