Chapter 2 — The Same Morning, A Different Wolf
827 Words
**POV: Aria Silverfang**
The door opened without a knock.
And I smelled her before I saw her.
Seraphine, my sister.
The scent hit me like a memory I had tried to bury—sweet jasmine oil, the soap she used, the faint metallic tang of nerves beneath it all. The same smell she had worn three years ago, weeping on my shoulder as she begged me to take her place—and the last thing I breathed before the cell door locked behind me.
My wolf stirred. She remembered that smell too. She did not like it.
"Seraphine?" I croaked, my voice still rough from waking.
Seraphine rushed in, golden hair braided loose, her eyes red at once. "Aria! Thank the Goddess you're awake—I was terrified you were too ill to get up."
She grabbed my hands, tears balanced on her lashes. "You don't know how Father raged downstairs. The Thornheart envoy arrived last night—they want to see the bride today. Aria, I truly cannot—the moment I think of marrying that stranger, my chest locks up and I can't breathe. Lucian would waste away without me. So would I. Our family would fall."
Words were the water she swam in. I had drowned in them once.
What a performance.
In my last life, this exact face had nailed me into the dungeon. The same red eyes, the same trembling hands, the same *I'll die without him.* She had pushed the marriage onto my shoulders, then run to Lucian's arms and left me to rot in that dungeon for three years.
This time I said nothing. I just watched her.
*Go on,* I thought, cold. *Squeeze those tears out. Sell me, like you did last time.*
"You're shaking," I said, my tone flat as if commenting on the weather.
She blinked. She was used to me saying *yes.* Used to me saying *I'll take your place.*
"Sit," I said, pulling my hand free and dragging over a chair. "Drink your tea. Looking like this, Father will know you're afraid the second he walks in."
She sat. She drank. But her eyes stayed on me, like I was a stranger.
"When Father comes," I said, "cry. The realer the tears, the more he'll believe you can't bear to lose me. Then you tell him—I volunteered to marry in your place. Sisters, right? So devoted."
She nodded, tears still on her cheeks, a smug little curve already tugging at her mouth.
She thought she'd won again.
---
She had barely left when the door opened again.
My father. I smelled him before I saw him—old leather, pipe smoke, the sour bite of an Alpha who hadn't been challenged in years and had gone soft. A Pack Alpha who ruled by command, not strength.
He never knocked.
"Your sister told you what's what?" He looked me over the way a trader eyes livestock. The Thornheart envoy was downstairs. I was to smile, be polite, not shame this family. "You marry today. No arguments."
Seraphine stood behind him and switched faces in an instant. "Now, Father, don't be cross," she said softly, a hand resting on my shoulder like she cared. "Aria understands. She's always been the good one—she'd do anything for this family. I was just telling her not to be frightened."
There it was. In front of Father, she shoved me into the fire and dressed it up as devotion.
In my old life, I had bowed my head and said, *Yes, Father.*
I bowed my head now and said, *Yes, Father.* Same words. But inside I filed away both her faces—the weakness under his old hide, and the smugness she couldn't quite hide at the corner of her mouth.
He patted my shoulder. The only touch he'd ever given me that wasn't a shove.
Then he left, with my sister trailing after him.
I stood still until his footsteps faded. Until the house settled. Until I was sure I was alone.
Then I went to my wardrobe.
I did not touch the wedding dress. It hung on the door in its white trap—silver thread, silk collar, waiting to bite into my throat.
I pulled out a plain dark dress. Wool. Quiet. The kind a servant might wear to fetch water at dawn.
I laid it on the bed. Then I reached under the mattress and pulled out a satchel I had prepared in another life and never used. Water. Dried meat. A knife. A silver coin.
My wolf pressed against my ribs, restless.
*Tonight?* she asked.
*Tonight,* I answered.
I dressed in the plain wool. I tied the knife to my thigh. I folded the dark cloak into the satchel.
Then I hung the wedding dress back on its hook, smoothed the veil, and went downstairs to smile at the envoy.
I had one day of pretending left.
And one night to run.
- Writer
