I am the Luna

Chapter 2

Kate’s sudden vanishing had not taken place on some ordinary evening. She walked away right when preparations for her wedding to Kael Volkov reached their height. Kael was the alpha king of the Moonfall pack, and he was now Keral’s husband.

Those wedding plans began roughly five months after Keral settled into the house, and the entire city was already talking about them. Invitations had gone out in large numbers, and the biggest event center in the area had been reserved.

Everyone planned to move with Kate into the towering mansion Kael had built. Because he had grown up without parents, he wanted Kate’s family living close by, and she showed pure delight at the idea.

At first everything seemed fine. Kate was thrilled to marry the man she had loved since childhood. The sisters grew closer each day, and whenever small troubles appeared in the house she hurried to Keral’s side, ready to help and to show everyone she was the ideal daughter and sister.

After Keral moved in with her real parents, life looked peaceful enough. Her mother and father treated her decently and never hurt her.

Kate, though, acted like the kindest person anyone could meet. She brought Keral along on every outing, arranged spa visits and movie nights, and introduced her to close friends as the true daughter whose place she had taken, always speaking in a playful way that left the whole table laughing.

She also introduced Keral to her chosen mate, Kael Volkov, the alpha prince of one of the two strongest packs in the country. His eyes stayed fixed on Kate wherever she moved, and meeting him showed Keral just how rich and well-connected her real family truly was.

The two of them stayed awake late into the night watching Korean dramas and playing songs. Kate became the sister Keral had never known, yet even while she worked so hard to make Keral feel at home, something still felt incomplete.

Keral tried to push the feeling aside and tell herself she was only thinking too much. It left a bitter taste when she realized that while Kate kept trying to welcome her, she herself kept questioning whether the kindness was real.

Then items began to disappear around the house. Their mother’s rings vanished. Their father’s watches went missing. Pieces of Kate’s jewelry also disappeared.

One evening their mother frowned and said, “That is strange. My precious emerald necklace is gone all of a sudden. Nothing has ever gone missing in this house before.”

Their father added, “I wonder who would take that necklace. I gave it to you on our anniversary. It means a great deal to both of us.”

They never pointed a finger at her out loud, yet their gazes stayed on Keral long enough for her to understand exactly what they believed. Nothing had ever gone missing in that house until the day she arrived.

A maid cleaning Keral’s room later pulled a box of the missing jewelry out from under her bed.

“You should have asked us, Keral,” her mother shouted while her father held her back. “If you needed jewelry or anything else, you could have simply asked. Why did you steal?”

Keral dropped to her knees with tears running down her face, unable to believe the box that had just been dragged into the open.

“I did not steal anything,” she said. “I have never stolen a single thing in my life.”

“Come on, Keral,” her father answered in a calm voice that still carried clear anger. “There is no need to lie. Just admit what you did and we will forgive you.”

“I cannot admit to something I never did.”

“Just shut up. You…” her mother began.

At that moment Kate hurried in from the salon where she had gone to have her hair done. She knelt beside Keral and pulled her shaking body into a hug.

“Stop it,” Kate told their parents. “Even if Keral took those things, you should not speak to her that way.”

“I did not steal anything,” Keral repeated.

“It is fine, Keral,” Kate said while she slowly stroked Keral’s hair. Her eyes looked worried, yet a slight mocking note stayed in her voice and at the corners of her mouth. “There is no stealing among us. We are all family. You simply took them. Everything that belongs to me belongs to you as well. Everything that belongs to Mom and Dad belongs to you too. You are the real daughter after all.”

Keral could not understand what those words were supposed to mean.

“I did not take anything, Kate,” she kept saying. “I would never take something without asking first.”

“It is fine,” Kate answered without stopping the gentle pats on Keral’s hair. She turned toward their parents and continued, “Keral grew up poor. The woman who raised her was terrible, and she is probably seeing beautiful things like these for the first time. We should show her kindness. Even if she took them without asking, we ought to understand her. After all…”

A sudden rush of anger burned away every softer feeling inside Keral. She pushed Kate’s hand away with a sharp shove.

“I said I did not steal it!” she cried out in frustration. “I did not take it without permission. Why will none of you believe me?”

“Oh f**k,” Kate cried out as she clutched the arm Keral had pushed away. Pain twisted across her face. Their parents hurried straight to her side while Keral stepped backward.

“I think she sprained my shoulder when she shoved me,” Kate said. She winced and let out a sharp cry the moment their mother tried to touch the spot.

“What is the matter with you, Keral?” their mother demanded, staring down at Keral with clear dislike. “Your sister was only trying to protect you.”

