Chapter Three

Isolde's Pov

My heart shattered and it felt as if my world had collapsed right in before my very eyes.

My eyes burned, but I refused to let the tears fall.

Not here.

I can't cry.

Not in front of him. Not in front of her.

Ryder noticed me. His face lit up with that same smile he used to reserve for me. He walked over and gently took my hand.

Like nothing had happened.

“Finally,” he said like I was late for something beautiful. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

My throat tightened.

“What’s going on?”, My voice barely came out. It cracked like something inside me was breaking in slow motion.

He let go of my hand. Then he turned and wrapped his arm around Isla’s waist, “I know it’s strange, reintroducing someone you’ve known your whole life,” he said with a laugh. “Especially when that someone’s your twin sister.”

Then he looked at Isla. Eyes soft. Adoring, “Meet Isla,” he said. “My Mate and girlfriend.”

Mate.

That word hit like a knife under the ribs. The word shattered me.

No. No, no, no. This wasn’t right.

He was mine. He consoled me when I cried about not shifting. He told me I wasn’t broken. He held me through my fears.

Every late-night call.

Every forehead kiss.

Every almost.

It wasn’t just care and comfort. It was love.

Wasn’t it?

But now, with his hand on her hip and that look in his eyes… I realized—

He never kissed me.

He never looked at me like that.

He loved me, sure.

But not in the way I loved him.

And I—gods, I had been obsessed.

Obsessed with the way he made me feel seen.

Obsessed enough to mistake his kindness for devotion.

Obsessed enough to rewrite reality in my head.

But in his reality, I was just the girl he was close to.

The one he pitied.

Not the one he chose.

"How is that possible?"

The words slipped out before I could stop them.

Ryder’s smile faltered. His brows drew together as he stared at me, confusion flickering in his eyes.

Like he didn’t expect that reaction from me.

Of course, he didn’t.

Because to him, I was just his beloved friend.

The girl who was supposed to smile through the heartbreak and clap for his happy ending.

I was expected to be happy for him.

But I wasn’t. I never was.

Not when it came to her.

Not when it came to them.

I swallowed the ache clawing up my throat and forced a smile, “I meant… how did you two meet?” I asked, voice almost steady. “Isla never attended Selville High or Selville College. I never introduced you, so… when did this happen?”

Isla answered this time, her voice light and casual, as if she wasn’t cutting open my chest.

“Oh, during the Lunar League competition—Selville versus Elyria.” She laughed softly, leaning into him like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“At first, when he recognized me as his mate, he actually thought I was you. He got all excited and confused—” she giggled, “but I explained it wasn’t me he’d known, and I was, in fact, your twin sister.”

I muttered a small “Oh” and told them I was happy for them. The words came easily.

There was no tremble in my voice, no bitter taste of a lie on my tongue. For a second, I thought… maybe I meant it. Maybe my heart had finally surrendered, quietly choosing peace over pain.

But I was wrong.

I hadn’t moved on. Not even close. Instead, I started imagining myself in Isla’s place, next to Ryder, where I should’ve been. She was my twin, my perfect replica. Seeing her with him was like watching my reflection live out the life I had dreamed of.

And when she said he thought she was me when they realized they were mates. That was enough.

Enough to convince me that he had loved me first. That somewhere deep down, he still did.

Maybe he chose her because he had no other option. Because fate tied her to him, and he was too loyal to fight it. But in my head, in my heart, it was always me. It had always been me.

I didn’t do anything excessive, so don't think of me as the villain... At least, not yet.

Then a year passed, then two years and I lingered. He ignored my signs countless times or maybe he was just oblivious to it. Ryder became the Alpha and announced Isla as his mate and engaged her in front of the whole pack.

Seeing that they were completely unshakeable, I reluctantly dated another man. Not just any man—Casper, Ryder's second older brother who had been asking me out for months. He was unmated and was the closest in resemblance to Ryder.

Even though we were dating, I never let him touch me. I wanted to keep myself for Ryder, in case. In case the moon goddess made a mistake. In case Isla wasn’t truly meant for him. In case fate corrected itself and gave me what I’d waited for my whole life.

