CHAPTER 005
514 Words
~Evelyn's POV~
I heard it by accident.
I wasn't following him. His secret just found its way to my ears out of sheer carelessness on his part.
I was cutting through the courtyard when his voice stopped me cold. It was low and urgent and stripped completely of the version he used in public. Something about his tone made my chest tighten before I even caught the words.
I pressed myself against the wall.
And I listened.
"The bond activated," he said. "I couldn't stop it. I marked her before I even understood what was happening." He paused to give the person he was telling his most scandalous secret some time to catch up. "My counsellor. Roseline Campbell." Another pause. "I know exactly how it sounds."
Silence while whoever was on the other end responded.
"Of course not!" His voice dropped but I caught every word. "Are you crazy? Eve doesn't know and I need to keep it that way. We just got back together. This will break everything."
A moment's pause.
"No, I don't love her. Maybe a little crush." A hollow, miserable laugh. "I don't know, man. I'm so screwed."
I stopped breathing.
His counsellor.
Roseline Campbell.
My twin sister.
Shit.
I stood there long after he went inside. Long enough to stop shaking and start thinking straight.
The mate bond chose Roseline.
Not me.
Her.
The girl who shared my face but apparently occupied a completely different place in the universe's entire design. The girl who appeared out of nowhere and managed — in one session, one — to do what I hadn't managed in two years.
She hadn't even tried.
With sisters like her, who needed enemies?
The moon goddess had made a mistake. It couldn't be her!
I pushed off the wall and walked back toward the dorms. Chest tight. Eyes completely dry.
No one was taking Jeremy from me.
When Roseline had disappeared all those years ago, my parents said she'd gone to live with the Blackwell family permanently. That she'd be taken care of. They never once mentioned she might come back.
They definitely never mentioned she'd come back to take my man.
Two years ago, when Jeremy had asked about her, I'd told him she was dead because, well, she wasn't coming back anyway, so she was dead to me.
Dead people were supposed to stay dead, not resurface years later to steal my man.
Getting her to leave wasn't the answer. If the mate bond was real, and from everything Jeremy had just said, it absolutely was, he'd chase after her anyway. He'd already admitted to a crush. I couldn't let that become something bigger like love.
I had to delete her from his heart so completely that he'd have nothing left to chase. And I wasn't going to be nice about it.
She was the one who broke the sister code first. I was just returning the favour.
There was a saying for situations exactly like this one.
All is fair in love and war.
This was war.
And I was the goddamn warlord.
- Writer
