CHAPTER 2: Wedding To A Stranger

Eileen’s pov

“She’s awake! Someone get Madam Ferra—she’s finally awake!”

The voice cut through the room like a struck bell.

A woman I had never seen in my life was gripping my shoulders, close enough that I could feel her breath against my skin.

Behind her, two others were already in motion, snatching up brushes, pins, ribbons moving with the frantic precision of people who believed the world might end if a strand of hair was out of place.

“Where…” My voice cracked, foreign in my own throat. “Where am I?”

The woman holding me gave a laugh that didn’t quite become amusement. “You gave us quite the fright, Miss Eileen. Fainted right in the middle of your fitting. Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet now. Not today.”

Eileen?

The name landed wrong.

I looked down.

Longer fingers. Slimmer wrists. A thin silver ring caught the light on my smallest finger. I lifted my hands slowly, as if they belonged to someone else, and touched my face.

Higher cheekbones. A different bone structure.

A stranger’s skin.

The room tilted violently. I had to grip the vanity just to keep from sliding out of the world.

“Careful ma’am,” one of the younger maids said quickly, catching my elbow. “The gown will wrinkle itself before you even wear it properly.”

Gown?

Behind her, on a raised stand, it waited.

White fabric cascaded in heavy, suffocating layers of pearls stitched into every fold, catching the light like frozen tears. A wedding dress. Not delicate. Not soft. Expensive in a way that felt almost threatening.

My mouth went dry.

“Whose wedding is it?” I asked before I could stop myself.

Silence fell so fast it felt rehearsed.

The older woman, the one they had called Madam Ferra slowly straightened. Her eyes studied me with the careful patience of someone trying to decide whether I was unwell… or dangerous.

“Yours, Miss Hayden,” she said at last. “To the Supreme Alpha. Have you truly forgotten your own wedding day?”

Supreme Alpha?

My stomach dropped as if the floor had vanished beneath it.

I turned toward the mirror.

And froze.

The face staring back at me wasn’t mine.

Dark hair spilled over shoulders that weren’t mine. A sharper jawline. Fuller lips set in a controlled, almost effortless expression, confidence etched so deeply it looked permanent, like this woman had never once doubted her place in the world.

Eileen Hayden.

The name surfaced in my mind without permission.

Daughter of the West Pack’s Beta.

And I was looking through her eyes.

“I hit my head,” I said quickly, clinging to the first lie my mind could manufacture. “Everything’s… blurred. I need a moment.”

Madam Ferra’s gaze sharpened instantly. “You’ve never been soft in your life, girl. Not when your mother died. Not when your father threatened to disown you. And now you faint over a wedding you fought tooth and nail to secure?”

I fought for it.

The words rearranged something inside me.

This wasn’t fear. This wasn’t coercion.

This woman—this body—had wanted this.

I swallowed hard. “Just… give me a moment.”

The younger maid hesitated, then leaned in when Madam Ferra turned away to issue orders. Her voice dropped to a whisper meant only for me.

“Are you alright, Miss Hayden? You’ve been… different since you woke up.”

My eyes flicked to her. “Different how?” I needed to know what the previous owner of the body was like.

She hesitated, as if the answer itself might be dangerous.

“You haven’t insulted anyone yet.” A faint, uncertain smile touched her lips. “Not even me. And I dropped your comb twice.”

Something cold settled in my chest.

In this room, kindness was abnormal.

I straightened slowly, testing the strength of a posture that wasn’t mine. “What’s your name?”

She blinked. “Wren, Miss Hayden. You’ve… never asked before.”

“Then consider it a new habit,” I said, sharper than I intended. “Wren. Focus.”

Relief flickered across her face like she had just recognized a familiar storm returning. “There she is.”

Madam Ferra watched me from across the room now, her expression unreadable caught somewhere between suspicion and something almost like expectation.

They moved in again after that.

Corset laces tightened until breath became negotiation. Pins pricked skin I was still learning to inhabit. Fabric settled over me like armor disguised as beauty.

All the while, my mind raced far ahead of the room.

A wedding.

The Supreme Alpha.

A man I had never met.

A life I had not chosen.

And yet the previous body owner had.

Three hours.

That was all that stood between me and something powerful enough to rewrite everything.

“Miss Hayden.”

Madam Ferra’s voice cut through the haze.

“Your father is here. He requests a private word before the ceremony.”

My spine tightened. “Send him in.”

The door opened.

A tall man entered broad-shouldered, composed, wearing the weight of authority like it had been stitched into his bones. West Pack insignia marked his robes, and the resemblance was immediate. The same sharp features I saw in the mirror.

He waited until the door shut behind him. Then, all composure cracked. “We don’t have much time,” he said.

My pulse shifted.

“Before you go through with this,” he continued, stepping closer, voice lowered into something urgent and raw, “there is something about this arrangement you need to know. Something I should have told you the day I agreed to it.”

My throat tightened. “Told me what?”

A humorless breath left him. “You should be scared.”

“I am already scared, dad.” I said, and it came out more honestly than I intended.

“Good.” His grip closed around my hands suddenly—too tight, too desperate. “You should be. I was scared the day I signed those papers, and I’ve been scared every day since.”

My blood went cold.

He glanced at the door once more, then leaned in, voice dropping to something almost broken.

“The Supreme Alpha didn’t choose you because he wants you,” he said.

My breath caught.

“He chose you because of what you are, Eileen.”

A pause—sharp, deliberate.

“And if he discovers the truth before the bond is sealed…neither of us sees tomorrow’s sunrise.”