Lyra ran.
She crashed through the forest like a wild animal, twigs tearing at her clothes and skin. Behind her, people called her name, but she didn't stop. Couldn't stop.
The picture of Alina's silver eyes burned in her mind.
Alive. My sister is alive.
But wrong. So badly wrong.
Her lungs screamed for air as she stumbled into an opening. This was where it happened. Where everything went to hell ten years ago. The cursed river shone in the morning sun, looking innocent and beautiful.
Lying piece of water.
"Lyra!"
She spun around as Kade burst through the trees. His beautiful hair was messed up, his expensive clothes torn. For the first time since she'd met him, he looked almost human.
"Don't run from me," he ordered.
"Don't tell me what to do!" Power crackled around her words, making the air shimmer. "You lied to me!"
"I never lied."
"You let me think I was your mate!"
"You are my mate." His voice was flat, lifeless.
"The bond is real."
"Then why do you love her?"
The question hung between them like a loaded gun. Kade's jaw worked quietly, his ice-blue eyes searching her face.
"Because I'm supposed to," he said finally.
"What does that mean?"
"It means none of this makes sense!"
The words burst out of him. "It means I've been thinking about your sister for years, even though I never met her. It means I feel like I'm going crazy!"
Lyra blinked. This was the most feeling she'd seen from him.
"You dreamed about Alina?"
"About Seraphina. Every night for three years. She called to me, told me she was waiting, that we belonged together." His hands clenched into fists. "Then I found you, and the mate bond hit like fire. But she's still there, in my head, in my heart."
"She's not Seraphina!" Lyra screamed.
"She's my sister! She's supposed to be dead!"
"I know that!"
"Then how is she here? How is she alive? And why don't you care that your mate is standing right in front of you?"
Kade stepped closer, his presence overwhelming.
"Because wanting you feels like abandoning her. And wanting her feels like abandoning you. I'm stuck between two impossible choices."
The honesty in his voice cut deeper than any attack. At least hatred would have been easy.
"I won't be your second choice," Lyra whispered.
"You're not"
"Yes, I am. I can see it in your eyes every time you look at me. I'm the mistake. She's the dream."
Before he could reply, footsteps crashed through the forest behind them. Alina emerged from the trees, moving with grace that seemed too perfect for someone who'd apparently been dead for ten years.
"There you are," she said, her beautiful voice carrying across the clearing. "I was worried."
She walked right to Kade, placing her hand on his arm. His whole body relaxed at her touch, like she was medicine for a pain Lyra didn't understand.
"Are you hurt?" Alina asked him, totally ignoring Lyra.
"I'm fine."
"Good."
Alina's silver eyes finally turned to Lyra.
"Sister, you look upset."
"Sister?" Lyra laughed bitterly.
"You don't remember me, do you?"
"Of course I remember you. You're the one who let me die." The words hit like physical blows. Lyra stumbled backward, her vision blurring.
"That's not true," she gasped.
"Isn't it?" Alina tilted her head, studying Lyra like she was a puzzle.
"You took me to the forbidden forest. You let me fall in the river. You survived while I drowned."
"I tried to save you!"
"Did you?
Or did you choose yourself over me?"
"I was eight years old!"
"Old enough to know right from wrong."
Lyra's wolf snarled inside her chest. Power built in her bones, begging to be released.
"You're not my sister.
Alina would never say these things." "People change when they die," Alina said frankly.
"Death teaches hard lessons."
"What lessons?"
"That some people are worth saving. And others aren't."
The brutality in her voice was like ice water. This wasn't the loving, laughing little girl who used to follow Lyra everywhere. This was someone else wearing her sister's face.
"What happened to you?" Lyra whispered.
"I found my purpose."
Alina moved closer to Kade, her fingers running down his chest. "I learned what I was meant to be."
"Which is what?"
"His Luna. His queen. His everything." Kade's eyes followed Alina's moves like he was hypnotized.
The mate bond between him and Lyra stretched tight, filled with pain and confusion.
"The bond says otherwise," Lyra said desperately.
"Bonds can be broken," Alina repeated.
"Especially false ones." "It's not false!"
"Prove it."
The challenge hung in the air. Lyra looked at Kade, waiting for him to defend their link, to choose her over the ghost of her sister.
He said nothing.
"I see." Alina's smile was sharp as a blade.
"Even he knows the truth."
"What truth?"
"That you're the mistake. The leftover. The one who should have died instead." Rage exploded through Lyra's blood.
Power exploded from her body in waves, making the ground shake and the river bubble. Trees bent away from her, their leaves turning silver.
"ENOUGH!"
Her voice carried across the entire forest, filled with power that made both Kade and Alina step backward. Even the cursed river seemed to listen, its waves going perfectly still.
"I don't know what game you're playing," Lyra snarled, "but I won't be your victim anymore."
"Game?" Alina laughed, the sound like breaking glass.
"This isn't a game, sister. This is destiny."
"Whose destiny?"
"Mine. His. Everyone's except yours."
"Why?"
"Because you're not supposed to exist."
The words hit like fire. Lyra stumbled, her power flickering.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean," Alina said, her silver eyes shining brighter, "that your birth was never part of the plan. You're an accident. A mistake that needs to be fixed."
"Whose plan?"
Alina's smile widened, showing teeth that seemed too sharp. "You'll find out soon enough."
The storm clouds overhead began to swirl, making a perfect circle above the clearing. Lightning flashed, but there was no sound. Just silence. Watching silence.
"She's coming," Alina whispered, her voice filled with respect. "She wants to meet you."
"Who's coming?"
"The one who chooses who lives and who dies. The one who gave me a second chance."
The air around Alina began to shimmer, like heat waves rising from summer pavement. Her human appearance flickered, giving glimpses of something else underneath. Something with wings and stars for skin.
"What are you?" Lyra breathed.
"I'm what your sister became when she accepted her true purpose."
"Which is?" "To serve. To obey. To love the one I was chosen to love."
Alina's hand found Kade's face, and he leaned into her touch like a man dying of thirst. The mate bond between him and Lyra stretched until it felt like it might snap.
"Don't," Lyra whispered. "Please don't take him from me."
"I'm not taking him," Alina said gently. "I'm giving him back to his true mate. The one he was always meant to love."
"That's me!" "No, sister.
That's me."
The clearing filled with light silver, cold light that made Lyra's skin burn. In that light, she saw the truth. Saw Kade's memories of dreams about Alina. Saw the divine hand that had shaped those dreams. Saw the plan that had been set in motion years before she was even born.
She was the mistake.
The accident.
The one who didn't fit.
But as the light grew brighter and Alina's true form began to show, Lyra felt something else stirring in her chest. Something that had been sleeping since the day she fell in the cursed river.
Something that didn't care about divine plans or intended mates.
Something that was angry.
Very, very angry.
The light reached its peak, and a voice spoke from the storm clouds above. A voice like thunder and stars and the end of the world.
"Hello, little mistake. We need to talk."