Chapter 2

Layla's POV

I would never forget those words. Not after hearing them spoken over my dying body. Not after the knife.

Share your wolf with Aurora.

The chandeliers were wrong. The champagne glasses, the marble floor, the dress that pinched my shoulders and hung loose at the waist — none of this should exist. I should be dead on a cold floor with my wolf ripped out of me.

My hands were clean. No rope burns. No blood.

I was eighteen again.

That morning, I'd awakened my wolf for the first time. She'd surged through me, fierce and powerful — unmistakably an Alpha's wolf. My whole body had hummed with her. She was fierce. She was mine.

And for the first time in eighteen years, I'd felt like I might be enough. For one stupid, shining hour, I'd believed my father would finally see that. That my father would finally look at me as his daughter instead of the stray they'd dragged in from the border.

When I told the family, their faces looked strange. Not proud. Not pleased. Something calculated that I was only now seeing for what it was.

Aurora hadn't awakened a wolf.

My mother's eyes had darted to my father. Cole had stared at the floor. And within minutes, the conversation had shifted from celebrating my awakening to discussing Aurora's condition — as if my wolf wasn't a gift but an inventory error that needed correcting.

I'd taken Aurora's hand that evening. Genuinely sorry for her. I hadn't known what they were already planning.

By evening, they had a witch's opinion ready, a speech prepared, and reassurances waiting. Twins could share a wolf. It was safe. It wouldn't cause harm.

They'd pulled all of this together in a single day. I hadn't questioned it then — too busy being grateful.

"—and the witch confirmed it herself," Cole was saying, his voice dragging me back to the room. He stood with his arms folded, chin raised. "It's a proven phenomenon among twins. You won't lose anything."

They'd been talking the whole time I was lost in my head. My silence had stretched the air tight, and their rehearsed arguments were starting to trip over each other.

Father's patience broke first.

"Layla." Sharp enough to snap me back. The memories dissolved. The banquet hall sharpened into focus — the noise, the crowd, Cole's expectant stare. "This is a small matter. Standing here deliberating this long is disgraceful."

My mother stepped forward, softer but no less urgent. "Sweetheart, you and Aurora shared a womb. You shared everything before you were born. Why would sharing a wolf be any different?"

Cole went for a different wound. "Let's be honest — if you hadn't stolen Aurora's nutrients in the womb, she wouldn't be this weak. She might have awakened her own wolf." His lip curled. "You owe her, Layla. You don't get to be selfish about this."

The word landed like he'd practiced it. Selfish. As if wanting to keep my own wolf was the cruelest thing anyone had ever done in this family.

He reached for my arm. That same rough grab he'd used a hundred times before — hauling me along, pushing me wherever they wanted me. Cole was gentle with Aurora. Gentle with every she-wolf in the pack. With me, his hand was always rough.

I sidestepped. His fingers closed on air.

His hand hung there for a full second. The shock on his face was almost worth the whole trip back.

"You—" His neck flushed red. He lunged forward.

"Cole." Aurora's voice drifted between us, trembling just right. She caught his sleeve. "Don't be harsh with her. Layla has always been so thoughtful and considerate. I'm sure she'll agree."

She turned those wide, glistening eyes on me. The concerned sister. The reasonable one.

I knew this script. Aurora plays peacemaker. The crowd feels sorry for the fragile twin. All the pressure lands on Layla without anyone needing to raise their voice.

A sound scraped out of my throat that wasn't quite a laugh. In my first life, I'd been so desperate for their love that I never saw their faces for what they were. Or maybe I'd seen and refused to admit it.

Not this time.

I unclenched my hands.

"No."

The banquet noise swelled behind us. In our circle, the air stopped moving.

"What?" Cole's voice cracked.

"I won't share my wolf."

For three months since they'd brought me home, I'd copied Aurora's curtsy, swallowed their contempt, and smiled through meals nobody invited me to. The grateful stray who knew her place. Not one of them had ever heard me refuse anything.

The silence stretched for three full heartbeats.

My mother's hand flew to her chest. Her face crumbled. "Layla, how could you—"

"Ungrateful." Cole's lip curled. "After everything this family has done for her."

"Enough." Father's voice went cold. He looked at me the way he'd always looked at me — not at a daughter, but at something the border had spat out. "I should have expected this. You're still a wild child raised by rogues. You learned every last one of their selfish habits, and not a single trace of what an Alpha's daughter should be."

Those words had crushed me once. I'd spent sleepless nights trying to fix whatever was broken in me.

The girl who cared about Marcus Thorne's approval had bled to death on a stone floor. The woman wearing her dress had different priorities.

"You threw me away." My voice stayed level, but it carried. "I didn't even know I had parents until I was almost eighteen. When I was fighting rogues for scraps of bread at twelve, where were you? When I went to bed hungry and woke up to nothing — what exactly should I be grateful for?"

I looked at each of them. My mother, with her wet eyes. Cole, with his righteous jaw. The man who called himself my father.

None of them could hold my gaze.

The nearest guests had gone quiet. Whispers spread through the crowd.

"Wait — the Alpha's eldest daughter has had everything since birth—"

"And the younger one grew up on the border?"

"She didn't even know she had parents?"

The color drained from my father's face. Cole's jaw locked.

A woman's voice cut through the rest, sharp with disbelief.

"They're twins — how does one get everything and the other gets nothing?"