Chapter 0002

Aaron crosses in front of me, making for the hallway, but I snatch his sleeve, stopping him. Slowly, he turns to face me, finally seeing me again, the disappointment returning full force to his eyes.

I tug his sleeve as if to beckon him closer, maybe to sit on the sofa, to hold me while I process the news of my sister’s sudden reappearance. I search his disappointed glare helplessly, desperate for the wonder that shone in them not thirty seconds ago.

His gaze rakes over my exposed body and my palpable shock. “Pull yourself together.” Then he yanks his arm out of my grasp and leaves the study.

Leaves me.

Fighting through the loneliness, I slowly pull myself off the couch. I drag the strap of my nightgown back onto my shoulder and the hem falls naturally back into place as I force my feet in the direction of the stairs.

The sudden hollowness reminds me why I had come to Aaron’s study in the first place, and my eyes burn with tears of relief. The return of the woman who should have my life feels like fate giving me permission to leave it all behind.

I’m barely out of the study when I hear the click of the front door opening and closing downstairs. A smell that’s somehow both foreign and familiar wafts up to the second floor: the shadow I spent so many years suffocating under mixed with new scents I can’t identify. A chill shivers up my spine.

She’s here.

I pad down the grand staircase, the steps lined with a velvet rug in presidential purple, into the already empty foyer. Even with my nightgown back in place, I feel bare and exposed as I venture toward an unknown without Aaron at my side.

What will it mean for the force of nature that is my sister to return now? Will I fall further into shadow? Is that even possible?

Relief fades as uncertainty terrifies me, and I pause in the cold, ornate entrance to the Moon House: the presidential castle I’ve inhabited for six years. Searching for a clue as to where they went, I glance at the gold front door she just walked through, itching to flee, to shift into my wolf and never stop running.

Sobs catch my wolf ears, distracting me from the temptation of escape. Turning my back to the door, I follow the sound down the hallway until I reach the living room, encountering a sight that tears at me in more ways than one.

I take in Emma crying, throwing herself in Aaron’s arms. His back is to me, giving me a full view of my sister, and I realize how much of her I had forgotten. How dulled she became over time in my memory.

After eight years of disappearance and Makah only knows what trials she’s faced during that time, she still glows as she sobs in my living room. Her blond hair drapes like a curtain over her shoulders, and her blue eyes glisten in the light of the roaring fireplace.

My sister kisses my husband, and I’m brought back to watching them kiss at their engagement ceremony eight years ago. As if everything is falling back into place.

The pride of the family has returned, and I’ll fall further into disgrace than ever. My chest tightens as I take in the inevitability of my fate.

From birth, I was destined to be an Omega. I didn’t even get my wolf until I was 22. I was always meant to watch from the sidelines.

It was always going to be like this.

The only thing worse than being a nobody in the rich, Ashford line is getting in the way of the somebodies.

I didn’t mean to. It’s not something anyone can control.

But eight years ago, standing at Emma and Aaron’s engagement ceremony, watching them kiss, the unavoidable knowing blared through my mind, changing my life forever.

Mates.

I stood there in horror, staring at Emma and Aaron while they cherished their newborn love child, as I discovered for the first time that my sister’s new fiancé was destined to be with me.

When the chaos settled and the news found its way to Emma, her eyes full of shock found me in the crowd. I was the one person who should have been no threat to her.

Then she was gone, running like I want to right now, disappearing without a trace for eight years. Eight years during which our family blamed me for everything: the mate bond I have no control over and Emma’s disappearance I had nothing to do with. But it didn’t matter.

My sheer existence is what ruined it all.

I heave in a breath, forcing my lungs to inflate as Aaron turns around to face me. Our eyes lock, and I know I’ll never be good enough for him.

I turn, and I run.

It doesn’t matter how much it hurts, knowing I’ll never have his heart like she does. It doesn’t matter that fate tried to bond us. If Aaron and I were truly destined to be together, Emma wouldn’t be in my living room.

This is the way it was always meant to be.

Coming up to the foreboding front door that calls to me, I stop cold. Ruby stands at the bottom of the staircase, rubbing her eyes sleepily. “Mommy, what’s going on?” she asks in a confused voice.

My heart breaks at the sight of my eight-year-old stepdaughter I’ve long considered my own. Without a second thought, I’d hand Emma the Moon House to keep. With jealousy, I’d concede my husband.

But Ruby?

The idea of handing her over to my sister as if I haven’t spent the past eight years raising her and falling in love with the way she sees the world fills me with a sorrow so deep I’m afraid it will drown me.

I wasn’t allowed to get pregnant. The Kensingtons would never let an Omega bear an heir. Ruby is the only child I’ll ever have.

“Ruby?”

My daughter’s tired gaze flits over my shoulder to follow the sound of her name, landing on her mother, my sister, and a stranger, all wrapped up in one bewitching person.

I step back as Emma rushes forward, pulling Ruby into her arms. “Holy Makah, you’re so big! Oh, sweetie, I know you probably don’t remember me, but I’m your mom.”

Ruby fusses and pushes away, forcing Emma to set her down. “No!” my sweet girl cries, pointing to me. “That’s my mommy!”

Ruby sprints past me to hide behind Aaron, clutching his leg.

Swallowing the pain apparent in her eyes, Emma slowly turns to face me. In a blur I should have seen coming, her hand slaps across my face. “Thief!” she yells, grabbing at my left hand.

Seeing the wedding band on my ring finger, she drops it, eyes pinning me with accusations. “You stole my love, my future, my child. You didn’t even have the decency to tell her about me?!”

Clutching my stinging cheek, I instinctively glance at Aaron. With one hand caressing Ruby’s head comfortingly, his face bears no reaction at all. As if Emma’s slap doesn’t matter – or worse, as if he thinks I deserved it.

I close my eyes, my resolve returning in spades. When I open them again, my decision is made.

I lock eyes with my husband and the love of my sister’s life. “I need to talk to you. Alone.”

Aaron breaks our eye contact to glance at Emma, then the front door, nodding once. I wonder if part of him wants to run away, too.

He scoops Ruby into his arms only to hand her to me.

“Why don’t you get this one back in bed, and I’ll meet you in our room.”

I tuck Ruby into my arms as Emma inhales sharply, likely at the mention of the room Aaron and I share.

I skitter upstairs, soothing Ruby with a lullaby, while Aaron whispers to my irate sister in the hallway.

By the time Ruby is tucked back in and I’m entering the master bedroom, Aaron is already sitting on our bed. I pause as we share a look, the uncertainty of the future weighing heavily between us.

I brush past him to my desk in the corner. Opening the drawer that I’ve never bothered to lock because I know Aaron doesn’t care enough to snoop, I pull out divorce papers. I’ve had them prepared for a while now, the pages creased from the many times I read and reread them, searching for the courage that courses through my veins now.

Turning to face my husband, I hand him the papers.

“It’ll solve everything,” I tell him. “Let’s get divorced.”