“I swear I did not…” Keral began.

“Just be quiet,” her mother cut in. “Go to your room and stay there. You have already caused enough trouble.”

They guided a limping Kate out of the room even though it was her shoulder that was supposed to be hurt. Keral stayed alone in her room until evening. No one came to check on her, though she could hear the family laughing and sharing jokes while they watched a movie together.

That was the moment she understood that very little had truly changed. The harm here was not physical, yet it felt almost the same. She was their daughter by blood, but they would never care for her the way they cared for Kate.

She remained in the room, forgotten and hungry and unhappy, until a knock sounded later that evening. It was Kate. She said she had already forgiven Keral for the angry shove, so Keral could leave the room now and join them for dinner.

Keral had to apologize to the whole family and to Kate. While they ate, their mother looked at her and said, “You can see how perfect Kate is, right? We raised her to be this way, and we expect you to become just like her.”

Keral nodded, hungry for their care and approval. If they wanted her to turn into a second Kate, then that was what she would do.

From that day she worked hard to shape herself into the person Kate was.

Then one morning the family woke to find Kate gone. A handwritten note waited on her dressing table.

It read: [I do not belong here anymore. Keral is the real daughter. I can no longer pretend that she grew up the hard way while I enjoyed the comfort that should have been hers. I tried to push those feelings aside, but I keep believing that my presence stops her birth parents from loving her the way they should. That is why I am leaving.]

Kate had left nothing behind in her room. The sheets on her bed still showed the shape of where she had slept, her hairbrush still held strands of her hair, and every piece of clothing remained in the closet. Because of that, their parents believed she was only having a short fit of temper and would soon come home.

She never did.

She stayed gone on the first day, the second day, and even after a full week had passed. Only then did their parents hire both private and public investigators to search for her. They spent millions of dollars on the hunt, yet every effort turned up empty.

All the while the wedding date kept drawing closer. The whole city still talked about the grand event. The groom was not an ordinary man; he was an alpha king. That alone should have been enough reason for her to return, but Kate stayed missing.

Their parents seemed to age two full years in less than three weeks. Each time her fiancé visited, his shoulders grew tighter and the dark look in his eyes grew deeper. Their gazes often rested on Keral, and even though she tried not to dwell on it, she knew they blamed her.

She became certain of that one late night when she overheard her mother crying softly in their bedroom.

“I wish we had never learned the truth,” her mother sobbed. Keral could almost see her father holding her on the bed. “If we had never found out that woman switched our babies at birth, she would never have moved into this house, and our poor child would never have run away because she felt she did not belong here.”

Tears filled Keral’s eyes and her hands trembled as she walked back to her own room. She could not sleep that night while she turned the choices over and over in her mind.

Should she leave as well? Would that bring Kate home? Would that make their parents happy? Did they dislike her that deeply?

After hours of restless thoughts, only one answer stayed clear. She would leave too.

She woke the next morning with that plan fixed in her heart, yet when she stepped into the living room she found Kael Volkov already there with her parents. The wedding was only two weeks away, and they needed someone to take Kate’s place because this marriage was a royal alliance. Kael could not simply choose a bride from another family.

Without asking her, they had already decided that Keral would become the replacement.

She refused at once, but her parents made it plain that there was no other choice. They let her know she must not act ungrateful after everything they had done for her, and that she should step in because Kate had left because of her.

In the end she agreed. Three years earlier she walked down the aisle beside a man who wished another woman stood next to him. The laws of the royal pack required him to mark her as his mate, yet her parents and Kael decided he would only give her a temporary mark in case Kate ever returned.

Those three years passed without any sign of Kate. Keral spent them playing the part of a careful wife and daughter to a husband and parents who still wished Kate lived in the house instead of her. Her husband only came to her bed on the nights set aside for mating because he needed an heir, and he always kept the lights turned off.

Most of the time, when Kael was deep inside her, the name that left his lips was not Keral. It was Kate.

Keral was the true daughter and the legal wife, yet even after so many years she remained the one nobody truly wanted.

Just when she believed that could finally change, just when she thought this pregnancy was her only hope and her only chance to give Kael the heir he had always wanted so that he might look at her and care for her, and so that her parents might finally grow warmer toward her once they had a grandchild…

Kate had returned.

She stood right there, crying in Keral’s husband’s arms and gripping his shirt as if her life depended on it. Their mother cried as well while their father held her, clearly filled with relief that her daughter had finally come home.

No one noticed Keral, and if anyone did, they said nothing at all.

She stayed fixed in place with her hands resting on her lower belly until Kate herself lifted her head and looked straight at her.

Keral’s breath caught in her throat.