After My Mate Chose My Sister

I sat on the edge of the cot and reached inward.

I looked for the fragile, newborn heat that had sparked beneath my ribs at the banquet table.

There was nothing.

The wolfsbane had scorched the earth. Where that ancient, wild presence had briefly stirred, there was only cold, dead stone. Total, hollow silence.

I rested my back against the damp brick wall and pulled my knees to my chest. In my head, I began to dance.

*Step left, pivot on the ball of the right foot, arch the spine, arms out.*

It was the ceremonial wolf-dance of the winter solstice. I ran through the third sequence, then the fourth. I had practiced these steps in empty studios until my shins bled, using the choreography to calm my racing heart whenever the pack made me feel invisible.

Then I tried to point my right toe. A jagged, searing pain shot up my calf. The poison had burned through my nerve endings. My left shoulder twitched with an involuntary spasm. My breath caught, raw and wet, in my blistered throat.

The dance was gone, too.

I leaned my head back against the brick and made a mental list.

My birth rank: gone.

My contracted title: gone.

The fated bond: shredded.

My inner wolf: severed.

My dance: ruined.

I catalogued every loss, one by one, with clinical detachment. I kept my breathing slow and even. I did not cry. Crying was a luxury for wolves who had someone coming to comfort them.

The heavy iron door rattled at dusk.

A guard shoved a wooden bucket and a mop into the cell. Behind him walked Petra, a low-ranked pack laborer who helped oversee the cleaning details. Three years ago, she had caught me shivering on a freezing studio floor after a nine-hour rehearsal and slipped me a mug of hot broth without asking for anything in return.

She set a basin of lye water down. Her eyes darted toward the guard standing out in the hallway.

"Head down," she whispered, her voice barely a breath.

She reached into the pocket of her coarse apron, grabbed my cold hand, and pressed something small and hard into my palm. A cheap, burner flip-phone.

"The guard rotates at midnight," Petra murmured. "Be careful, Estrella."

Before I could answer, she pulled her hands back, picked up an empty pail, and hurried out. The iron door clanged shut.

I waited until the corridor fell completely silent. At midnight, huddled under the thin, scratchy cot blanket, I dialed a number I had memorized as a child.

The line rang twice.

"Hello?" Nadine’s voice was raspy from sleep, but sharp.

"Grandma," I whispered. My throat scraped against the words.

There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end. "Estrella? What happened to your voice? Where are you?"

"The Ironveil Omega cells," I said flatly. "Harrison rejected me for Bethany. Bethany forced concentrated wolfsbane down my throat. They’ve locked me away."

"Dear Goddess," Nadine breathed. Her voice trembled, but only for a fraction of a second before hardening into pure iron. "Edmund! Get up! Edmund, it's Estrella."

I heard muffled shouts, a drawer opening, the rustle of papers. My grandfather’s voice rumbled in the background, steady and furious.

"We are coming," Nadine said into the receiver. "Edmund is calling his old border contacts right now. We have friends along the northern ridge who owe us favors. We will get you across the sovereign line into the Pacific Northwest."

"I can't leave yet," I said.

"Estrella, they will kill you in there—"

"I need one thing first," I interrupted, my hoarse voice steady. "The Lycan Council emissary arrives in three days for the formal Mate Ceremony. Before you come for me, Grandma... I need you to find everything you can on the Luna Accord."

Silence stretched over the line.

"The ancient tribunal pact?" Nadine asked, a chill in her tone. "Estrella, invoking the Accord carries death if the charge fails."

"It won't fail," I whispered. "Find it."

The next morning, the heavy iron bolt on my cell door screeched back.

Daniel Mercer stepped inside. Harrison's Beta looked down at me, his face impassive. "Get up. The Alpha wants you in the main hall."

He didn't give me time to fix my hair or brush the dirt from my threadbare Omega shift. He gripped my upper arm, his Delta-level strength bruising my skin, and dragged me up the spiral stone stairs.

The heavy doors to the grand pack hall opened.

Every ranked wolf in the Ironveil territory was assembled. Elders sat in the carved gallery above. Warriors lined the walls, standing at attention. In the center of the dais stood Bethany, glowing in a cream-colored silk dress, her manicured hand resting lightly on the pommel of a ceremonial dagger. Her copper wolf's scent was masked by that sickening, stolen perfume.

And beside her stood Harrison.

His dark cedar-and-iron scent hit me across the room, striking the raw, scarred flesh inside my chest like a whip. He wore his full Alpha leathers, towering and untouchable.

Daniel shoved me into the center of the hall. My bare feet slapped against the cold marble. I stumbled, but I caught my balance before my knees could touch the stone.

The hall was dead quiet. Dozens of eyes stared at my sunken cheeks, my tangled hair, and the dark purple bruises blooming around my neck from the wolfsbane convulsions.

Harrison stepped to the edge of the dais. He looked down at me, his jaw set in a rigid, unforgiving line.

"You disrupted the peace of this pack," Harrison said. His voice echoed off the vaulted rafters. "You attacked the future Luna. You took poison to fabricate an assault and shame this house."

I didn't answer. I kept my chin level.

"This is your final clemency, Estrella," he continued, cold and deliberate. "Kneel before Bethany. Drop your head to the marble and speak the vow of submission to your rightful Luna."

"And if I don't?" My hoarse voice carried through the silent hall, quiet but entirely unbroken.

Harrison took a slow step down from the dais. His gaze hardened. "If you refuse, I will open a forced mind-link right now. I will rip open your mind and broadcast every private memory from our mating nights to every warrior and elder in this room. You will have no dignity left."

He unleashed his full Alpha aura.

The air pressure plummeted. A suffocating, crushing weight slammed through the room. Along the walls, strong Delta warriors dropped to their knees, bowing their heads under the absolute, suffocating authority of their Alpha. Even Carl and Virginia lowered their eyes in the gallery.

I stood in the center of the room. Emaciated. Wolfless. Poisoned.

I looked straight into the eyes of the man I had silently loved for a year, the man who had traded me for a ghost of my own scent.

My spine locked straight. My knees didn't bend an inch.

"No," I said.

Harrison’s jaw clenched so hard a muscle jumped beneath his skin.

His pupils contracted into slits, and his eyes flashed a violent, blinding gold. He raised his right hand, his fingers curling like claws as he tore open the mental barrier and reached for my mind.