POV Blake
Morning comes with Amelia banging on my door like she's the FBI.
"Get up, we're going for a walk."
I'm still treating my last night's bruises when she barges in anyway. Privacy is a myth when you have a twin with Alpha tendencies.
"Jesus, Blake." She sees the damage and her face does that thing where she's simultaneously pissed and guilty. "That’s even more bad than I expected. Let me heal—"
"Nope." I roll out of bed, ignoring how every muscle screams in protest. "Badge of honor. Plus, Mom will lose her shit if you waste healing energy on the family pet project."
"You're not—"
"Save it for someone who believes you."
She follows me anyway. Because Amelia's got this pathological need to fix things, and I'm basically a walking disaster that never stays fixed.
I grab my hoodie and head for the back door, not bothering to check if she's coming. The soft thud of her footsteps behind me anyway says she is.
Twenty minutes later, we're deep in the forest behind pack territory, heading for our spot. The ancient oak grove is the one place on this whole fucking compound where I can breathe without calculating how much space I'm allowed to take up.
Amelia settles against our favorite tree, this massive tree that's probably older than our entire bloodline's superiority complex. I drop beside her, letting the quiet wash over us.
No pack politics, no disappointed parents, no genetic comparisons. Just us.
"This is all bullshit, you know," she says finally.
"Gonna need you to be more specific, sis,” I snort. “The part where I'm a walking disappointment? Or the part where our parents treat me like a science experiment that went wrong?"
"All of it." She's using her fierce voice, the one that makes lesser wolves submit. "They decided you were defective before you could even walk. Before you had a chance to—"
"To what? Manifest my super special werewolf powers?" I pick at the oak's bark, avoiding her eyes. "I'm twenty and still waiting for my wolf to show up. Maybe the Moon Goddess just forgot about me. Left me on read, you know?"
"Or maybe She has different timing." Amelia's conviction could move mountains, I swear. "You can mind-link with me, that's something."
True. Our mental connection is literally the only supernatural party trick I've got.
While other wolves are shifting and showing off their dominance, I'm over here playing telepathic telephone with my sister. Fucking spectacular.
‘Stop that,’ her voice echoes in my head. ‘You're more than—’
‘Than what?’ I shoot back through the link. ‘More than the family embarrassment? More than a genetic dead end? Face it, Am. I'm basically a really expensive human.’
She goes quiet, both out loud and in my head, which means she's thinking. Dangerous territory.
"Speaking of expensive humans," I say, desperate to change the subject, "how's the whole arranged marriage thing treating you so far?"
Her face does something complicated—not quite the look of impending doom I expected, but not exactly bridal bliss either.
"Alpha Matthias Henderson." She says the name like she's testing how it feels in her mouth.
And, surprisingly, it doesn't seem to taste like poison.
"Father still thinks marrying me off to the Alpha of our biggest rival pack will create peace between us and give access to their territories."
She's talking about it like a prisoner recounting the hour of their execution. Inescapable and heavy with dread.
Amelia picks at the bark of our oak tree, not meeting my eyes. "But honestly? It could be worse. A lot worse."
"That's the most ringing endorsement of an arranged marriage I've ever heard."
"Shut up." But she's almost smiling.
"You've been meeting with him twice a year since we were sixteen," I begin carefully, "and you never tell me much about him. Maybe it's about time?"
Amelia's quiet for a moment, and what bleeds through our link isn't the bone-deep terror I expected, but something more complicated. Resignation mixed with... relief?
"Matthias is actually pretty decent," she admits. "He's smart—like, genuinely intelligent, not just Alpha posturing. Has this dry sense of humor that catches me off guard sometimes."
"Shocking. A wolf with a personality."
"He gets it, you know? The political stuff. He's not thrilled about the arranged part either, but he's not taking it out on me. We've had some surprisingly honest conversations about what this whole thing actually means."
That's... not what I expected. "So you actually like him?"
"As a person? Yeah, I do. He's honorable, doesn't treat me like a trophy wife in waiting, and he's got this whole brooding Alpha thing that probably makes other she-wolves swoon."
She pauses. "But it's not love. We both know that."
"But it's not horrible."
"But it's not horrible," she agrees. "He's made it clear that he's not expecting some fairy tale romance. It's politics with a wedding dress, but at least he's not a complete asshole about it. And I'm a treaty with tits."
"Poetic. You should put that in your vows."
She elbows me, but gently. Always gently with me, like I might break.
Which, fair. I'm basically held together with spite and stubbornness at this point.
"Two weeks," she whispers, and for the first time, it doesn't sound like a death sentence. "Two weeks and I'll be Luna of the Bloodmoon pack. Living in former enemy territory. Playing house with a man I respect but don't love."
"Could be worse," I echo her earlier words.
"Could be worse," she agrees, but what she doesn't say, what hangs in the air between us, is that leaving me here alone still terrifies her.
Without her, I'm just prey with a pedigree, and we both know it.
"What happens to me when you leave?" The question slips out before I can stop it.
Pathetic.
Twenty years old and still clinging to my fifteen-minutes-older sister like a security blanket.
"I'll figure something out.” Amelia's hand finds mine, squeezing tight. “I won't leave you here to—"
"Continue being the family's favorite drag doll?" I try for casual, but my voice cracks. "It's fine. I've got twenty years of practice. I'm like the Michael Jordan of disappointment."
"Blake—"
"I mean it. I'll probably get a sponsorship deal soon. Nike: Just Disappoint It."
"Stop." But she's almost smiling, which was the point. "I hate that you do that. Use humor like armor."
"Better than using my face like a punching bag. Oh wait…"
Through our link, I feel her guilt spike, sharp and bitter. She blames herself for last night. For not being there in time, for being the twin who got all the good genes while I got the factory rejects.
"Hey," I say, bumping her shoulder. "It's not your fault the Moon Goddess played favorites. You can't help being perfect any more than I can help being... whatever this is."
"You're my sister," she says fiercely. "You're brave and smart and funny and—"
"And completely fucking powerless in a world where power is everything."
The truth hangs between us like a corpse.
In two weeks, she'll be gone. Married off to secure an alliance. Living with strangers who might treat her well or might see her as nothing more than a political pawn.
And I'll be here, alone, with parents who see me as proof that even the mighty Bishop bloodline can produce failures.
"Promise me something," Amelia says suddenly.
"Depends. Is it something stupid like 'believe in yourself' or 'stay strong'? Because I'm fresh out of motivational poster energy."
"Promise me you'll survive." Her voice is steel wrapped in silk. "Whatever happens, whatever they do, promise me you'll survive until I can figure out how to get you out."
I want to make a joke, deflect like always. But the look in her eyes stops me.
She's drowning in guilt and fear and responsibility she shouldn't have to carry.
"I promise," I lie, because what else can I do? "I'll survive. Probably out of spite, but still."
She squeezes my hand again, and through our link, I feel her desperate hope that she's not abandoning me to wolves.
She absolutely is. Literally. But I'll let her believe otherwise.
It's the least I can do for the only person who's ever given a damn about the family's broken spare.