Chapter 1
In the third year of being bound as Theron Ashgrave’s Luna, Nyra Fenwick received the news she’d been waiting for.
She could finally leave him.
“One more month until your sister returns to the pack.” Her mother’s voice cut through the phone with its familiar frost. “Keep playing Sylvae until then. Once your charade is over, I’ll deposit thirty million. Enough to disappear and live however the hell you want.”
“Okay.” Nyra’s voice came out flat, tired.
The line went silent. She stared up at the massive mating ceremony portrait that dominated the wall.
Theron stood there in his black suit, every inch the Alpha everyone worshipped. She was beside him in some ridiculously expensive gown, smiling like the perfect Luna.
What a joke.
“Three years…” she whispered, her fingers tracing the frame’s edge. “Almost over. Finally.”
Three years ago, the Ashgrave-Fenwick alliance sent shockwaves through the werewolf world. Sylvae Fenwick, Nyra’s twin sister, was handpicked to be the future Luna of the most powerful pack in the Northern Territory.
But the night before the mating ceremony, Sylvae bolted-leaving only a letter behind:
‘Mom, Dad… I can’t do this… I can’t be trapped in some arrangement I never wanted. But I know what I owe the family. Just give me three years. Three years to breathe, to live for myself. Then I’ll come back and do my duty.”
To salvage the alliance, the Fenwick parents had no choice but to drag their forgotten daughter back. The twin who’d grown up away from pack lands, who’d never even been allowed at family gatherings.
That’s how Nyra became the stand-in, living under Sylvae’s name and title.
Theron doesn’t give a damn about your sister,” her mother had hissed the night before the ceremony. “He’s obsessed with that charity case his family ponsored. You’re walking into hell, but just keep your mouth shut and survive these three years.”
yra had simply nodded.
Of course she knew who Theron Ashgrave was-the Alpha every magazine couldn’t stop writing about, the most eligible bachelor in their world, the one every inmated she-wolf fantasized about.
he also knew about him and Delilah Vexley–
Delilah, the Omega whose Beta father had been cast out for treason against the pack. Theron had fallen hard for her, ready to fight his entire family to make her
is Luna. But Delilah was too proud to accept a bond nobody wanted to bless, so she’d left for Europe.
The Ashgraves were thrilled and immediately arranged his mating.
The reality of being his Luna was worse than she’d imagined.
Theron’s office was a shrine to Delilah-her photos everywhere. He flew to Paris every week just to see her, while Nyra, his supposed mate, wasn’t even allowed in the master bedroom. She slept in a guest room down the hall like some unwanted relative.
Nyra played the perfect Sylvae, walking on eggshells to protect the alliance. For three years, she threw herself into taking care of him with desperate intensity.
When he worked late, she’d leave the lights on and wait up. When his stomach acted up, she’d wake at five to make him breakfast. He liked quiet, so she made
herself invisible in their own house.
Slowly, pack members started whispering that Luna Sylvae was desperately in love with her Alpha.
And Theron-something shifted in how he looked at her.
Delilah’s photos disappeared from his office. The Paris trips stopped. He started remembering her birthday, coming home early when she was sick. Hell, he even started touching her, claiming her like a real mate.
For a moment, Nyra almost believed this fake mating bond had grown something real.
Chapter 1
Then three months ago. Delilah came back.
Everything snapped back to square one.
Theron’s heart belonged to Delilah again. He started staying out all night, filled his office with her pictures again. Everyone whispered that Luna Sylvae was pathetic, but Nyra just smiled and didn’t fight it.
She’d never loved Theron Ashgrave. Not at all.
She’d stayed for one reason-the money and freedom her parents promised. His affection made life easier, sure, but she didn’t need it.
Nobody knew that while Nyra and Sylvae shared a face, their lives couldn’t have been more different.
When their mother delivered the twins, the birth complications left her weak for months, and she blamed Nyra-the second-born-for nearly killing her. Their father, completely devoted to his mate, saw Nyra as a curse on their family line.
At five years old, they shipped her off to live with a nanny in the outer territories.
She remembered that brutal winter when the heating broke. She’d shivered in threadbare clothes while Sylvae stayed warm in their mansion, wearing designer dresses and soaking up their parents’ love.
Eighteen years of being treated like garbage had killed any hope for family love.
Now she just needed to survive one more month. Then she’d have her thirty million for playing Sylvae, and she could disappear from this territory forever. Start a real life somewhere else.
Just as her mood was lifting, her phone buzzed.
Theron Ashgrave.
