Husbands Swapped, But I Am Still the Superior Luna

CHAPTER ONE

DAPHNE

I wake up gasping, air filling my lungs in one sharp rush.

My heart pounds so hard I can feel it in my throat. I sit up and sweep my eyes around the room, trying to ground myself, trying to make sense of where I am. The walls. The furniture. The curtains.

Impossible.

I know this room.

I throw my legs over the side of the bed, and that's when I stop. My eyes drop to the space between my thighs—searching for the crimson stain that had become as familiar as my own shadow these past months. There's nothing. Just clean, soft sheets pooling around me onto the floor.

I stare at those sheets for a long moment. Soft. White. I had forgotten what soft felt like. The cold concrete floor had stolen that memory from me, slowly, night after night, until I stopped expecting anything else.

What is happening?

I bolt to the bathroom and plant myself in front of the mirror. My reflection stares back at me, and the tears come before I can stop them. Both eyes—open. Unmarked. I couldn't remember the last time I had two working eyes. One was always swollen shut, sealed by a fist that never tired of finding my face. The memory of those hands on me, of what they did, sends a cold spike of terror straight through my chest even now, even here, even in a room that should be safe.

Where are they? How am I here?

I reach up and touch my cheek. The skin is pale and smooth. No bruises. No blood. No split lip. Beautiful, almost, in a way, I had stopped associating with myself.

This isn't possible. Something is wrong.

A million thoughts crash into each other. The last thing I remember is the feeling of my life draining out of me—the drugs, the abuse, all of it finally catching up, my body giving out like a candle burned from both ends. And now I'm here. Standing in my childhood bathroom, whole and unbroken.

I lunge back into the bedroom and snatch my phone from the nightstand.

I stare at the date on the screen.

My hand flies to my mouth.

It's today.

"I said no!" I tell the man in front of me as he reaches for my hand again. His green eyes dance with mischief as he drags his tongue slowly across his lips, looking at me like I'm already his. First, it was a drink. Now it's somewhere more private. He won't stop.

I had come out tonight because I needed this—one night to myself before the world changed. This week, the three greatest packs would bind themselves together through marriage and end years of bloodshed at the borders. I just wanted a few hours of peace before it all began.

He doesn't care about any of that.

He grabs me without warning, yanking me hard against his chest, his mouth dropping to my ear. "You don't have to be so difficult, baby girl. Be good, and I'll make it nice." His breath fans hot and sour across my skin. Goosebumps crawl up my arms, and I recoil from the inside out.

"Get away from me, you pervert." I shove at his chest and finally break free—straight into someone standing behind me.

I spin around. Another man. Same grin. Same hungry eyes.

"Looks like you met my friend," the first one says, stepping closer. "Now things get interesting."

They close in from both sides, sandwiching me between them. My heart caves in on itself. I open my mouth to scream as they begin dragging me toward wherever it is men like this take women like me—

And then one of their grips disappears.

I turn, and I see him.

The finest pale blue eyes I have ever looked into. Raven hair. A jaw that could cut clean through glass. I don't know how, but I blink, and suddenly the two men are gone. It's just me and him, staring at me like I am the most precious flower in his garden. The longer he looks at me, the harder my heart pounds, and this time it isn't because of fear.

No. This time it's because of love.

I exhale slowly and push the memory away, back into the dark place where I keep things I can't afford to feel right now.

Alpha Crux Thompson of the Shadow Pack.

A monster wearing a gentleman's face.

I don't know what force dragged me back to this moment—this exact night, this exact chance— but I know one thing with absolute certainty: I will not make the same mistake twice. He will not get me again. And this time, I will not just survive. I will make him pay. I will make all of them pay.

I move toward the door, still turning the strangeness of it all over in my mind, when I hear her.

Sophia.

My stepsister stands at the end of the hallway, back turned to me, holding her phone up and spinning slowly so the camera can catch every angle of her dress. Or what there is of it. It clings to her like a second skin, the hem ending where dignity begins.

"What do you think?" she purrs into the phone. "Perfect enough that Alpha Crux won't be able to resist?"

Her friend Camila squeals in delight on the other end of the call.

Crux. Crux.

Why is Sophia dressing for Crux? In the life I remember, she never crossed paths with him this early. She spends that first life married to the twins — married and miserable, scheming against them until they quietly, efficiently, end her.

Which means she remembers too.

She's come back, just like me, and she is already moving.

The pieces click into place, cold and clean: she dies because of the twins. So in this life, she steers straight toward Crux instead, convinced she is outsmarting fate. She has no idea what Crux really is. No idea what she is walking into.

A slow smile pulls at my mouth.

She wants him? She can have him. Every poisoned, smiling inch of him. A softer version of me might feel guilty letting her walk into that. But I have lived through what Crux Thompson does to a woman he claims to love, and that softer version of me died on a concrete floor.

I feel nothing except the quiet satisfaction of a door swinging shut on its own.

***

The next morning, I sit at the kitchen table, pushing scrambled eggs back and forth across my plate without eating any of them. The fork scrapes the ceramic in a slow, hollow rhythm. I still haven't slept. My mind hasn't stopped moving since I woke up.

The kitchen door crashes open so hard it bounces off the wall.

Sophia strolls in.

She looks exactly like what she is—someone who had a night and is not apologizing for it. Her hair is barely held together, her makeup smeared at the corners, her clothes from last night still clinging to her like a second skin. She looks, not to put too fine a point on it, like something the street spat out.

I roll my eyes and push back from the table.

I make it exactly two steps toward the door before she steps into my path.

I look up. She's smiling—wide and bright and completely hollow. The kind of smile that lives only on the surface of a face and never reaches the eyes.

"Hello, sister." She tilts her head, sweet as poison.

"Move."

She doesn't. Instead, she takes a step closer, then another, until I can smell her—sweat and perfume and something else underneath, something foreign. Someone else's scent. She leans in and brings her mouth close to my ear.

"Do you smell him?" she whispers.

I say nothing.

"His scent is still on me." She pulls back just enough to look at my face, her eyes bright with triumph she can barely contain. "After everything we did last night, I don't think it's going away anytime soon." She sighs, slow and satisfied, like she's replaying something she wants me to picture. "Alpha Crux was..." She closes her eyes. Let the silence stretch.

I wait.

"Since you're clearly too dense to read the room," she says, opening her eyes, all sweetness gone now, "I'm going to say this once."

She jabs a finger into my chest.

"Crux is mine. Pick the twin Alpha brothers."

"And why exactly would I take orders from you?" I keep my voice flat. I already know what I'm going to do. I just want to hear her say it.

"Because a man like Alpha Crux deserves someone like me," she says, that painted smile sliding back into place. "That cold bastard and his Playboy brother? That's your speed, darling. Not mine."

I hold her gaze for a moment.

Cold. Playboy. She says it like an insult. But I remember things she doesn't. I remember the older twin crouching down to speak gently to an Omega who couldn't stop trembling, his voice low and careful, nothing like the stone-faced reputation that followed him everywhere.

I remember hearing that the younger twin, for all his parties and pretty women, had never once forced himself on anyone—that he left when they said no. Every time.

Compared to the man she spent last night with? The twins weren't a punishment.

They were a gift.

"Fine," I say.

Her smile stretches wider. She reaches out and pats my cheek like I'm something small and manageable.

"I knew you'd make the right choice."

She turns and walks away, already congratulating herself.

I watch her go.

The smirk that pulls at my mouth is slow and quiet, the kind that doesn't need an audience.

I couldn't wait for both our weddings.