The Shadow Sister’s Secret Marriage 소설 & 이야기

she chided herself. She thought again about the scene in the room and felt her heart cut once again. They were holding each other. The man she had longed for the longest time was holding on to her illegitimate sister, and the wound felt incurable. She would have to find a way to forget about Ronan. It would not be easy, but she had to. And she knew, sometimes, people were so carved into your heart that to remove them from your heart, one had to get rid of that heart.

Coming closer. Isabella turned toward the door instinctively. The hallway light dimmed. A shadow stretched across the floor. Long. Unnatural. Not matching any visible body. Her breath caught. “No…” she whispered. The footsteps stopped just outside the door. Silence. Then A second shadow appeared. Overlapping the first. Too many angles. Too wrong. Her sister stepped back into the darkness of the closet. Pulling Isabella slightly with her. “Don’t look at him directly,” she whispered urgently.

She’d sworn she’d never come back to the Thorn pack, yet here she was, summoned by her father’s guilt trip and the threat of family “disgrace.” Lila looked radiant up front in white lace, smiling like the perfect bride. Her stepsister... The girl who used to braid her hair and share secrets. Now? Just another reminder of everything that broke. Serena stood beside her as maid of honor, sleek and smug in emerald green, her hand brushing Kai’s arm a little too familiarly.

Sent my sister the school trip money and heard her squeal like Christmas had come early. They seemed so relieved, happy, proud—it should’ve filled me with joy. But instead, it left a pit in my stomach. Because I knew who I owed. Elena. And she knew it too. Two days later, I was back in that glass tower. The envelope was empty, but the memory of breathing easy clung to me like perfume. Elena didn’t waste time. “I need you to take my place,” she said. I blinked. “Your place?” She nodded, calm as ever. “My family has arranged a meeting. With a man. Wealthy, powerful, important. They want me to marry him. I don’t want to. But appearances matter. So, you will go in my place.”

“And the lovely new sister. Father sent me to escort you. He wants this meeting to be… intimate.” Darius stopped short. His voice dropped. “Step aside, Ronan.” Ronan didn’t move right away. Instead, he looked straight at me, that smile never fading. “Careful tonight, Princess Elara. Not everything in this family is what it seems. Especially not on wedding nights.” Before I could respond, Darius placed a hand on my lower back, guiding me forward past his half-brother. We kept walking, but the hallway suddenly felt longer, darker, and far more dangerous than before.

The same one she'd shown me before. She carried it back carefully, like it weighed more than it should. "The Shadow wasn't always alone," she said, opening it to a marked page. "Before the curse… before everything changed… he had a mate." I held my breath. "And children," she added. My pulse quickened. "Mira was one." Mara nodded. "Yes." The page rustled softly as she turned it. "There was another." The room felt smaller. "Who?" I asked. Mara's fingers trembled slightly against the paper.

Not something capable of reshaping alliances. Shianne looked at me slowly. And for the first time since we started digging through Korr’s records— I saw unease in her eyes. Real unease. Her voice dropped. “If they concealed she was his sister…” Her gaze moved back to the certificate. “…then the marriage wasn’t just a mating.” The words settled heavily between us. I stared. Waiting. Her throat worked once before she finished quietly: “It was a political arrangement.” My blood ran cold. Because suddenly—

**END FLASHBACK** “My sister died before we made the first cut. She never got to hold her son.” Tears streamed down my face that I kept hidden by my arms as I related that night to my mate. “Shadow runs the underground market. As well as no man's land. Every borough fears him. He has humans under his control as well as rogues and other creatures. My sister said his hounds, I can only assume they are his pets. I have tried to stay off his radar for as long as possible… until this job. I have no idea why he wanted the crown, or what purpose it serves. All I know is he wanted it and hired Miko’s gang to get it. I’m the best at what I do, and Miko bribed me to do one last job, this job. If I had

That was what Maryan thought of her sister until that fateful night. Maryan overslept at the bus that she had missed her stop. When she got off, she was more than a kilometer away from her destination. She just decided to walk home. After all, it was not her first time. She had three jobs in the morning and afternoon and then night classes. Everyday she was drained but she had to endure. Someone had to pay for the roof above their heads. They wouldn’t be in such a situation if only her sister didn’t apply for Hearth. Hearth was exaggerating its school hours and it annoyed Maryan so much as to why her elder sister was willing to trade her good work just for an extravagant school. And so, it w