Chapter 2

Celeste stood beneath the arch of white roses.

She was wearing white too.

Her dress was untouched. Her hair fell in soft curls around her face, and even her tears seemed to know where to go.

“Please,” she whispered. “Don’t leave me.”

My mother ran to her.

“Oh, sweetheart. Never. We’re right here.”

My father followed. He folded both of them into his arms, his face crumpling in a way I had never seen before.

Adrian let out a breath. His wolf, which had been pacing close to the surface all evening, settled at the sight of her. I could see the gold recede from his eyes.

Caleb looked back at me and slowly shook his head.

I didn’t ask what I had done wrong this time.

I got up.

My ankle buckled under my weight. I waited until the sharpest pain passed, then began limping toward the side exit.

Someone caught my wrist.

Caleb pulled me around too quickly. The room tilted, and I bumped against his chest.

His free hand closed around my elbow before I could fall.

“Evie?”

For a second, he sounded like himself.

I stood still, waiting for the floor to settle.

Then Celeste started crying again, and his grip changed.

“You’ve really disappointed me tonight.”

I watched his thumb press into the inside of my wrist. He used to rub that spot when I was frightened.

“I thought you were stronger than this,” he said. “She’s already lost her name, her inheritance, her place beside Adrian. Wasn’t that enough? You had to go after her life too?”

“I didn’t.”

The words came out automatically. I wasn’t sure I expected an answer anymore.

“I found her, Evelyn. I was the one who broke down that door.”

I knew. He had told me often enough.

He had also been the one who checked my room. When he found the vial, he had looked at me as though ten years of knowing me had become something shameful.

“You used to have a good heart,” he said.

I eased my wrist out of his hand. He let me.

The wine was drying on my skin. My dress clung coldly to my legs. A little icing flower had lodged in the lace at my waist, its petals crushed flat.

This was the most expensive thing I had ever worn.

Before the wedding, I had washed my hands twice before touching it. I had stood in front of the mirror and lifted the skirt just enough to see my shoes.

For once, I had looked like someone who belonged in a beautiful room.

I had wanted Adrian to see me like that.

Six months earlier, Celeste had been diagnosed with a rare marrow disorder. Our pack healer tested my parents as possible donors. Neither was compatible, and further bloodline testing uncovered something much worse.

Celeste wasn’t their daughter.

I was.

The woman who raised me had worked in the Ashford household for decades. Twenty-two years earlier, she had switched her own newborn with the Alpha’s baby. Then she stayed on as a housekeeper so she could watch her daughter grow up in silk and sunshine.

I grew up in a rented apartment behind the staff quarters.

When the truth came out, she drowned in the river.

She left two pages behind.

I read them three times. My name wasn’t there.

After that, Celeste began treatment for depression. My mother slept beside her bed. My father canceled council meetings. Adrian barely left her room.

The alliance between Silvercrest and Blackthorn still needed a marriage.

My father decided it would be mine.

“You’re healthy,” he told me. “You can handle the duties of a Luna. Celeste needs peace.”

I said yes before he finished asking.

I had loved Adrian since I was twelve.

Back then, my adoptive mother sometimes took me to the Blackwood estate to help with the cleaning. One afternoon, I stood in a doorway watching Celeste eat warm pastries. I hadn’t had lunch.

Adrian saw me and pulled out a chair.

“Come on. There’s plenty.”

Celeste wrinkled her nose. “Her hands are dirty.”

“Then she can wash them.” He smiled at me. “You don’t have to earn a place at the table.”

I remembered that sentence for ten years.

Whenever he smiled at me afterward, I kept it. Small things, carefully saved. A door held open. A plate passed my way. My name spoken without irritation.

At our engagement dinner, he sat beside me without touching his food.

The only question he asked was whether Celeste was feeling better.

Everyone relaxed when he said her name. My mother described the soup Celeste had managed to eat. My father promised she would be looked after. Caleb offered to stay with her that night.

I kept my hands in my lap and tried not to take up too much room.

Adrian glanced at me.

“A Luna can’t spend her life staring at the floor.”

So I learned.

I practiced greeting visiting pack leaders. I memorized names, ranks, the seating order at council dinners. I stood in front of the mirror until my back ached, teaching myself not to hunch my shoulders.

After the infirmary incident, my father refused to cancel the wedding. The alliance was too important, he said. We would settle my punishment privately.

Adrian agreed to go through with it.

I mistook that for a chance.

Standing in the ruined dress, I finally understood how little he had promised.

Across the room, Celeste lifted her face from my mother’s shoulder.

Our eyes met.

Her crying stopped for a moment. She glanced at my dress, then at the door behind me.

Her mouth curved, barely.

I knew that look. I had seen it when we were children, just before someone found a broken ornament in my bag.

Then she tucked her face against my mother again.

I left without saying goodbye.