After My Sister Stole My Mate, His Twin Rescued Me

The fever broke on the third night.

I woke gasping, my skin slick with sweat that had already cooled in the night air. The cabin was dark except for the dying embers in the fireplace. Dante sat in the chair beside the bed, exactly where he'd been every time I'd surfaced from the delirium. His eyes tracked me in the darkness, that faint red glow the only light I needed to see by.

"It's done," he said quietly. "The poison is out."

I felt it immediately—the difference. My body didn't ache anymore. The constant nausea was gone. And Luna—

Luna was awake.

Not the weak, suppressed presence I'd carried for three years. This was something else entirely. She pushed against my consciousness with a strength that made my breath catch, her presence sharp and clear and demanding.

Out, she said. Moon. Now.

I threw off the furs and stood. My legs held me without shaking. Dante rose with me, his hand hovering near my elbow but not touching.

"Bella—"

I didn't wait. I walked to the door and pushed it open.

The forest was silver under the full moon. Cold air hit my face and I breathed it in deep, tasting pine and earth and something wild that made Luna surge harder. My spine cracked—not painfully, just a release of pressure I hadn't known I was holding.

The shift came like breathing.

One moment I was standing on two legs, the next I was on four. My vision sharpened, colors bleeding away into shades of grey and silver. Scents exploded across my senses—every tree, every animal, every living thing in the forest suddenly distinct and knowable.

I looked down at my paws.

Silver. Not the dull grey I remembered from the few times I'd managed to shift before. This was luminous, catching the moonlight like water, like something precious. I turned my head and saw my reflection in the cabin window—a sleek wolf, smaller than Dante's massive form but strong, healthy, whole.

Luna threw her head back and howled.

The sound tore out of me, pure and wild and full of three years of suppressed rage and grief and joy. It echoed through the trees, and before the last note faded, another howl joined mine.

Deeper. Darker. A sound that made the ground vibrate.

Dante's black wolf emerged from the tree line, twice my size, his red eyes fixed on me with an intensity that made my fur stand on end. He moved closer, circling me once, his massive head lowering to brush against my neck.

Mate, Luna said, and the word was absolute. Certain. No doubt, no hesitation.

We howled together. Our voices twined and harmonized in a way that felt older than language, and the trees around us shook with the force of it.

When we finally shifted back, dawn was breaking through the trees. I stood naked in the clearing, my skin still tingling with the aftershocks of the transformation. Dante handed me a shirt—his, huge on me—and I pulled it on without thinking.

"Your wolf is beautiful," he said.

I looked at him. At Tristan's face that wasn't Tristan's face. At the man who'd been in the shadows for three years while I suffered in the light.

"What happens now?"

His expression hardened. "Now we take back what's mine."

He left at midday.

I watched from the cabin window as he disappeared into the trees, moving with a predator's efficiency. He'd told me where he was going—to retrieve Elena, the Pack Healer. To get the proof we needed.

He returned three hours later with a terrified woman stumbling behind him.

Elena looked like she'd aged ten years since I'd last seen her. Her hands shook as Dante pushed her into the cabin, his aura pressing down on her so hard she could barely stand.

"Tell her," he said.

Elena's eyes found mine. They were wet with tears. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Bella. He made me—"

"Tell her what you did."

The words came out in a rush. The falsified medical records. The wolfsbane mixed into my food under the guise of "supplements." The lies she'd told the pack about my "weak" wolf and "barren" womb. Three years of deliberate, systematic poisoning, all on Tristan's orders.

I listened without speaking. Luna growled inside my head, but I kept my face blank.

When Elena finished, Dante's voice cut through the silence. "The original mating contract. The one with my name. Where is it?"

"Tristan's study. In the safe behind the bookshelf." Elena's voice broke. "Please, Alpha, I didn't want to—"

"You'll retrieve it," Dante said. "Tomorrow. Before the Pack Council meeting. And you'll bring it to me."

Elena nodded frantically and fled.

Dante turned to me. "Tomorrow, we go back."

I should have been afraid. Should have hesitated. But Luna was awake now, strong and certain, and she wanted blood.

"I'm ready."

He crossed the room in two strides. His hand cupped my jaw, tilting my face up to his. "This is going to be ugly. Tristan won't go quietly. Neither will your sister."

"Good," I said.

Something shifted in his expression—approval, maybe, or recognition. He leaned down, his mouth hovering just above the curve of my neck. Not biting. Just—breathing. His scent wrapped around me, and I felt Luna purr.

"Not the mark yet," he said quietly. "But a warning. So every wolf in that pack house knows you're mine before we even walk through the door."

His tongue traced the spot where a mate mark would go, and I shivered. When he pulled back, I could feel it—the scent claim, temporary but unmistakable, layered over my skin.

We left at dawn.

The walk to the pack house felt both infinite and instant. Dante moved beside me, his presence a crushing weight that made the air itself feel heavier. I could feel eyes on us from the trees—patrol wolves, watching, uncertain.

We crossed the boundary marker.

The first wolf dropped to his knees immediately, his head bowed, a whimper escaping his throat. Then another. And another. The aura rolling off Dante was so overwhelming that submission wasn't a choice—it was survival.

By the time we reached the main grounds, there was a path of kneeling wolves stretching behind us.

The pack house doors stood open. Through them, I could see the Great Hall, still decorated from the Moon Festival. Still beautiful.

Dante's hand found mine. His grip was firm, grounding.

"Ready?"

I looked at the hall where I'd been rejected. Where I'd bled on the stage. Where my sister had poured wine on me while the pack laughed.

Luna snarled inside my head.

"Let's end this."