Adalyn POV:
I gasped, the feeling of embroidered silk against my cheek shockingly real.
My eyes flew open. I wasn't in the cold, bloody courtyard. I was sitting on a wooden pew in the small, sunlit chapel of the Kent family estate.
I looked down. I was wearing the simple white dress I'd been forced into before they dragged me to the Citadel walls.
The memories crashed over me.
The betrayal. The arrow. Killian's blood-red eyes and his final, whispered promise. The Moon Goddess.
It wasn't a dream.
My hand flew to my arm, and I pinched. Hard. A sharp, stinging pain bloomed under my fingers. I was alive. I was real.
I was back. Back to the afternoon of the union ceremony. The day it all went wrong.
The chapel door creaked open.
Jasmine glided in, her face a perfect mask of sisterly concern. "Adalyn, are you nervous? You'll be the future Luna soon."
My stomach churned. I looked at her beautiful, treacherous face and saw her sneering at me from below the wall, her hand on the belly that carried my fiancé's child.
In my first life, at this exact moment, I had been a bundle of nerves. I had cried, and Jasmine had "comforted" me, her every word a subtle jab that I was too naive to understand.
This time, I just watched her.
My ice-blue eyes held her gaze, empty of the warmth and fear she expected. There was only a profound, bottomless cold.
Jasmine's practiced smile faltered. She shifted on her feet, a flicker of unease in her eyes. "Sister? What's wrong?"
I rose slowly from the pew. I was a few inches taller than her, a fact I had never used to my advantage. Until now.
I stepped close, my presence crowding her. I raised a hand and gently brushed a stray golden hair from her shoulder. The gesture was light, but my eyes made her feel like something unclean.
"Nothing," my voice was quiet, but it cut through the chapel's silence. "I just suddenly understood a few things."
I leaned in, my lips close to her ear, my voice a venomous whisper only she could hear. "Like how you spent years pretending to be my sister while stabbing me in the back. Like how you think being pretty and cruel makes you clever." I paused, letting the silence stretch. "Like how some things don't belong to you. And you should never, ever reach for them."
The color drained from Jasmine's face. She took an involuntary step back, her feigned concern replaced by genuine shock. She looked at me as if seeing a stranger.
A faint, cold smile touched my lips. It was a new expression for this face.
Jasmine struggled to regain her composure, her voice rising to a familiar, shrill pitch. "What are you talking about? I was just worried about you!"
"Were you?" I asked, a soft, humorless laugh escaping me. "Then let me ease your mind. I'm not marrying Beckham. You can have him—though I suspect you already have, in every way that matters. Tell me, how long have you been warming his bed while pretending to help me plan our wedding?"
Her jaw dropped. Her perfectly painted lips formed a silent 'o'. Her eyes darted to the chapel door, as if calculating an escape route, then back to me. "You... you're insane. You don't know what you're saying."
"Don't I?" I tilted my head, watching her squirm. "Then let me make myself perfectly clear. I'm not going to be your stepping stone anymore. I'm marrying into the McClure family."
"McClure?" Her composure shattered. A harsh, disbelieving laugh burst from her lips. "You're going to marry that cripple? The one who can barely walk without limping? You really have lost your mind!" Her eyes raked over me with pure contempt. "You think trading down to a broken Alpha will save you? How pathetic. You'll be the laughingstock of every pack in the kingdom."
I didn't flinch. I let the silence stretch, watching her with the cold, unblinking stare of a predator studying its prey. The longer I stayed silent, the more her smirk faltered, the more uncertainty crept into her eyes.
Then, I smiled. It was not a warm smile. It was the kind of smile that made her take another step back.
"Are you quite finished, sister?" I asked, my voice soft and silken. "Good. Because I want you to remember this moment. Remember how confident you felt standing here, calling my future mate a cripple. Remember it clearly." I stepped closer, my voice dropping to a whisper that was more terrifying than any scream. "Because one day—very, very soon—you will kneel before him. And I will be there to watch."
I didn't answer her insult. I simply turned and walked towards the altar, leaving her sputtering in my wake. Her mouth opened and closed, a fish gasping for water, but no sound came out. I had taken her words from her.
The game had been reset.
And this time, I was holding all the cards.
My first move: reclaim my mother's inheritance—the trust fund Martha had been embezzling for years. It was the capital I needed to build my revenge.
My second move: annul the union with Beckham and watch him and Jasmine drown in the scandal of their own making.
And my third, most important move: find Killian. The silent Alpha who had died for me. The mate I had been too blind to see. And this time, be the Luna he deserved.
From behind me, I heard the frantic rustle of silk as Jasmine fled the chapel. She would run to her mother, Martha. Good. Let them plot. Their time was running out.
I stood before the stained-glass window, letting the colored sunlight wash over me. I closed my eyes, savoring the feeling of a heart beating steadily in my chest. A new life. A second chance.
This time, I whispered to him in my mind, I'm coming for you.
I remembered fragments of conversations, whispers about the trust my mother had left me, details I had ignored in my first life. A plan began to form, sharp and clear in my mind.
I pushed open the heavy chapel doors and stepped into the sunlight.
My destination was clear. My stepmother's study.
