A week before the wedding, Mom brought out a keepsake book and asked the whole family to leave a message for the couple. Dad wrote, At last, we can rest easy knowing our girl is in good hands. My younger brother, Tyler Harper, laughed. "I'm going to be the best best man ever!" I leaned against my fiancé, feeling for the first time that they were looking forward to my happiness too. But when the book reached me, the names printed on the title page were Daniel Reed and Chloe Parker. I turned to the next page and found my own name under "Bridesmaids." "Is this a printing mistake?" My brother scoffed. "Don't tell me you still think you're the bride next week." Daniel set down his pen, his voice calm. "Chloe's grandmother wants to see her get married. I'll go through the ceremony with Chloe first. We won't get legally married. We'll just have the ceremony, and you and I can have our own wedding later." Mom nodded. "Ruth may not make it to spring. The venue and the dress are already taken care of. Just let Chloe have this one thing." Dad pushed the keepsake book toward Chloe and asked her to write something as well. No one asked me, as though it was enough that they had discussed it among themselves. I stared at my name under the word Bridesmaid. I was done with this wedding. And I was done with everything else here too.

After a drunken night with my best friend's little brother—an Alpha—I became the woman he kept hidden from the world. Eight years into the secret, my family put a marriage in front of me and wouldn't take no for an answer. "Lucas, my parents laid down an ultimatum. I have to get married this year." He went still, then bent to kiss my forehead. Same answer as always. "Just hang on a little longer." Then our intern, Natalie, posted her mating certificate on Instagram. Her name and Lucas's, printed side by side under the silver crest of the Pack Council. The caption: My Alpha. Claimed. Eight years with him had gotten me nowhere. Natalie made it official in three months. I swallowed past the knot in my throat and liked her post. Ivy: [Congratulations. May the Moon Goddess bless you with a love that lasts.] Then I said yes to the marriage my family had set up. My phone rang. For the first time ever, Lucas sounded rattled. "Ivy, don't get the wrong idea. The guys were playing truth or dare. I lost, so Natalie and I registered as mates—"

When I was six, Mom gave birth to my little sister. Hiding behind a curtain in the hospital, I watched a man switch her with another baby girl. As soon as he left, I switched them back. Eighteen years later, a girl in a worn hoodie knocked on our door. Clutching Grandma's missing sapphire pendant, she ran sobbing into my mother's arms. "Mom, I'm your real daughter!" "Lily, the girl living here, is a thief. I'm the real Sinclair daughter."

I was Nora Bennett, Ethan Reed's fiancée of five years—until he abandoned our engagement party to comfort Vivian Shaw, then ordered his bodyguards to stop me from leaving. He soothed her. "Don't be afraid. I'm not going anywhere tonight." Then he turned around and ordered me, "Nora, go back inside! Don't turn our engagement party into a joke." I touched my bare ring finger. I had already thrown the ring into the champagne tower, yet he still expected me to go back and save face for him. Later, he fished the ring out and got on his knees, begging me to come home. Adrian Vale, the man he feared most, also dropped to one knee and held up a new ring in front of me. "Nora, marry me."