Mated To The Wrong Twin

CHAPTER 2

LIORA’S POV

I ran after Derek in the moonlit woods, tears streaming down my face, calling his name desperately. It was clear that he was in pain as he could not even turn to look at me. He didn’t even want to hear my voice or listen to my plea. . .

The air felt heavy with pain and heartache as my cries echoed through the night. Each step I took seemed to highlight the growing gap between us, shadows dancing in the moonlight. Panting, I kept running after him with everything I have got. Tears kept streaming down like an ocean.

"Derek, please, wait!" I pleaded.

“I beg of you, please listen to me. I was just a victim. I had no idea what was going on. It wasn’t my fault, can’t you see?” I cried out loud, trying to get him to stop and listen to me, even if it was just for a second.

Derek slowed down, each step showing he was dealing with a storm of emotions. But, he avoided looking at me, like there was an invisible wall made of hurt and anger between us. His slow movements carried the weight of his feelings, a clear sign that he was struggling with a mix of pain and anger. It was evident that his heart was deeply in pain and what he saw, ruined him. Seeing me in the arms of another on our special night made his heart shatter.

I just wanted it gone. I wanted to take his pain away. I couldn’t bear to see him in such a pain.

The moonlight watched everything quietly, shining softly on Derek but hiding the deep turmoil inside him. His hesitation to meet my eyes, someone he used to trust completely, said a lot. The unsaid accusation hung in the tense air. In the darkness of the night, his avoidance revealed the deep sense of betrayal he felt.

He saw me like a total stranger now. I could sense it from the way he looked at me. The love in his eyes was fading and gradually being replaced by something else, something that I could not even recognize. It was bitterness.

I knew what this night meant to him. It was supposed to be a special night for us both, but I ruined it without even knowing. . .

“Derek please, I beg of you. . . wait, please,” I called out to him in a low tone as he stopped moving.

"What, Liora? What could you possibly say that would make any of this make sense?" Derek burst out. His eyes widened in anger, pain and frustration. I had never seen this version of him. He had never been this angry for any reason at all.

I caught up, touching his arm. He pulled away as if my touch burned. I felt so bad. This was someone who had planned and was eager to unite his body with mine under the watch of the silver moon and claim me as his true mate. But now, he could not even withstand the touch of my fingers.

His rejection hurt. It was like a wall had risen between us—a wall built by betrayal and broken trust. It had never planned for this to happen, neither did I plan to hurt him. I thought he was the one whose arms I was in.

"I didn't know, Derek. I swear. You have to believe me. I saw you, I thought he was you. How could I have known? Please try to understand that I love you so much and there was no way it was intentional," I said to him and he scoffed out of pain.

Derek turned, his eyes cold and accusing.

His cold eyes clashed with the warmth that used to be there. His look accused me, showing the pain etched deep in his soul.

“You have to believe me, Derek. I would never hurt you on purpose,” I added, and he shook his head. In that moment, I knew he wasn’t ready to listen to me, but I had to keep trying.

"Believe you? How can I believe someone who couldn't even recognize the man she was supposedly in love with?" He said and his words stung me. Indeed, I failed to pick out one vital thing that would have made me known that man wasn’t Derek-the scar.

"It wasn't like that. I thought it was you. I didn't see the scar. I was lost in the moment. All I could think of was uniting my body and soul with the man I love. I didn’t--"

"Lost in the moment? You're telling me you couldn't even recognize a basic detail like my scar? How deep does your love run, Liora?"

His words hit hard. I stumbled back, my heart aching. He was right. I lacked words of defence. How could I have overlooked it?

We exchanged verbal blows, leaving me stumbling, physically and emotionally. I staggered back, trying to grasp the enormity of what just happened.

"Derek, I love you. I love you so much and you know I do. I would never hurt you, and you know it,” I said and he chuckled bitterly.

“Keep the lies! You just did. You just hurt me,” he shouted and my entire body trembled.

