After My Mate Chose My Sister

At 4:15 on a Thursday afternoon, my father slid an alliance contract across his mahogany desk and told me I was being sold.

"The Bloodfang Alpha needs a mate of Elder blood," Carl said. His voice was as flat as a bank ledger. "You don't have a wolf, Estrella, but your bloodline is pure. The signing bonus secures our western border."

Beside him, my mother, Virginia, stared fixedly at the floorboards. She didn't look up. Not once.

Upstairs, light footsteps and sharp laughter drifted through the ceiling. Bethany was being fitted for her winter ball gown. Tulle, silk, champagne.

"I'm twenty-one," I said, keeping my hands jammed deep into my coat pockets so they wouldn't shake. "You can't force a mating rite."

"Under pack law, an unshifted Omega remains family property until claimed," Carl replied smoothly. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't have to. "The terms are being finalized overnight. You have until eight tomorrow morning to pack your things."

A cold, sharp ache stabbed behind my ribs.

Deep inside my chest, something dormant and heavy stirred for the first time in six years—a faint, wordless rattle of dread. It wasn't a roar. It was a dying spark warning me of a cage.

I didn't beg. Pleading with Carl Bishop was like asking a stone wall not to crush you.

"Understood," I said, and walked out.

I didn't go to the Omega quarters to pack. I went straight to the public terminal in the pack library, spent two hours typing, and printed five pages on heavy legal bond.

At 9:30 that night, I knocked on Alpha Harrison Brooks's private office door.

He looked up from a stack of regional audits, his dark brows drawing together. "Estrella? What is it?"

"You need a Luna by Friday, or the Continental Council suspends your voting proxy," I said, walking to his desk and dropping the document over his open ledger. "And I need an Alpha's legal shield."

Harrison leaned back. His broad shoulders filled the leather chair, dark and imposing. "A contract?"

"One year," I told him, keeping my chin lifted like a dancer waiting for her cue. "I play your compliant Luna for the press and pack ceremonies. In exchange, you invoke the Alpha Claim Clause. That kills my father's transfer to Bloodfang immediately. We don't touch. We don't share a bed. In twelve months, we quietly dissolve it."

Harrison studied the pages. His eyes moved quickly across the covenants.

Out of habit, he tilted his head and scented the air. His nostrils flared slightly. He caught nothing from me—only the sterile tang of printer toner and cheap lavender soap. No wolf. No pheromones. No threat.

"You're Carl's youngest," he murmured. "The one who never shifted."

"The one who knows how to keep quiet and run a household," I countered. "Do you want the council seat or not?"

He unscrewed his heavy fountain pen. "One year, Estrella. You don't embarrass this pack."

His signature slashed across the bottom in dark, jagged strokes.

When he slid my copy back, I took it with both hands, gripping the edges until the paper crinkled. For the first time in twenty-one years, someone had written their name next to mine—not to discard me, but to keep me.

By Saturday morning, I was moved into the Alpha's residence.

It was quiet. I spent the first three days clearing his neglected mail, organizing boundary manifests, and staying out of his way.

On Tuesday morning, Harrison was at his desk reviewing patrol maps. I walked behind his chair to set down the weekly council itinerary.

A stray draft from the open terrace caught the collar of his shirt.

The scent hit my throat like an iron hammer.

Dark cedar and hot steel.

The room shrank to a white pinpoint. My breath vanished. Every drop of blood in my body rushed straight to my heart with a violent, burning crackle.

*Mate.*

The word tore through the hollow dark of my chest, rasped by a wolf I thought was dead. She surged upward with wild, starving desperate force—and then collapsed backward under the weight of my broken bloodline, too weak to project a single trace of my own scent into the air.

Harrison blinked and sniffed the room sharply. His dark eyes flashed amber for half a second.

He looked at the terrace curtains. Then he looked up at me.

His face was completely empty. He didn't smell a thing on my skin. To him, the space between us was entirely blank.

"Thanks for the itinerary, Estrella," he said, and went right back to his maps.

"You're welcome," I whispered.

I backed out of the study and pulled the heavy oak door shut until the latch clicked.

I stood frozen in the dim corridor, trembling from head to toe, pressing one palm hard against my collarbone where no mark would ever bloom.

Down at the far end of the hall, the front entrance clicked open.

Bethany stepped inside, holding a small amber glass vial between her manicured fingers, her lips curving into a slow smile as her eyes locked onto mine.