THE LUNA QUEEN IS ME

NYXARA “Congratulations, My Luna, you're six weeks pregnant.” I stared at the doctor, the words initially meaningless in my ears, until he repeated himself. “You're six weeks gone, Luna Nyx. Congratulations,” he beamed at me. As if developing a mind of its own, my hand went right to touch my stomach as if I could already feel the life forming there, a shaky breath escaping my lips. I was pregnant. Repeating it in my head didn’t make it any less surreal or unbelievable. But I had to believe it, because I was staring right at the monitor now, looking at the little bean-sized fetus moving in my womb, hearing its heartbeat. A rush of emotion flooded through me, and tears welled up in my eyes. This was it. This was finally it. I was carrying my husband's baby after three years of marriage, after three years of hoping and praying that my husband would look at me and see me, without wishing it were another woman standing in front of him. Everything I was feeling was plastered all over my face as I walked out of the doctor's office. Heck, it felt like I was walking on clouds because my legs didn’t feel like they were touching the ground at all. I was feeling everything all at once: happiness, excitement, fear, anxiety, all of it bittersweet. And rightfully so. My whole life has been a roller-coaster of terrible experiences. My mother… or the person I thought was my mother, hated me so much that I was used as the physical outlet for her frustration. She never held me in love but in hatred. I received nothing but lashes from her, and they weren't only physical but also verbal. And then all of a sudden, shortly after my 20th birthday four years ago, the truth of my birth came into light because the person… the one who had lived as me all her life needed a blood donation. That was when we realized that I wasn't my mother's daughter afterall. Instead, I was the daughter of a wealthy family who also gave birth in the same hospital that my fake mother did. Apparently, she swapped her daughter with theirs… me. When the daughter my biological parents raised needed a blood donation, and none of them were a match for her, it led them to investigate the hospital where they gave birth, and that was how the truth came to light. When the truth came out, she was promptly arrested and jailed, and I moved into my biological parents’ house. I expected things to change for me then. I expected them to welcome me with open arms and try to make up for all the lost years. They welcomed me quite alright, but it wasn't the same. I might be their blood daughter, but I wasn't the daughter they raised. I wasn't the one they sang lullabies to, the one whose wisdom tooth they buried, or the one they held when she bruised her knees. I wasn't Zora Blackwood. Zora was the daughter they raised and loved, even though she was the daughter of the woman who stole their birth daughter. Zora was the love of their life. They loved her so much and wanted everything to stay the same. So I became an afterthought in my own biological parents’ house. I wasn't getting abused anymore, but I was still very much unloved. Maybe it'd have been different if Zora weren't a sweet soul who gave me a public apology in front of the whole family the night after I moved in. She apologized for her mother's crimes, then broke down as she hugged me in what felt like a crushing mission rather than an apologetic hug. She announced that she'd leave the house if I weren't comfortable with her around because I was the original daughter afterall. My parents chastised her before she even finished speaking. “Of course, you can't leave the house,” they said to Zora in my presence. “We raised you. You're our daughter too. Both of you will live together as sisters. So we lived together as sisters, doing everything together. Zora was the absolute sweetest, or so it seemed. Then all of a sudden, she disappeared one day. “Luna, we are home,” The voice of my driver, Podrick, snapped me right out of my thoughts. I sat up and looked around, confirming that we were back at the Volkov mansion. Podrick came down to open the door for me and helped me out. “Thank you, Podrick,” I smiled at him, and he bowed slightly in respect. I made my way into the main building with light steps, my lips stretched into a smile I couldn't control. Kael was home, I could sense it, and I couldn’t wait to tell him the big news. But then, I started hearing muffled words, and I could smell a familiar scent that I couldn't decipher, causing my steps to falter. It made my stomach tighten, but I managed to put one foot in front of the other and walk into the living room, where everyone was gathered. My birth parents, my husband… and someone else. In his arms. My eyes stayed on my husband, on the crying lady wrapped in his arms, and that was when the scent I'd picked out earlier made perfect sense. Because even though her back was to me, I knew immediately who she was. Zora. My sister, who had disappeared three years ago. And my husband’s first love.