The Sister I Raised Became My Husband’s Mate

POV of Seraphina

Liora's sketchbook opened beneath my hands like a confession.

The first pages showed harmless dreams: a black wolf running through winter woods, drinking from a stream, sleeping beneath a crescent moon. Then the drawings changed.

The wolf bled from silver wounds identical to Cassian's scars. It stood over a grave. It lowered its muzzle to a white wolf's throat in a mate's caress.

The last three pages were worse.

A white wolf lay in a nest of moonflowers with a swollen belly. Beside her stood a black wolf with gold eyes. On the final page, a silver-haired boy stood between them beneath a shattered moon.

"You dreamed of carrying his child," I said.

Liora's bandaged hands shook in her lap. "I didn't want the dreams. I woke up sick. I scrubbed my skin until it bled."

"For six months?"

"The first one came after I returned from the border clinic. I thought it was fever. Then I started smelling the Alpha wing in my sleep. Smoke, pine, the oil Cassian uses on his weapons." Her voice broke. "I prayed every full moon for it to stop."

"Did you know it was him?"

"Not at first. The dreams only showed the wolf."

"But you suspected."

Her silence answered.

I turned another page. The boy's eyes had been painted gold with unusual care.

"Does Cassian know?"

"No. No one does."

"Why hide it from me?"

"Because part of me liked how the dreams felt." Shame bent her shoulders. "The wolf made me feel safe. Chosen. I hated myself for wanting to go back to sleep."

I forced myself to ask the question that mattered.

"If there were no silver thread, no drug, no wolf compulsion—only you and Cassian—would you still want him?"

Liora opened her mouth. Closed it.

Tears gathered, but she did not lie.

"Yes."

The room seemed to tilt.

I had raised her to tell the truth even when it cost her. I had never imagined the truth would be my husband.

"When did it begin?"

"I don't know. Maybe when he sat with me in the garden last spring. You were at the border negotiations. I was crying, and he never asked me to explain. He just stayed until I could breathe again." She twisted her fingers. "He remembered I hated cinnamon. He made the kitchen prepare a separate plate. Small things. I told myself it was gratitude."

"He is kind to everyone in this house."

"I know."

That was the cruelest part. She had not invented a false version of him. She had fallen for the same quiet attentiveness that had first undone me.

I closed the sketchbook.

"You should have told me."

"I was afraid you would look at me exactly as you are now."

I saw my reflection in the dark window: expressionless, controlled, the Luna's face I wore when pain had no useful place to go.

"I love you," Liora whispered. "You are the only mother I remember. I would cut out my wolf before I took him from you."

"You cannot remove your wolf without dying."

"I know."

I left before either of us said something we could not survive.

The corridor to the Alpha wing ran past tapestries of legendary mates, every story embroidered as if fate had always been clean and glorious. My wolf curled beneath my ribs and made the same broken sound she had made after the miscarriage.

Cassian was awake when I entered our chamber. He sat on the edge of the bed, shirtless, his head in his hands.

"You went to her."

"Yes."

"How is she?"

"Stable."

Relief crossed his face too quickly. He saw me notice and looked ashamed.

I sat beside him without touching.

"Did you dream about her before the ceremony?"

He went still.

"Once," he said. "Three months ago, after the border raid. I woke with the scent of laurel and berries in my lungs. I thought it was you until I realized it wasn't."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because it was a scent in a dream. I did not know it was Liora."

"She has been dreaming about your wolf for six months. She drew your scars before she knew the bond existed. She dreamed of your child."

Cassian stood and drove his fist into the stone wall. Blood ran over his knuckles.

"That is not my child."

"I know."

"I never touched her."

"I know that too."

He turned, fury and terror stripped bare on his face. "Then why do you sound as if I have already betrayed you?"

"Because the Moon planted your wolf in her dreams before either of you knew enough to resist. Because she wanted you before the thread appeared. Because you dreamed her scent and buried it. I am trying to understand where manipulation ends and desire begins."

He crossed the room and knelt before me.

"Tell me what you want."

I looked at the bed we had shared for fifteen years, the cracked wall, the blood on his hand.

"I want to burn every Moon altar in Black Ridge. I want to drag Liora backward through time. I want my husband to have never smelled her."

His eyes closed.

"But I cannot do any of that," I continued. "So I am going to fight what I can touch. The elders. The law. The bond. Whoever allowed this plague to become normal."

"And us?"

I took his injured hand and pressed my lips to his knuckles.

"I fight for us too. For this bed. For every winter we survived. For every time you chose me when the pack demanded something easier."

His good hand gripped my hip.

"She will not take you from me," I said.

"No one could."

He kissed me with the desperation of a man who had nearly died. I kissed him back, not because desire erased fear, but because fear had made me hungry for something still ours.

When he pulled me against him, the bond between us flared hot and familiar.

Then, far down the corridor, Liora cried his name in her sleep.

Cassian's body tightened beneath my hands.

He did not turn toward the sound.

But his wolf did.