I am the Luna

Chapter1

“Congratulations, My Luna. You’re six weeks pregnant.” The doctor smiled at her.

Keral stared at him while the words hung in the air without meaning until he repeated himself. “You’re six weeks gone, Keral. Congratulations,” he told her with a bright look on his face.

Her hand moved on its own and rested against her stomach as if she could already feel the life growing there, and a shaky breath left her lips. She was pregnant. Saying the words in her mind did not make them feel any more real, yet she had to believe them because she was staring straight at the monitor and watching the little bean-sized baby move inside her womb while its heartbeat filled the quiet room.

Tears rose in her eyes as the truth settled over her. This was the moment she had waited for after three years of marriage and three years of hoping her husband would finally look at her and see her instead of wishing another woman stood in her place.

Everything she felt showed clearly on her face as she walked out of the doctor’s office. Her legs barely seemed to touch the ground, and a mix of happiness, excitement, fear, and worry moved through her all at once.

Her whole life had been filled with hard times. The woman she once called mother hated her so deeply that she used Keral as the place to pour out every bit of anger. That woman never held her with care. She only gave her harsh words and painful hits that left marks both on her body and in her heart.

Then, shortly after Keral’s twentieth birthday four years earlier, the truth about her birth came into the open. The girl who had lived as her all those years needed a blood donation, and none of the people around her matched. The search led them back to the hospital where both mothers had given birth on the same day. That was when everyone learned the woman had swapped the babies.

The fake mother was arrested and sent to jail right away, and Keral moved into the house of her real parents. She had expected them to welcome her with open arms and try to make up for the years they had lost. They took her in, yet it was never the same. She was their blood daughter, but she was not the child they had raised. She was not the one they had sung lullabies to, not the one whose baby tooth they had buried, and not the one they had held close when she scraped her knees.

She was not Kate Blackwood.

Kate remained the child their parents had brought up and cherished, even though she belonged to the woman who had taken their true newborn. To them she was everything, the one they held dearest, and they wished nothing in their lives would change.

That left Keral feeling like an extra person who barely mattered inside the home of the family she truly belonged to by blood. The beatings had stopped, yet real care never took their place. It might have turned out better if Kate had not been so kind-hearted. The evening after Keral arrived, Kate stood before every relative and said she was sorry for the wrong her mother had done. Tears ran down her face as she pulled Keral into a tight hug that felt more forceful than gentle.

She even declared she would walk out of the house if her presence made Keral uneasy, because Keral was the rightful daughter. Their parents cut her off at once and spoke firmly while Keral listened.

“You will not leave this house,” they told Kate. “We brought you up. You are our child just the same. The two of you will stay here together as sisters.”

From that day the girls shared the same roof and spent their days side by side. Kate appeared to be the gentlest person anyone could meet, at least on the surface.

Then one morning she was simply gone.

“Keral, we have reached home.”

Podrick’s voice broke through her memories. Keral straightened in her seat and saw they had pulled up in front of the Volkov mansion. The driver stepped out, opened her door, and offered his hand so she could climb down safely.

“Thank you, Podrick,” she told him with a small smile. He gave a short respectful bow in return.

Keral walked into the main building with light steps while a smile stayed fixed on her face. She could tell Kael was already home, and she could hardly wait to share the important news with him.

A moment later she caught the sound of quiet voices and picked up a scent she recognized yet could not name. Her steps slowed and her stomach clenched, but she forced herself to keep moving until she reached the living room where the whole family had gathered.

Her birth parents stood there, along with her husband and one more person held tightly in his arms. Keral’s gaze locked on Kael and the weeping woman he held. The familiar scent finally made sense. Even though the woman’s back was turned, Keral knew at once who it was.

It was Kate, the sister who had vanished three years earlier. She was also the woman Kael had loved first.