“I know I did hurt you, but...I wouldn't have willingly—"

"Save it. Your actions spoke louder than your words tonight. There’s nothing you are going to say now that’s going to make me think differently of you, Liora," he said, and his words pierced my heart and made it bleed.

The silence was heavy, shadows deepening between us. It was a moment of suspended agony as we faced the wreckage of our love.

We stood in the moonlit clearing, the tension thick.

"Derek, please, let me explain. There's so much I didn't know."

"You think I don't know that? But ignorance is not an excuse. Not when it comes to the scar, not when it comes to my brother, Derek," he said.

Tears fell like a silent plea. I needed for him to understand that it wasn’t how I wanted things to turn out.

My tears pleaded in the moonlight, each drop begging for understanding and forgiveness.

"Your brother? I didn't even know you had a brother until tonight. You never told me about him. I had no idea that you had a twin. How could I have thought that the man I was with was just a replica of you?"

Derek's face tightened with pain and anger. He didn’t want to listen to me at all.

His expression showed the pain he carried, the revelation of his family's secrets written on his face.

"And that's your problem, isn't it? You never bothered to learn. You were too wrapped up in the fairy tale to see the reality."

My eyes widened, realizing there was more to this than my unknowing involvement with Drake. My widening eyes mirrored my expanding understanding—the realization that my innocence led me into a much darker tale than the fairy tale I envisioned.

"What are you talking about?"

"Sit down. You're about to learn more than you bargained for."

The log became a seat of revelation, truths laid bare in the shadows of the moonlit woods. As we sat on a fallen log, surrounded by haunting shadows, Derek started talking. . .

"Drake, my twin, wasn't always like this. He was different before the accident that took our parents. He was my brother, my flesh and blood. But something changed in him that day, and he's been trying to take everything from me since."

"But why?"

"Power. Control. He wants to be the alpha. And he'll destroy anything in his path to get it. He killed our father just for the chance to become the alpha, but the council didn’t let him. I became his worst enemy after I was crowned the alpha."

My confusion deepened. I had learnt something I had never imagined before. He never told me about any of these.

Confusion etched on my face mirrored the complexity of the revelation. My shattered world expanded into the depth of the rivalry between the twins.

"But why involve me? Why trick me?"

"Because you're important to me. He knows that. He wants to hurt me in the deepest way possible. And tonight, he succeeded. Taking the position of the alpha from me would have been a more difficult task for him to accomplish, at least for tonight. So he took the easiest way to hurt me-claiming you as his mate," he said through clenched teeth.

“No, I’m not his mate. I can never be his mate, I’m yours and you know it,” I cried out to him, wanting to touch his hands but he pulled away his hand away from me as though I had a deadly disease he was trying to avoid.

The weight of Derek's words settled over me, a heavy realization that I had become a pawn in a much larger game.

The weight hung in the air, settling over me like a heavy fog. I was not just a victim; I was a pawn in a game of power and revenge.

"Now you know. I suggest you stay far away from me. And by the way, you are his mate now. It was sealed under the watchful eyes of the silver moon. You know what it implies-You two are bound together now, and there is nothing you can do to change it. You are his mate now, it is the law of the silver moon. It has never been broke, and it won’t be broken now," Derek said and my heart stopped for a while as I thought about what he said. I didn’t really think about it until he mentioned it. The silver moon indeed witnessed my union with Drake, that implied that we were now bound to each other by the law of the silver moon.

Derek stood up, leaving me on the log, my heart shattered into a million irreparable pieces. I wished it was all a dream, so that I could wake up and see myself in Derek’s loving arms once again and tell him about the crazy nightmare I had. But no, it was not a dream, it was reality.

His standing up symbolized departure, leaving me alone with fragments of my broken heart. Moonlight captured the devastation on my face as Derek walked away.

"Derek, please..."

“Derek....” I whispered, stretching forth my hand toward him as he turned his back.

But he was already walking away, leaving me alone in the moonlit forest, echoes of our shattered love lingering like a haunting melody.

Derek's departure left me kneeling, my desperate plea lost in the quiet of the night. The haunting melody of our shattered love echoed in the emptiness that surrounded me.