I Was the Wrong Twin—Until Fate Chose Me

Chapter 5 : Three Days Until Everything Burns

(Sloane's POV)

Three days.

Seventy-two hours between me and the one thing in my entire life that nobody can take away from me.

I sit cross-legged on my bed, staring at the red circle on my wall calendar like it's a grenade I've been holding for eighteen years. My heart pounds against my ribs every time I look at it — not because of whatever lavish party Diane is planning for Sienna, not because of the dress that's probably already hanging in my sister's closet like a coronation gown.

Because of the shift.

The first shift.

Every wolf in Ironveil says it like a prayer — like something sacred and violent and electric, all three at once. Like being taken apart

and reassembled into something that finally makes sense. Stronger. Faster. Real.

For once in my life, I might be impossible to ignore.

I press my palms together in the dark of my room and whisper to no one.

"Please. Let this change something."

I close my eyes and let myself imagine it — fur the color of live embers, eyes like backlit amber. Not because I'm chasing beauty. I

gave up that particular war years ago. But strength— strength I could use. Strength that would finally make my parents look at me

like I'm worth the oxygen I consume. Like I'm a daughter, not a footnote.

And my mate. Somewhere out there — anywhere that isn't here — my mate is waiting. The moment I find him, I am gone. I won't pack. I won't say goodbye. I won't look back at this house even once.

The door swings open.

No knock. There is never a knock.

"Are you meditating?" Sienna leans against the doorframe in silk pajamas that probably cost more than my entire art supply budget,

her hair in perfect loose waves like she styled them in her sleep. Her eyes scan my room with the mild curiosity of someone

browsing a*****e they have no intention of buying from.

I swallow down the residual rage that still lives in my chest since the incident — the application, the portfolio, my hands bleeding on

the foyer floor. I'd apologized to my parents. I'd even choked out an apology to Sienna, which tasted exactly as vile as it sounds. The

guilt of losing control like that, of seeing genuine fear in my mother's eyes — it haunts me more than the punishment did.

But I do not apologize for the feeling. I just apologize for the expression of it.

"Ever heard of knocking?" I ask flatly.

She smirks, floating across the room to drop onto my bed like she has a standing reservation. She picks up her phone, already

scrolling.

"Ever heard of getting a life? Relax, I'm just here to talk. Our big day's almost here."

"Our big day," I repeat.

"Right." She doesn't look up.

"You're not excited?" she asks, in the same tone someone uses to ask about the weather.

"I am," I say carefully. "Just nervous, I guess."

Something in her expression shifts — not toward warmth, exactly. More like she's briefly tuning in to a frequency she usually

ignores. It's the closest thing to a real conversation she's offered me in weeks, and it makes me suspicious immediately.

"Nervous?" She snorts. "Why? It's going to be amazing. Everyone will finally see what I'm actually made of." She glances at herself

in my mirror and seems satisfied by what she finds. "I'm going to be the most powerful wolf in this pack. When Caden sees me shift

—" Her smile turns slow and private, like she's replaying something she has no intention of sharing. "He's going to lose his mind."

There it is.

Not a conversation. An audience.

Caden, Caden, Caden. The name has colonized every room of this house. My mother says it like a sacrament. Sienna says it like

ownership. And me — I watched the way he looked at my sister that afternoon in his foyer, and I recognized the expression

immediately. The same look every boy in this pack has given her since we were fourteen. Dazzled by the surface. Blind to the current

underneath.

Destined for her, probably.

The moon goddess has a brutal sense of humor.

"Must be nice," I murmur, almost to myself.

"What?"

"Having everyone already convinced you're extraordinary before you've even shifted."

She looks at me then — really looks — her brows arching in something that might almost be consideration.

"Oh, Sloane." She sighs. "Don't do that. It's not my fault that you're—" She stops. A slow smile replaces whatever she was actually

going to say. "Never mind."

"Finish it."

The smile sharpens.

"It's not my fault you're average. Sorry—below average. That's more accurate."

The words cut. They always cut, no matter how many times I've taken the same blade. But I have had years to practice bleeding

quietly.

"Whatever." I turn away. "You have everything you want. Caden, the attention, the party. So please — go enjoy it and leave me

alone."

