POV Blake
Turns out, weaponizing your vagina is exhausting but effective.
I'm still catching my breath against the wall, body humming like I've been electrocuted by an orgasm I didn't quite reach, and all I can think is: I fucking did it.
Matthias "I See Through Everything" Henderson just left to handle pack business instead of interrogating me into confession.
Score one for the defective twin. Yey.
But there's this dark, twisted satisfaction blooming in my chest.
He wanted me.
Not Amelia, not the perfect sister and wife, not the powerful she-wolf and Luna, but whatever version of her I'm selling.
The way he lost control, pinned me against this wall like he'd die if he didn't have me? That's power. The kind I've never had before.
Of course, it's also massively fucked up, but we're not examining that too closely right now.
I push off the wall and immediately regret it. My body does this weird ripple thing, like my bones are trying to rearrange themselves.
The pain isn't sharp—more like a deep, grinding ache that starts in my spine and radiates outward. Like my skeleton's throwing a temper tantrum, furious at being trapped in a body it doesn't quite belong to.
Not the first time this has happened, actually.
It started a few days after the wedding. Brief at first, and unpredictable moments where my body feels wrong, misaligned. Like I’m wearing a suit that doesn’t quite fit. Too tight in places, too loose in others.
Foreign. Wrong.
But I’m still Blake Bishop, the Nightshade prime bloodline’s disappointment. My body’s been wrong since birth, so this is just a new flavor of defective, obviously.
A new malfunction added to the list. Great.
Eventually, like always, the pain ebbs—retreating as quickly as it came, leaving a strange hollowness in its wake. My limbs are mine again, at least for now. But the echo of it lingers, like a warning.
Priority one for now: hide the evidence before Captain Questions returns.
I grab Amelia's diary and the burner phone from under the pillow, hands only shaking a little. Can't use the wardrobe—too obvious. Under the mattress? Please, that's where amateurs hide their porn. I need somewhere better…
The bathroom! Yes!
I noticed it my first week here, during one of my many "holy shit what have I done" panic attacks.
A loose tile behind the toilet, barely visible unless you're on the floor having an existential crisis. I pry it up, shove both items into the small space, and carefully replace it.
Mission accomplished. Evidence hidden. Identity still intact.
By the time Matthias returns that evening, I've showered, changed, and reconstructed Perfect Amelia's mask. Instead of returning to our bed as was promised, he called me for dinner in our dining room that was already prepared.
And it is weirdly... normal? He asks about my education—homeschooling, private tutors, the whole privileged werewolf princess package.
"Your mother mentioned you studied classical literature," he says, passing me the bread. "What was your favorite?"
This I can handle.
Amelia documented everything, including her pretentious taste in books she never was able to stop talking about.
"Wuthering Heights. I found the destructive nature of Heathcliff and Catherine's love pretty fascinating."
Goddess, even I want to punch myself for that answer.
But Matthias nods thoughtfully. "Love as destruction… Very dramatic."
"Very emo," I counter before I can stop myself.
He laughs, like actually laughs, and something warm unfurls in my chest.
This isn't an interrogation. He's just... talking to me. Like I'm a person worth knowing instead of a problem to solve.
We discuss books further, favorite music, the worst movies we've ever seen (his: anything with talking animals, mine: anything where the dog dies). It's comfortable in a way that makes me suspicious.
Nothing in my life is ever this easy. But with him… it’s different.
The laughter comes effortlessly. The silences stretch long, but never feel awkward. I catch myself leaning toward him. And not because I have to, but because I want to.
And that really terrifies me.
Comfort like this feels like a trap. Like a dream I’ll wake up from only to find it was another lie I told myself to survive.
"I need to patrol tonight," he says as we clear the table. "Zack and I are checking the eastern border. Routine stuff."
"In wolf form?"
"Exactly." He studies me, something unreadable in his eyes. "Will you be alright alone?"
Alone is my natural habitat, but I channel Amelia's delicate sensibilities. "Of course. Be safe."
He kisses my forehead—gentle, casual, like we're actually married—and heads out.
Twenty minutes later, I'm at the bedroom window like some Victorian widow waiting for her sailor to return. Except my sailor is a massive silver wolf disappearing into the tree line, and I'm a fraud in polyester pajamas.
He's beautiful in wolf form. Fucking magnificent. All that controlled power unleashed, moving through the forest like he owns it.
Which he does, technically. Alpha perks.
My chest aches watching him, but it's not the bone-shifting pain from earlier. This is worse. This is the hollow ache of absence, of lacking something fundamental that everyone else takes for granted.
I have no wolf.
No matter how well I play Amelia, no matter how many times Matthias fucks me into the mattress, no matter how perfectly I execute this deception… I’ll probably never be able to follow him into those trees.
Never run beside him under the full moon. Never be anything more than a really convincing human in a world built for wolves.
That's the lie beneath all the others. The one carved into my DNA. The one my parents sent me here hoping I could overcome through sheer determination and spite.
But you can't fake a soul.