The Heiress's Revenge

Chapter 4

I sat in the library, staring at the heavy gold invitation on the mahogany desk still trying to catch my breath .

The Marking of the Luna.

My fingers brushed the calligraphy. For three years, I had been the "shadow Luna," the woman who sat in the chair but didn't carry the mark. Tonight, Caleb would bite me, his venom merging with my blood, finally linking our souls.

"You're brooding again."

I turned to see Caleb leaning against the doorframe. He had discarded his suit jacket, his white shirt unbuttoned at the collar. He looked raw, powerful, and strangely agitated.

"Just thinking about the ceremony," I said, rising to meet him. "Is it normal to be this nervous?"

"It's a life-altering bond," he said, walking toward me. He didn't stop until he was in my personal space, his heat radiating off him. "You are sensing the change. You are waking up."

Caleb reached out, his hand sliding into my hair, tilting my head back to expose the side of my neck. His eyes tracked the line of my throat with a hunger that made my pulse jump. The biological pull was a deafening roar now, a physical ache in my chest that demanded he claim me.

"You look so much like her today," he murmured, almost to himself.

The warmth in my chest turned to ice. "Caleb, stop. Don't compare me to the girl in the photo."

His gaze snapped back to my eyes, the amber turning dark and turbulent. "I’m not comparing you. I’m just... noting the perfection of the moment." He leaned down, his lips pressing a hard, possessive kiss to my jaw. "Tonight, you become mine. Forever. No more questions, Eva. No more looking back."

The pack ceremony began as a symphony of power. The great hall was packed with the elite of the supernatural world. I felt the weight of their stares some envious, some skeptical. I was the human girl (or so they thought) who had captured the heart of the most ruthless Alpha in the country.

Caleb was a constant presence at my side, his hand never leaving the small of my back. He was parading me, showing the world that the Blackwood line was secure.

"Smile, Ella" he whispered into my ear as we shook hands with the Alpha of the Crescent Moon pack. "The world is watching our perfection."

But as the clock ticked toward midnight the hour of the marking the perfection started to fray.

I was standing near the buffet when I felt a sudden, sharp prick on the back of my neck. It felt like a needle, or a sting. I gasped, spinning around, but there was only a crowd of laughing guests.

Then, the smell hit me.

It wasn't Caleb’s cedar. It wasn't the roses of the gala. It was the smell of damp earth and old, rusted metal.

My vision tunneled. The music turned into a distorted, screeching sound.

I wasn't in the ballroom. I was in the car again. But this time, I could see the dashboard. There was a photo taped to it. A photo of a woman who looked like me... but her hair was dark. A photo of me? No, someone else.

"Run, Ella!" a voice screamed. Not Caleb’s voice. A woman’s voice.

"Eva! What is wrong with you?"

Caleb’s voice broke the trance. He was gripping my shoulders, his face a mask of fury. We were in the middle of the dance floor. People were staring. I was shaking, tears streaming down my face.

"I... I remembered something," I choked out. "Caleb, the car... there was someone else there. A woman. She told me to run."

Caleb’s grip tightened until it bruised. His face went deathly pale, then red with rage. "You’re hallucinating. The stress is too much. We’re going to the dais. Now."

"Caleb, listen to me... "

"I said NOW."

He practically dragged me toward the raised platform. The clock began to chime. Midnight. The pack fell silent, sensing the Alpha’s volatility.

Caleb stood me in front of him. He looked like a man possessed, his wolf pushing through the surface of his skin. He reached for my neck, his fangs lengthening, ready to force the bond before I could say another word.

"By the blood of the moon," Caleb began, his voice a growl. "I claim this woman as.......

The doors to the ballroom didn't just open. They were blown off their hinges.

A figure stood in the mist, tattered, bloody, and hauntingly familiar.

The biological pull that had tethered me to Caleb for three years suddenly snapped. The thread didn't just break; it withered and died.

I looked at the woman in the doorway, then at the man holding my throat.

I felt Caleb’s hand drop from mine. It wasn't a slow release; it was a sudden, violent severance.

In the doorway stood a woman.

She was skeletal, her once-beautiful pale blue dressthe same one I was wearing now tattered and stained with years of filth. Her silver-blonde hair was a matted nest, and her feet were bare and bloodied. She looked like a nightmare birthed from the forest.

But she had my face. Well almost my face cause we look slight different.

A collective gasp rippled through the crowd. I heard the word whispered a hundred times in a second: Sienna.

Caleb made a sound I had never heard before a broken, guttural whimper that came from the deepest part of his wolf.

"Caleb..." the woman whispered. Her voice was thin, like tattered silk, but it carried across the silent room.

I stood frozen, my heart stopping in my chest. I looked at Caleb, waiting for him to tell the guards to stop the intruder. Waiting for him to look at me and tell me it was a trick.

But Caleb wasn't looking at me. He had forgotten I existed.

His eyes were blown wide, filled with a raw, agonizing hope that he had never once shown me. "Sienna?" he choked out.

"I... I came back," she sobbed, her knees buckling.

Caleb didn't walk toward her. He launched himself. He shifted halfway across the floor not a full transformation, but his speed was lupine, a blur of tuxedo and raw power. He caught her before she hit the ground, gathering her broken body into his arms.

He let out a howl then a sound of such profound, soul-shattering relief that it made the glass ornaments on the trees vibrate. He buried his face in her matted hair, weeping openly in front of his entire pack.

"I've got you baby," he roared, his voice thick with tears. "I've got you, my love. You're home. You're finally home."

I stood alone on the dais, the spotlight still burning white-hot on my skin. I was wearing her dress. I was wearing her pearls. I was the polished, perfect version of the woman he was currently cradling against his heart.

I looked down at my hands. They were shaking.

Sienna turned her head slightly in Caleb’s arms, her blue eyes meeting mine over his shoulder. In that split second, the "confused, weak" woman vanished. She didn't look grateful. She looked at me with a cold, piercing triumph.

She didn't need to say a word. In the eyes of Caleb and the entire world, the substitute’s time was up.