Of course, Casper wasn’t happy. He started cheating. Openly. Recklessly. And I… I didn’t care. Because he wasn’t Ryder. He was just a placeholder for a dream I refused to let die.

But that dream... it festered.

The longer I watched them, their love, their bond, the more I felt something inside me unraveling.

I couldn’t understand how she got everything. We were born the same. We had the same face. But she got the wolf. She got the strength. She got the Alpha. She got Ryder.

And I got nothing.

Then two nights before their mating ceremony, I couldn't sleep. I didn't know how. The witch found me.

Or maybe I had been calling her all along.

She looked like a shadow wrapped in skin, eyes like coal smoldering under ash. She asked me no questions. She knew why I had come.

“I want them separated forever,” I said.

The witch smirks and says: “Very well. What’s bound can be broken. But broken things often shatter.”

Then she took a drop of my blood as payment, binding me to the spell, and then pressed something into my palm. Cold. Smooth. It's slick like a wet stone. A charm. Black as a starless night. It pulsed when I closed my fingers around it. It was alive. Hungry even.

I left believing she’d curse their bond, maybe stall the ceremony. Ruin the engagement. That was all I wanted. Not this.

Not death.

But the next morning, Isla was found cold in her bed. No wounds. No struggle. Just… gone. As if her soul had been stolen in silence.

My parents were shattered. The house felt colder every time I stepped into a room.

And the witch’s scent, iron, and decay never left my clothes. Then came the rune.

Witches don’t deal in favors. They seal deals in blood, in bone, in magic older than time.

The mark bloomed faintly on my skin, just under my collarbone. I didn’t even notice it at first. It looked like a bruise. But Wrong and scary.

Until the night I collapsed from the weight of it all, and my father found me on the floor. He pulled me into his arms… and saw it. The rune. The binding spell. His expression changed like a glacier cracking down the middle.

They searched my room.

In the back of a drawer I never locked, they found the charm I hadn’t buried properly. The one the witch gave me. Still pulsing faintly.

That was enough.

They knew.

My father hit me so hard my ears rang and the floor tilted beneath me. And when I looked up, they weren’t looking at their daughter anymore—only a mistake, a disgrace, a thing they wished they hadn’t raised.

Like I was something monstrous wearing her skin.

And then, just like that, they made their decision. The mating ceremony was to proceed. They told me I’d wear her dress. Stand in her place. Say her vows. Because to the world, Isla was alive and Isolde was dead. And Ryder must not know… not yet.

They held a funeral for Isla while Ryder was away, claiming that she was Isolde.

And while all these were happening, my heart wasn’t just beating. It was thundering. I didn’t want her dead. Goddess, I didn’t. I only wanted to pause fate. To buy time. To matter. But Isla was gone. And I was the one walking down the aisle.

On the day of the mating ceremony, I kept my head bowed, terrified that if he arrived, he’d see it—my guilt carved into every line of my face. My hands shook so violently that I had to tighten my grip around the bouquet just to keep it from unraveling.

Just get through the day, I told myself. Say your vows. Smile like her. Walk like her. Breathe like her.

But Ryder…

Ryder wasn’t fooled and we had overlooked one brutal truth in our desperation: A mate doesn’t need to see a corpse to know death.

They feel it.

When Isla died, it wasn’t her heartbeat that stopped first—it was his.

Not literally. But close enough.

Because soulmates are tethered by more than blood and fate. They’re fused at the seam of something eternal. When one half perishes, the other knows. And Ryder knew. The moment Isla’s breath left her body five days before this cursed ceremony—he felt it.

That was more than enough time for a man like him.

He came knowing that the girl in white wasn’t his Isla. Knowing she’d never be with him again.

And that I, her shadow, her thief, had taken her place.

Ryder probably spent the past four days after Isla's death unraveling the truth, then he traced the lies back to me like smoke to fire. I didn't know how he did it exactly but he did.

So when he stood beside me at the altar during the mating ceremony, he wasn’t marrying but punishing a crime.

And I was the sentence wrapped in silk.