Chapter 1

ANARA’s POV

"Hurry or we'll be late."

"But the event doesn't even start in an hour." The second voice was breathless, panting.

I scrambled to my feet and hurried over to the window just as the first voice said, "I can't wait to see the decorations in the pack"

"Who cares about the decorations? I can't wait to see Princess Lyra's dress for the occasion. I heard real diamonds were sewn into her”

This was followed by a scream as the girl who had spoken first pointed at me.

"It's just her," she spat out.

The look on the girl and her friend's faces were the same: disgust. I pictured how monstrous I was with my face pressed up against the glass of the single minuscule window in my room. The taller of the two girls took the other’s hand and they scurried off as if they were scared that if I gazed at them for too long, I would taint their fine clothes. I retreated and waited till I couldn't hear their feet step any more.

I waited a couple of minutes more, to be sure that no one else was coming, before I went out of doors.

It was a moonlit night, and you could almost smell the excitement and anticipation. In the distance, at the top of the hill, there were a thousand pretty lights, strung up all around the grounds, columns and pillars of the pack like fairies. The east wind brought in the scent of the delectable food they were making for the feast. I cupped my hand over my belly when I sensed a pang of hunger there. Maybe I can scavenge some of their leftovers when they finish eating.

"Out of the way, you!" growled a voice from behind me. I dodged to the side quickly as a portly, red-faced man laden with heavy trays hurtled past me. He turned back once to glare at me and muttered a few choice swear words. Again, my eyes were drawn to the pack where a banquet would be held in about an hour from now, in celebration of my sister, Princess Lyra's first shift.

The girl had said Lyra's dress was stitched with real diamonds. I sighed as I ran my hands over my own threadbare clothes that had seen too many washings. It was hard to believe sometimes that Lyra and I were sisters, twins actually. The vast difference between us was laughable, if I had been able to laugh at my own plight, that is.

Lyra lived in the sumptuously furnished pack. I lived in a little run-down house on the pack grounds with a tiny window, a leaky roof and walls whose large cracks I covered regularly with stiff pieces of cardboard.

Lyra was pampered, and was given everything she wanted. I did my own laundry, got my meals from the kitchen along with the workers in the pack. I almost always got food after everyone else had eaten. This meant I usually got scraps, burnt, unwanted portions, or most times, no food at all.

And all this ill, unfair treatment stemmed from an ancient prophecy of the Nightveil pack. This prophecy had changed my life for the worse, and so I had it etched in my brain. I closed my eyes. Even now I could see every word of that prophecy written in an old book with yellowed pages which I had read obsessively over and over again, as though by doing so I could change what was written in it.

'Let the prince and peasant, the highborn and lowborn of the Nightveil pack beware. Let them heed the signs and the portents for it is written; two children, twins, will be born. The one shall be full of light, laughter and love, a leader who will bind and unify. Its dark twin shall seek to destroy, to kill and ruin. Its powers and influence shall grow until Nightveil is buried in dust and ashes…’

And so after my mother had given birth to Lyra and I she had come up with the idea of hiding one of us until our destinies were clearer. She figured the people of Nightveil might have plotted to kill one of us because of the prophecy. Personally, I thought she was right. Fear made people do terrible things. I, Anara Valen was the twin who had been hidden. Only few people knew my identity. I was happy and well cared for. Things dramatically changed after my mother, the queen, died under mysterious circumstances. My father turned against me. Lyra did too. My father had somehow become convinced that I was the evil twin spoken about in the prophecy. I was alienated, forced to live the life of a servant on the pack grounds. I was miserable and alone until...

A smile curved my lips as I remembered the day I turned 16. The day I owned my wolf, Seraphis. She was not the regular kind of wolf others in the pack had. She was unique, powerful, a wolf who had inherited the wisdom and memories of the Valen family's generation of wolves. The first time I had phased into my wolf form, I had been so excited, but even now, Seraphis's warning rang in my ears.

'Don't tell anyone you own your wolf now,' she had said. 'Keep it a secret so they don't make things tougher for you.’

It was advice I had immediately heeded.

Now, my wolf stirred as she caught a scent I had never perceived before. It was not a scent of food or of anything I could place. I strained to stay put, but whatever was emitting that scent tugged so intensely at me that my legs were moving me along; past my house, down the trail to the pack gardens where a hundred different flowers blossomed. The garden’s sole dwellers were two forms that were, it seemed, shaped to fit one another.

I realized three things simultaneously; The figures were kissing. One of them was my sister. The man she was making out with was my mate. Before I could even hold myself back, I gave out a noise that was part-whine, part-moan.

 The couple separated instantly. I was so focused on the tall blond man who was looking straight at me, horror written across his face, that I didn’t see anything else. His nostrils flared and I knew he could scent it as well, that smell that informed him what we were to one another.

'Mate,' Seraphis purred.

My heart beat so fast in excitement, then began to beat in dread as he gave me a once over.

"You?" he said in a deep voice that matched his build. "How the hell are you also my mate?”