Chapter 3: The Door Between Us

I screamed until my voice shredded into nothing. Pounded on that door until my palms went numb and my throat tasted like copper. Nobody came. Nobody was ever going to come.

Eventually I slid down into a corner of the dark, knees pulled to my chest. The stone floor leached warmth from my body. Above me, faint through layers of earth and stone, I could still hear it — music, laughter, a celebration getting ready to happen without me.

The first footsteps came fast, careless, two sets moving together. I recognized the rhythm before I recognized the voices.

“You awake in there?” Marcus.

“What do you want?”

“Emilia's a mess,” he said. “She was inconsolable, trying to hurt herself because of you.”

“Cried so hard Mom had to sedate her.” Jared, from just behind him. “You know what she gets like.”

“She's done that before,” I said. “Every time she wants something and isn't sure she'll get it. Ask yourselves why it always happens right when it's most useful to her.”

“How can you still be slandering your sister after everything?” Marcus's voice climbed, incredulous. “This whole mess is your fault, Raven. We came down here because we feel sorry for you — but it's clear you haven't learned your lesson yet.”

“Marcus.” I pressed closer to the door. “Do you even remember when you used to take my side?”

A pause. Long enough that I thought I'd reached him.

“We grew up, Raven,” he said finally. “Maybe you should too.”

Their footsteps retreated together, and I'd already stopped hoping when my mother arrived — her footsteps slower, lighter, the kind that never had to justify themselves to anyone.

“Raven.” Tired, flat. “You need to stop this.”

“Stop what? Existing?”

“It's not your wedding day anymore.” Each word landed like something dropped from a height. “Emilia needs this. She needs him. You've always been strong enough to survive without a mate bond, Raven. She isn't.”

“That's not how fated mates work, and you know it.”

“Fated mates are biology. Family is choice. We're choosing Emilia.”

“And what about choosing me?” My voice broke. “Just once, Mom. What about choosing me?”

The silence stretched so long I could hear her breathing shift — that small catch that meant I'd landed a blow.

“I'm sorry you see it that way,” she said finally. “We need you to choose her too.”

Her footsteps faded, unhurried. The silence stretched long after she'd gone — long enough that I let myself believe no one else was coming.

Then I caught his scent before I even heard him on the stairs.

Michael.

“Michael.” I was on my feet before I'd decided to stand. “Open the door.”

Nothing. But I could hear him breathing on the other side.

“I know you're there. I can feel you through the bond.” My voice cracked. “Please. Just talk to me.”

“I can't.” Barely a whisper. “Raven, I can't.”

“Can't, or won't?” I leaned my forehead against the wood. “We're fated mates. Doesn't that mean anything to you anymore?”

“It means everything. That's why this is killing me.”

“Then don't do it. Don't marry her.”

“She'll hurt herself if I don't.” The words rushed out of him. “You don't know what she's like when she doesn't get what she wants.”

“And when she threatens it again after the wedding? How many times are you going to let her hold herself hostage to get what she wants?”

“You're stronger than she is,” he said, like he hadn't heard me at all. “You'll survive this. You won't be Luna, but you'll still be my mate.”

For a moment I couldn't even find words.

He'd betrayed me, and somehow, in his mind, I was supposed to stay anyway. Not as his wife. Not as his Luna. As something smaller, something kept in the margins of the life he was about to build with someone else. The mistress. The other woman.

When the truth was the exact opposite. I was his fated mate. She was the other woman. She had always been the other woman.

“Say that again,” I said quietly. “Tell me again that I'm supposed to be grateful for the scraps of you she doesn't want.”

Silence.

“What if I don't want to be strong anymore?” My voice dropped to nearly nothing. “What if I want someone to choose me because I matter — not because I can be counted on to survive being left?”

The silence went on so long I thought he'd already gone.

“I'm sorry, Raven. I'm so sorry.”

His footsteps retreated, heavier going up than they'd been coming down — back to her.

Above me, muffled through layers of stone and earth, the celebration continued. Someone laughed — high and bright and carefree. Music swelled, the kind of joyful melody they'd play at a mating ceremony. My mating ceremony.

That's when I heard them — footsteps again, but different from all the others. Lighter. Quick and certain, like she'd never once doubted she'd be welcome at this door.

I didn't say her name. I wasn't going to give her that.

“Raven?” Soft. Sweet. The voice that made everyone else melt on command. But there was something underneath it tonight — something bright and satisfied she wasn't bothering to hide. “Are you comfortable down there?”

“Say what you came to say, Emilia.”

She laughed, low and pleased with herself. “You always were so perceptive. Fine.” A pause, like she was savoring the words. “As long as they believe me, I can have anything that's yours. It was never about what was true. It was only ever about who they chose to believe.”

“You're proud of this.”

“I'm good at this.” No shame in her voice at all. “Watch. I cry a little — not too much, just enough — and Mom comes running. Dad comes running. The whole pack comes running to comfort poor, fragile Emilia.”

I could hear it in her voice — she was demonstrating, even now. That little catch in her breath, the tremor she could summon on command. Then it smoothed back out into something colder, sharper.

“Even Michael. The one you thought would never leave you. He's leaving you for me, Raven. Right now. Tonight. And there's nothing you can do about it from down there but listen.”

Through the bond, faint and fading, I could feel him. Upstairs. Moving away from this door, away from me.

Something in me went very still.

“You're going to wear my dress,” I said quietly.

“It fits me better anyway.” I heard the smile in her voice. “Mom had it altered days ago. We all knew how tonight was going to go before you ever walked through that door. Do you want to know what it feels like, Raven? To put on your dress and know I'm going to be the one wearing it when it matters?”

My fingernails dug into my palms.

“It feels like winning,” she continued, her voice dropping to something almost intimate. “It feels like everything I've ever wanted, handed to me on a silver platter. And the best part? You helped. Every time you were strong, every time you didn't make a fuss, every time you forgave me — you taught them that you didn't need to be chosen.”

“Get away from this door, Emilia.”

“There's nothing you could say that would matter.” Her voice was almost gentle again. “That's the part I actually feel sorry for you about. You still think the truth is going to save you. It never has. It never will. Not against me.”

Above us, the music swelled.

“You know what the funny thing is?” Emilia's voice turned dreamy. “I didn't even want him at first. Not really. But then I saw the way you looked at him, like he was your whole future, and I thought — why should you get that? Why should you get the fated mate and the Luna position and everyone's respect, just because you got there first?”

“GET AWAY!” The scream tore out of me and echoed off the stone.

A soft laugh, retreating up the stairs. “You'll forgive me eventually. You always do. You don't really have a choice.”

The door at the top of the stairs opened, and for a moment, sound flooded down — music, voices, the clink of glasses. Then it closed, and the silence crashed back down.

I sat in the dark, breathing hard. I could still smell her perfume — something floral and expensive. It lingered in the stale cellar air like proof she'd really been here.

My dress. My mate. My family. My future.

She'd taken it all, and she'd come down here to make sure I knew it.

I sat back down in the dark once the last of them was gone, and for the first time all night, I wasn't crying.

Every one of them had come to this door with a story already decided — my brothers with their borrowed certainty, my mother with her cold arithmetic, Michael with his guilt that changed nothing, Emilia with her open, gleeful cruelty.

Every one of them expected the same thing from me in the end. Forgiveness. Silence. The quiet, familiar shape of a daughter who always, eventually, gave way.

I sat with my back against the cold stone and understood, with a clarity that felt almost peaceful, that I was done being that shape.

Whatever I became after tonight, it wasn't going to be forgiving.