Chapter 1

My twin sister stole my fated mate, marked him on my wedding night, and watched me burn at the stake for treason I never committed.

When I opened my eyes again, I was fifteen — and she was smiling at me, saying she'd do it all over again.

This time, I smiled back.

"Go ahead, Vivienne. He's all yours."

Let me start from the beginning.

Vivienne and I were born under the same Blood Moon — a once-in-a-century omen that promised one of us would become the most powerful Luna the Silver Ridge Pack had ever seen.

The pack elders tested us at birth.

Vivienne's wolf surfaced within seconds, golden-eyed and radiant. The elders wept with joy.

Mine never came.

They waited an hour. A day. A week.

Nothing.

My mother, the Beta's wife, handed me to the omega servants before my umbilical cord was dry.

"Raise her in the kitchen. If she survives, fine. If not — I only need one daughter."

So while Vivienne trained with warriors and dined with Alphas, I scrubbed floors, peeled potatoes, and learned to make myself invisible.

The pack called Vivienne the "Moon's Blessing."

They called me nothing at all.

On the morning of our fifteenth birthday, two things happened.

First, Alpha Kael Blackwood of the Iron Fang Pack — the most feared Alpha in the Northern Territories — sent a formal mating proposal for the Beta's daughter born under the Blood Moon.

Second, Crown Prince Dorian of the Lycan Kingdom sent an identical proposal.

Our mother nearly fainted in the great hall.

"Two proposals? For the same daughter?"

The pack elder stroked his beard. "Kael is a brute. They say he's cursed — no wolf, no voice, no allies. Dorian is the Lycan Crown Prince. The choice is obvious."

Mother clutched Vivienne's hand. "My precious girl will marry the prince. She deserves a throne."

The elder nodded. "And the brute... well, we have another daughter in the kitchen, don't we?"

They both laughed.

But Vivienne, who had been listening from behind the door, burst in with tears streaming down her face.

"No! Mother, I want to marry Kael!"

The room went silent.

Mother seized Vivienne's shoulders. "Have you lost your mind? Kael is cursed! He can't even shift! You'd be mated to a cripple in a dying pack!"

But Vivienne shook her head violently.

"Kael conquered six packs before he turned twenty. A curse can be broken — especially by a wolf born under the Blood Moon. I can heal him, Mother. I know I can."

She looked at me then.

And in a whisper only I could hear, she said:

"Enjoy your Lycan Prince, little sister. I hear he's cold as a corpse. You'll die of loneliness before you ever become queen."

Her eyes glittered with triumph.

That's when I understood.

Vivienne had been reborn too.

In our first life, I'd married Kael. I fed him my blood, drop by drop, until his curse broke and he became the Supreme Alpha of all Northern Packs.

And then he locked me in a silver cage and drained me until there was nothing left.

Vivienne wanted that power now.

She didn't know what Kael truly was.

And she didn't know what Dorian had meant to me in the life she'd stolen.

So I curtsied, lowered my eyes, and said the words she wanted to hear.

"As you wish, sister."