After My Sister Stole My Mate, His Twin Rescued Me

The Great Hall glittered like something out of a dream I'd stopped having years ago.

Crystal chandeliers threw fractured light across tables laden with roasted game and honeyed wine. The pack was dressed in their finest—silks and pressed suits, jewelry that caught the firelight. Everyone looked beautiful. Everyone looked happy.

I stood against the back wall in my only clean dress—a plain grey thing that had been washed so many times the fabric had gone thin at the seams. My hands were still raw from scrubbing floors, hidden now in the folds of my skirt. The cramping in my abdomen had eased to a dull ache, but the nausea remained, a constant companion I'd learned to breathe through.

Katie sat at the head table beside Tristan, radiant in emerald silk that made her skin glow. She laughed at something he said, her hand resting on his forearm with easy familiarity. My parents flanked them, beaming like they'd won some unspoken lottery.

No one had looked at me since I'd entered the hall.

The feast stretched on. Courses came and went. Toasts were made to the pack's prosperity, to the Alpha's leadership, to the Moon Goddess's blessings. I stayed pressed against the wall, trying to make myself smaller, trying not to exist.

Then Tristan stood.

The hall quieted immediately. He tapped his glass with a knife, the crystal ring cutting through the last whispers of conversation. His Alpha aura rolled out across the room—not crushing like the presence I felt in the dark, but enough to command attention.

"My pack," he said, his voice warm and confident. "Tonight we celebrate not just our prosperity, but the future of the Silverclaw bloodline."

Applause rippled through the crowd. Katie smiled up at him, her expression perfectly composed.

"Bella." His eyes found me against the wall. "Come here."

Every head turned. The weight of their stares pressed against my skin like physical touch. I couldn't move.

"Now."

The Alpha tone in that single word forced my legs into motion. I walked through the silent hall, past tables full of people who'd spent three years treating me like furniture. The distance to the stage felt infinite.

I climbed the steps on shaking legs. Stood before him. Kept my eyes down.

"Look at me."

I looked up.

His face was cold. Distant. Nothing like the man who'd held me in the dark, whose scent had wrapped around me like safety. But they had to be the same person. They had to be.

"I, Tristan Reynolds, Alpha of the Silverclaw Pack—" His voice amplified, filling every corner of the hall. "—reject you, Bella Wagner, as my mate and Luna."

The world stopped.

Then the pain hit.

It felt like something inside my chest was being ripped out through my ribs. The mate bond—the thing I'd thought was weak, damaged, barely there—tore away with the force of a limb being severed. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't see. My knees buckled and I hit the stage floor hard.

Blood filled my mouth. Hot and copper-tasting. I coughed and it splattered across the polished wood, dark and wrong.

Through the haze of agony, I heard Tristan's voice, still amplified, still steady: "This woman has failed to produce an heir. She harbors a weak spirit and a dying wolf. She is no longer under pack protection."

Hands grabbed my arms. Someone shoved papers in front of my face. A pen was forced into my trembling fingers.

"Sign."

I couldn't read the words. Couldn't focus. The pain was eating me alive from the inside out. My hand moved anyway, muscle memory from three years of obedience. The signature looked like a child's scrawl.

Someone pulled me to my feet. Katie stood beside Tristan now, his arm around her waist. She was smiling.

"The pack welcomes Katie Wagner," Tristan announced, "as my true mate and your future Luna."

The applause was deafening.

I stumbled toward the stage steps. My vision swam. Luna stirred inside me, stronger than she'd been in months, her presence sharp with something that felt like rage.

Run, she said.

I made it three steps before Katie moved into my path. Her smile was bright and sisterly as she raised her wine glass.

"Oh, Bella—" Her hand tilted. Red wine cascaded down my dress, soaking through the thin grey fabric, staining it the color of blood. "I'm so clumsy."

Laughter erupted around us.

Something hit my shoulder. A bread roll. Then another. Food scraps rained down as I ran for the doors—the pack's jeers following me like a physical force.

"Rogue!"

"Weak wolf!"

"Good riddance!"

The heavy doors slammed shut behind me and the sound cut off like a blade.

I stood in the empty corridor, wine-soaked and bleeding from the mouth, the rejection pain still tearing through my chest in waves. Through the windows, I could see storm clouds gathering, black and violent.

Luna pushed harder against my consciousness.

Run, she said again. Into the woods. Now.

Thunder cracked overhead as I started running.