1

Alora

While I was getting ready for my wedding tomorrow, my sister was getting fucked by my mate in his room.

Growing up in the Dellih family, I was always the shadow, the extra, the one they barely noticed unless they wanted something to compare to. The odd child, second to the best. And the best was always my sister. Elara.

She was three years older than me and my parent’s favorite. My parents didn’t even try to hide it, she was their favorite, their shining star, their pride. I was just… there. If Elara was the sun, then I was the dust stuck behind her glow, invisible unless you squinted hard enough.

Everything I owned was once hers. Clothes, books, jewelry. Even my bedroom furniture. I used to call them leftovers, because that’s all I ever got. Leftovers.

After all those years of being treated like I was insignificant, of being inferior to her, I was finally going to be with my mate. My Tamlin.

A man who saw me and loved me for who I am, a man who I would never be second to, but always the first.

And tomorrow, we will be married under the full moon in front of the whole pack including my sister.

It would be the wedding of the season.

For once in my life, I would be first.

Or so I believed.

I grabbed my phone and texted him but there was no response from him, I found it unusual since he was usually on his phone at this hour.

Tamlin was the son of the Alpha Phil, he was next in line to the throne. Which means I was next in line to be Luna, considering he was my mate.

I texted him once again but there was no response, I felt strange about it that I decided to meet him myself.

I left my room by 11:59 pm to his room, it was at the end of the hall.

As I got closer to his room, I could hear moans, whispers of filthy words.

“That’s it, right there,” a woman’s voice cried out, breathless.

The words crawled underneath my skin.

But as I got closer, I realized that the moans were coming from my mate’s room, my heart sank.

I told myself maybe it was Aaron. His best friend. The Beta, the notorious playboy of the pack. Everyone knew Aaron’s bed never stayed cold for long. Maybe Tamlin lent him the room.

But then,

“Gods, you’re still so wet, Elara,” Tamlin’s voice growled.

Elara.

Her name on his lips was a blade shoved deep into my chest.

I didn’t think. I didn’t breathe. My hand slammed against the door, pushing it open, because if I didn’t see it with my eyes, maybe it wasn’t true. Maybe it was all a mistake.

But it wasn’t.

The scene scarred itself into me. Tamlin’s body over hers, her back arched towards him, Her legs open wide for him, his sweat dripping onto her skin as he thrusts into her.

I was mortified.

My mate and My sister. Together.

My lungs refused to work. My heart… oh, my heart cracked so loud in my chest I swore they must’ve heard it.

It took a minute for my presence to be noticed, Elara caught sight of me first, she was barely breathing through her teeth, he had her hair tangled in his hand, sweat dripping from his body.

Tears rolled down my face, I was broken at the sight in front of me.

With no remorse or regret, she smirked at me and moaned louder, dragging the sound out as though she wanted to bury me under it. She wanted me to watch her win.

And Tamlin—he didn’t even stop. Didn’t even slow.

“You should be in your room, mate,” he said, his voice casual, as if I were some unwelcome guest interrupting his pleasure. He didn’t glance at me. He didn’t need to. He could smell me, he knew my presence, but never bothered to be guilty about what he was doing.

“What the hell are you doing!” The scream tore out of me, louder than I thought I was capable of. My voice bounced off the walls, loud enough that surely the entire hallway could hear.

His thrusts didn’t stop. His pace didn’t slow. Instead, he lifted his head, his dark eyes finally sliding to mine.

“Fucking my wife,” he said.

Wife.

The word crushed me. Wife. Not mate. Not bride-to-be. Wife.

I was the one getting married to him tomorrow, I was his mate and his future Luna.

“Your wife?” My body shaking as I spoke, I could hear footsteps approaching. The whole hall must have heard my screams.

But Tamlin didn’t care.

“You didn’t tell her?” he murmured, his attention shifting back to Elara, who arched beneath him like the devil’s whore, his pace quickened as he thrust harder into her.

She laughed between moans, her nails dragging down his back. “It was… fun… watching her think… she was the bride.”By the time she finished the sentence, he came inside her.

Something he had never done to me when we had sex, he would pull out before climax and jerk himself off in the bathroom. When I asked why, he claimed he didn’t want no bastard child born out of wedlock.

Now I understood, he didn’t want no child from me.

My hands reached for the doorframe to steady myself, but it felt like my body didn’t belong to me anymore. My ears rang. Elara’s voice still moved, her lips shaping words, but I couldn’t hear them.

Everything was a blur until suddenly he was in front of me.

Tamlin, my mate, stood there half-naked, sweat dripping down his skin, the scent of my sister’s body clinging to him. He pushed his black curls back with that same practiced arrogance I had once found irresistible, that little tilt of his head, the slow drag of his tongue across his lips, I always fell for that act, the way he acted, the way he carried himself. He was everything Elegance depicted until now.

“I am your mate,” I whispered, or maybe screamed, I couldn’t tell anymore. “We are to be married tomorrow. Tomorrow, Tamlin! Yet you go ahead and fuck my sister. She is my sister, for goodness’ sake! Do you not feel disgusted by that?”

My tears poured, streaming down my cheeks as though my body was trying to bleed out all its hurt through my eyes.

He placed a hand on my shoulder. I flinched, but he held me there.

“I was never going to marry you, Alora,” he said softly, almost like pity, “You were just meant for fun. A distraction. And now the fun is over. I have to face the real world.”

I searched his face, begging for some hint that this was a lie, a nightmare I would wake from. But there was nothing.

“What?” The word trembled out of me.

“I’m marrying your sister,” he said. With no hesitation. “Elara is the one I want. It was never you. It will never be you.”

And then he walked away. Just like that. As if I were nothing.

Sitting in front of me was now Elara, she grabbed her underwear and then scoffed.

Something inside me snapped and I walked towards her and slapped her.

“How could you do this to me?”

She didn’t flinch. She glared, eyes narrowing, her lips curling into that poisonous smile I had grown up with. She lifted her hand as though to strike me back, but paused halfway, holding it there. And then she let it fall, not out of mercy, but mockery.

“The real question, Alora, is how could you do this to me? Did you truly think my boyfriend of four years would leave me just because of some stupid mate bond? Just because you were fated to him? Do you really think that bond makes you special?”

Right there were the words that broke me to a million pieces, I tried to gasp for air, my lungs collapsing on me as I crashed to the ground.

I watched her feet walk away from me, I was left with a lake of my tears, and a bleeding heart.