3

ASHKA’S POV

I sat in the study staring at the door while Ivy kept knocking from the other side.

“Ashka, please,” she said, sounding full of guilt. “Open up the door and just hear me out. I never wanted you to find out like that. There are things you don’t understand.”

I stayed quiet, hoping she would eventually leave.

But she didn’t.

“We’re sisters,” Ivy continued. “You know me. You know I would never hurt you on purpose. Please give me a chance to explain, just a few minutes. I’ve been dying inside since you walked in on us.”

I waited a little longer. The knocking didn’t stop.

Finally I stood up, unlocked the door, and stepped back.

Ivy walked in quickly.

Her eyes were red. “I’m so sorry, Ashka. I never wanted to hurt you. I tried to fight the bond for as long as I could. I stayed away from Rurik at the beginning because I didn’t want to destroy your marriage. But the mate bond became too strong and I couldn’t ignore it anymore. Fate put us in this position. I didn’t choose it either. Please believe me.”

I listened without saying anything until she finished.

Then I spoke. “How long have you been lying to me?”

She blinked. “Ashka—”

“How many times did you look me in the eye while you were sleeping with my husband?” I asked. “Everytime you smiled and had a conversation with me, or was it every time you comforted me when I said I felt lonely. Every time you told me Rurik was just busy with pack work. Was all of it just an act?”

Ivy’s expression changed and her tears slowed down. “I didn’t plan for it to go this far.”

“That is not an answer.”

She stared at me for a moment. Then the guilt on her face disappeared completely alongside the pitiful voice she used. Even her tears had dried up as if they had never been there.

“There is no point holding on to a marriage that was never truly yours to begin with,” she said. “Fate chose me, not you. I spent years standing in your shadow watching the man who belonged to me marry someone else. I watched you wear the title of Luna. I watched you sit beside him at every ceremony. I watched the whole pack treat you like you were the one chosen by the Moon Goddess. And the entire time, the mark was mine.”

I looked at her. “Regardless of the mate bond, you were still my sister. We grew up together. How could you betray me after everything we went through?”

Ivy’s voice turned cold. “Stop acting like the victim, Ashka. You got five years with him. Five full years of being called Luna. Five years of people bowing to you. While I had nothing, I had to smile and clap at your wedding. I had to help you pick dresses for anniversaries that should have been mine. I had to listen to you talk about how much you loved him while the bond was already pulling me toward him. If anyone deserves sympathy here, it’s me.”

“You think you deserve sympathy?” I said. “You lived in my home. You ate at my table. You called me sister while you were sleeping with my husband for over a year and now you stand here telling me I should feel sorry for you?”

“Yes, you should, ” Ivy shot back. “And you know why? Because the Moon Goddess marked me, not you. You were never his real mate. You were just filling the space until I could take what was mine. Everyone will understand that eventually. The pack will accept me. I mean Rurik already has, you’re the only one still pretending this marriage will still stand.”

“You are not Luna of anything yet,” I said. “And you will never be my sister again.”

Ivy laughed mockingly. “Keep telling yourself that. You spent years building this pack for him. All that work. All those late nights and in the end, it still wasn’t enough to make you his true mate. That must hurt.”

“Get out,” I said again, louder this time.

“No. You need to hear this. I stopped feeling guilty a long time ago. The moment I accepted the bond, I realized I had been the one suffering. Not you. You got the public title, but I got the real one. And now that everything is out in the open, I’m done pretending to be sorry.”

The argument got louder, Ivy raised her voice and I matched it. We were both speaking over each other when the door opened and Rurik walked in.

He looked between us. “What is happening here?”

Before I could say a word, Ivy’s entire face changed again. The tears came back instantly and the pitiful voice returned like a switch had been flipped.

“I only came to apologize,” she told him. “I feel so guilty for hurting Ashka. I just wanted her to understand that I never meant for any of this to happen. I didn’t want her to find out this way.”

Rurik walked straight to her. He put a hand on her shoulder.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” he said. “None of this is your fault. Neither of us chose who the Moon Goddess paired us with. There is no reason for you to keep blaming yourself, come on. You’ve been through enough tonight.”

He didn’t look at me. He didn’t ask if I was alright. He didn’t acknowledge anything I was feeling, he only comforted her.

In a single night I had become the outsider in both my marriage and my own home.

I looked at the two of them once. Then I walked past them toward the door.

“Ashka,” Rurik called after me. “Where are you going?”

I didn’t answer and I didn’t slow down.

I left the study with only one goal in mind….to get as far away from both of them as possible. I had no destination.

I simply walked through the quiet corridors of the manor, trying to stop myself from thinking about what had just happened.

As I turned into one of the older corridors that led toward the council wing, I heard voices ahead.

They were speaking in hushed tones, so I stopped just before rounding the corner.

At first I wasn’t interested in listening. Then one sentence caught my attention. “…the sealed mate bond.”

I frowned.

Another voice answered quickly. “We shouldn’t even be discussing this inside the manor. If anyone discovers the truth, everything we’ve spent years protecting will fall apart.”

I slowly stepped closer, remaining hidden as I strained my ears to hear more.