She studies me for one long, unreadable moment. Then she laughs softly — not cruel, for once. Almost something like pity, which is

somehow worse.

"You know what? I actually hope you find your mate, Sloane. Maybe it'll fix that bitterness. Maybe he'll even do something about…"

She gestures vaguely at my whole existence. "All of this. Just pray he's not one of the commoners."

She floats out, trailing expensive perfume like a vapor trail.

I pull my blanket around myself and press my face into my pillow and whisper the same prayer for the hundredth time.

Please. Let this change everything.

(Sienna's POV)

Finally.

I stand in front of my full-length mirror and hold the silver dress up against my body, and the word pulses through me like a second heartbeat. Finally, finally, finally.

Eighteen years. Eighteen years I have been promised this moment — the shift, the power, the recognition — and in three days it

arrives, gift-wrapped and glittering.

The dress catches the light in exactly the right way. Caden Voss won't know what hit him.

I set the dress on the bed and reach for my phone out of pure reflex, scrolling to his name. No new messages. But that's fine — he's

deep in Ashford training protocols, probably running drills in the dark somewhere. What matters is three days from now, when he

watches me shift for the first time, and everything clicks into place the way I've always known it would.

He is mine. I felt it the moment his eyes met mine in that foyer. I've confirmed it, repeatedly and enthusiastically, since then.

I smile at the memory of last night — sneaking out, the warmth of his hands, the way he looked at me like I was the only fixed point in his universe. No amount of Alpha training gives a man that kind of focus on accident.

He will claim me. I will be Luna.

Luna. The word tastes like the best thing I've ever said.

"Sienna!"

Diane's voice carries up from the kitchen with that particular frequency that means business. I grab my hairbrush and head

downstairs to find her with a glass of white wine and the gleam in her eyes she reserves exclusively for conversations about Caden

Voss.

"The guest list," she says immediately. "It has to be finalized tonight. The Voss family will be there, which means every single detail

has to be perfect."

"I already have the perfect dress," I say.

She beams at me the way she always beams at me — like I am genuinely her greatest achievement, her proof of concept, her best

work.

"You're going to take his breath away."

"That's the plan."

"And Astrid—" She catches herself. "Sloane. What about—"

I shrug. "What about her?"

"She's your twin, Sienna. She needs to be there."

"She'll be fine. She'll find a corner and her sketchbook and she won't bother anyone. She never does."

Diane sighs, swirling her wine. "As long as she doesn't cause a scene. After last time—"

"She won't." I smile sweetly, though the memory of Sloane's hands in my hair, the wild animal sound that ripped out of her throat —

I shove that down quickly, because I refuse to let it live in my head rent-free. "She wouldn't dare."

But even as the words leave my mouth, something cold skims down the back of my neck. Because I saw what was in Sloane's eyes

that day. And it wasn't weakness.

I don't let myself finish that thought.

Later, I pass her room on my way to bed. The faint sound of lo-fi music bleeds under the door. I push it open an inch — she's at her

desk, bent over her sketchbook, completely lost in whatever world lives inside her head. The lamp throws gold light across her hair

and it is, infuriatingly, beautiful. That deep, true red. The color of something dangerous.

I feel the old, familiar knot of something I refuse to name twist in my chest.

Jealousy? No. I have everything. I have Caden Voss and a silver dress and a mother who thinks I hung the moon.

I do not envy my sister's scratched-up sketchbook and her dingy hoodie and her—

Her eyes lift and find mine in the doorway. And there it is again — that sharpness. Like looking into a mirror that shows you

something you weren't prepared to see.

"What?" she snaps.

"Just checking you're still breathing," I say lightly.

"Unfortunately for you, I am."

I pull the door shut and walk away fast, before whatever is tightening in my chest can fully form into a feeling I'd have to own.

I crawl into bed. Check my phone one last time.

Still nothing from Caden.

That's fine. In three days, I'll be standing in front of the entire pack — powerful, radiant, inevitable — and he will look at me the way

he looked at me that first night, except this time the whole world will be watching.

And Sloane will be somewhere in the back, sketchbook in hand, fading into the wallpaper like she always does.

Like she always will.

My phone lights up.

A text from Caden. Finally.

I unlock it, already smiling—

And the smile dies on my face.