I went to the pack station to report my husband was missing, "My husband Drake Thornhill… he’s missing! Please help me. It's been five days." My voice shook, and my blind eyes felt like they were betraying me, not seeing what everyone else could.
The officer gave me a weird look, "Ma’am… you said your husband is Drake Thornhill? What’s your name again?"
"My name is Chloe Thornhill." My fingers twisted the hem of my hoodie. "Is there any… news about him?"
He frowned and slammed a hand on the desk. "Chloe? Ma’am, you need to tell us your real name. This isn’t a game!"
I froze. “I am Luna Chloe Thornhill.”
"Little blind girl, don’t think just because you look like someone you can fool anyone!"
My stomach dropped, and I felt my chest tighten. The officer turned to an LED screen, I heard the reporter's voice and my heart literally stopped.
"Everyone in the city knows that to celebrate Luna Chloe's pregnancy, Alpha Drake Thornhill gifted her a retreat in the mountains, a pack ceremony worth millions. Her social posts are everywhere, nine grids a day, and the wolves can’t stop talking about her."
And then there he was, my Drake, on the screen saying: "This New Year, I just want my mate safe, happy, and strong."
Her voice—Chiara’s—laughed behind him, sweet and soft, and it hit me like ice water straight to my veins. My face went pale, my stomach dropped. Chiara. Not me.
Five years ago, I lost my sight in a pack accident, and he was shattered. Everyone said no alpha would ever stay with a blind mate. Everyone whispered and plotted and… replaced me.
They found her, this Chiara, a girl who looked like me. And they sent her to him.
I remember the night he found out. My Drake, red-eyed and shaking, ready to rip her apart with his own hands. "Get out! My heart belongs to Chloe and only Chloe! Anyone else disgusts me!"
He drove to the infirmary at night, held me close, let his hot tears fall on my shoulder. "Baby, we’ll get our bond tomorrow. You’ll be mine, officially, my mate, my mate for life."
Everyone knew he loved me. Hated Chiara. But now she was the one smiling at him, wearing my face, claiming my place.
What happened? Did he… forget me? Was I just… erased?
I tried to find him, to scream at him with my own two hands, to shake some truth into him. And then… a billboard fell out of nowhere.
Pain exploded across my skull, darkness swallowing me, and before I passed out, I heard my drive's voice. "Luna!"
And then everything went black.
…
When I opened my eyes, the white light hit me so hard I had to squeeze them shut. Pain shot through them, sharp and burning, and I thought maybe I’d never see again. But then, slowly, painfully, the world came into focus. I blinked and blinked until it all made sense. I could see. I could really see.
But before I could even take in the room, I heard voices outside the heavy door.
“Alpha, how much longer are you going to let Chiara pretend to be Luna Chloe? It’s been five whole years.”
I froze. That was Beta Kieran. Drake's right hand.
“I don’t know either." My alpha’s voice followed, rough and sharp. “Back then, the old elders of the pack refused to let me mate a blind wolf. I loved Chloe too much. I lied. I said her eyes were healed, and I… I let Chiara take her place.”
“You’re still doing this, Alpha? All those elders are gone. Why are you still hiding the truth?” Kieran pressed.
Drake’s voice cut him off, sharp with irritation. “Chiara’s pregnant.” He hesitated, then softened. “And I… I don’t know, after all this, after pretending, I feel like I… I can’t breathe without her. I can’t… not have her close.”
“What?” Kieran’s voice cracked with disbelief. “Alpha! You’re saying you have feelings for her? For Chiara? Haven’t you forgotten that her brother caused the accident? That she… that he blinded Chloe? That your mate was living in darkness forever because of them?”
Drake growled low, warning, almost animalistic. “Stop it, Kieran! Chiara had nothing to do with her brother’s sins. I already locked him away. He’ll never see the pack again.”
“You’re just covering it all up, Alpha! Luna stays hidden, she can’t go out, there’s no signal here in the mountains. She lives in your glass house you built for her, safe, pampered, blind to everything. She’ll never know what you did. But if she ever did…” Kieran’s voice fell, heavy with fear.
I pressed my palm to my mouth, tears stinging my eyes. My body felt frozen, cold like the winter snows that blanketed the valley outside. Everything Drake had made for me, every gesture, every plan, it felt like a trap now.
I reached for the stack of portraits on the bedside table. Each one was hand-drawn by him, each one a memory he’d preserved.
The first showed me tending to him when we were stranded on a desert hunt, his leg broken, and I had stayed with him for days and nights.
The third showed him scaling a cliff in the middle of a snowstorm to bring me a rare mountain herb, panting, bleeding, just so I’d see he’d come for me.
Another showed him bringing an entire pack of wolves from the northern clans just to perform for me under the full moon, because I loved the moonlit dances of our kind. One of the last portraits even showed the glass house he’d designed, warm and safe, made for a blind mate, everything perfect for me.
And in every one, his eyes glowed with something I wanted once. Something I had believed in. Something I now hated.
He knelt in one painting, whispering, “Mate, from now on, I’ll be your eyes. You will be the only one in my heart. Only you, Chloe.”
I stared at them all, the lies, the fakes, the love poisoned by secrets, by Chiara, by his lies. My hands shook, and I forced a smile that felt bitter in my chest.
One by one, I set the portraits on fire, the smoke curling up and turning the glass house’s spring air into ash. I threw them all onto the bed, watching the flames roar and consume everything.
‘Drake, your love is twisted. Your alpha’s protection is tainted. I don’t want it. I don’t want you. I won’t be caged in your lies anymore.’
The fire alarm blared, shrill and unrelenting, echoing through the halls like my heartbeat.
Why did I ever let him own me? Why did I let myself believe in an alpha who could lie like this?
