The scissors made a sharp snip as a lock of my hair hit the floor.

"Try not to flinch," the Head Maid snapped, her grip on my head unnecessarily tight. “You’ll embarrass the entire pack if you show up looking like a ghost.”

I sat stiffly on the stool in Valeria’s room, no, my room now, as three maids circled me, cutting, brushing, pinning. Every snip felt like a funeral bell. For her.

For me.

They cut off the dark, witchy length of my hair, the hair that had always set me apart from Valeria. Now it brushed just below my shoulders, blunt and unfamiliar. The mirror across the room barely reflected me anymore.

“You’ll wear the silver locket,” one of the younger maids mumbled as she approached, holding out the delicate chain with trembling fingers. “It was hers.”

I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat. I didn’t trust myself to speak.

The Head Maid laid Valeria’s gown on the bed next, satin, embroidered in pale threads that shimmered like starlight. It looked like a dream. A dream turned nightmare.

“Put it on,” she said shortly. “You leave before sundown.”

I stared at the dress, hesitating. “What now?” she snapped. “Hoping she’ll rise from the dead and save you?”

I didn’t answer. I just slipped the gown on.

It fit like it was made for me — because it was. Valeria and I were born seconds apart. Same height. Same frame. Same cursed blood.

But as I stood there, the maids adjusting the hem and buttoning the back, I felt like a shadow pretending to be the sun.

I descended the staircase slowly. The manor was quiet — eerily so. No wedding songs. No farewell.

Just my father at the base of the stairs, dressed in ceremonial black, a velvet box in hand.

He didn’t look at me until I reached the final step.

“It's how I slowly forgot how you and Valeria looked alike,” he said at last. That was his version of a compliment.

He opened the box. Inside was a dagger. Ivory-handled. Valeria’s.

“If they question you,” he said, “stab first. Speak second.”

I took it. Wordlessly. What was there to say?

"You're not going to cry?" he asked suddenly, almost mocking.

I shook my head. “I cried yesterday.”

He nodded once, sharply. “Good. Stay dead inside. It’ll help.”

&&&&&&&

I learned to walk like her. Smile like her. Speak like her. The maids rehearsed her mannerisms with me, drilled them into my bones.

By sundown, Viara was the dead one.

I was Valeria.

The wedding was held in our territory. The Moonbane Pack had insisted on tradition. At the altar stood not a man with power thrumming from his skin, but a Beta.

“Who are you?” I whispered, voice laced with ice.

He smiled faintly. “I am Emeric, the Beta of Moonbane Pack, standing in for the Alpha. He is unable to make it.”

The whispers rippled across the hall like poison in water.

It was clear. The Alpha didn’t care. Not for this marriage. Not for Valeria.

The ceremony continued anyway.

And after, as I stood behind the manor one last time, my father found me again.

“Viara Vale is dead now,” he said coldly. “You are Valeria. Don’t mess up.”

Then he turned away, like I was nothing.

Wow, how did my mother even think of settling down with a man like him? But then again, it's the mating bond, and the moon goddess isn't fair and good.

&&&&&&&

We left at dawn.

The road was long, carved through dense woods that whispered of secrets. Halfway through the journey, the car screeched.

Rouges.

Their snarls and fierce eyes glowing under the moonlight. The car skidded violently, throwing me against the door.

My heart stopped, but then strong arms caught me. It was Emeric, and he was breathing heavily. Moonbane warriors shifting between human and wolf, swift and lethal. The attackers were dispatched quickly, but the scars left behind were more than physical.

Though I looked like Valeria, my wolf was a different color, darker, fiercer, haunted by the trauma of loss. I haven't shifted in years either.

“Shock,” Emeric muttered as he hoisted me onto his wolf’s back. “She can’t shift. Not yet.”

The Beta’s wolf padded swiftly through the underbrush, his powerful legs navigating the shadows with ease. I clung to his thick fur, my heart pounding, not just from the fall or the danger, but from the growing realization that I was utterly alone in this charade.

The moonlight filtered through the trees, pale and cold, touching my new hair, my new face. I was no longer Viara with her wild black hair and haunted eyes—I was Valeria. The golden twin, the perfect bride.

But inside, I felt like a ghost.

By the time we reached the Moonbane Pack’s territory, my legs had gone numb, but the Beta didn’t set me down. Instead, he carried me through the sprawling compound, past curious eyes and whispered doubts, until we arrived at a large hall where the luna crowning ceremony and baptism would happen.

Still no sign of the Alpha I was to wed. I mean, he's blind and all, but still.