All Chapters of The Alpha's Unwanted Bride: Chapter 1 - Chapter 5

At the Moonveil masquerade, everyone came to hide who they were. I came wearing my sister’s face.“The silver tree, eleven o’clock.” Vanessa tightened the silver mask against my temple, hard enough to leave a mark by morning. “Wait beneath the tree for an hour; when he approaches, answer his questions. Stay pleasant and smile.”The blue contact lenses she’d forced into my eyes burned each time I blinked. I folded my trembling hands against Cassandra’s midnight-blue dress before Vanessa noticed them. “You still haven’t told me which mask is his,” I said.“You don't need to recognize him.” She rested her fingers on my shoulders as she turned toward the door. “He knows how to recognize Cassandra.”“And what if he realizes that I am not Cassandra?” I said, hoping she would change her mind.Vanessa glanced over her shoulder. “Axel Blackwood permits no recent photos of himself outside his territory, and your father handled the negotiations without me. So he has not met Cassandra. All he kno

{Isla’s POV} My phone started buzzing before I could process the name he had just called me.Cassandra. I quickly pulled away from him, scrambling to find my phone by the door. Four missed calls from Vanessa lit up the screen, and a fifth message popped up.Where are you? The last carriage is leaving. Miss it and forget the key. That was when reality hit me. Whatever had just happened in that room, whatever his mouth against my throat had meant, or whatever this mark on my neck meant, none of it mattered next to the simple fact that if I didn’t get home before Vanessa fell asleep, I would lose the one thing I’d been promised my whole life.I hated how easily Vanessa could do as she pleased with me. With that Key and Mrs. Elwood’s care still in her hands, she would forever control me.“I have to go,” I said.“Why do you look so frightened? Is something wrong?” he asked, reaching for his trousers. “I’ll go with you.”“No,” I said immediately. I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly

{Isla’s POV} For one absurd second, I smiled at him.I understand how that must have looked from his perspective, but there was nothing I could do. A part of me foolishly forgot that he wouldn’t recognize me as Isla. Or perhaps I remembered but didn’t care. I was standing next to my mate at the altar, getting married to him. If this wasn’t fate, then I don’t know what was.His face did the opposite of mine. It curdled.Disgust moved across it, then he glanced straight at Richard and Vanessa. His jaw tightened; then his gaze swept over me the way you’d look at food you disliked, and whatever hope I’d let myself hold on to for that one foolish second died instantly.“I heard what kind of woman you are,” he said in a low tone. Nothing in his voice matched the man from that night. “Careless. Dishonest. Manipulative.”Something in me wanted to tell him who I truly was, that it was me from that night. His mate. But I couldn’t. The hatred in his eyes wasn’t the hatred of a man who didn’t k