Chosen by the Alpha Who Marked My Stepsister. He came for her. He marked me instead.

The wind bit at Aria Vale's sweater like teeth.

She tugged her sleeves down, further and kept on walking, her boots crunching on the rock path that curved behind the Moonshade compound. She stayed out of view, always two steps behind the world, a shadow the light could not recall. Her breath left her in soft mist as twilight stole across the trees.

From somewhere to her rear drifted the sound of laughter-Isla's, bright and full and impeccable.

Aria didn't respond. Not yet. She only clenched her fingers into her palms, dipped her chin down farther, and increased her stride.

"She doesn't even move..."

"...Human blood."

"...Not even real pack."

The words floated like smoke from the practice field to the treed ridge where Aria always escaped. She never knew who said them. It didn't matter. It never mattered. Because they were always said. Always whispered when backs were turned but loudly enough for her to hear. They made sure of it.

She took the same route she always did on the nights leading up to a full moon, climbing the trail that wound its way up through the thinning pines to the rocky overlook. A place too high, too cold, and too forgotten for the golden ones to bother with. Which was perfectly fine by her.

She dropped to her knees on the lawn, coat spreading out beneath her, and pulled her sketchbook from the satchel bag that was slung over her shoulder. Her fingers were already smudged black with charcoal. She did not mind. Black smudges on her fingers meant no one tried to talk to her.

Beneath her hand, a wolf took shape-large, black, fiery eyes gleaming out from the shadows of the page. Always the same wolf. She had no notion why she drew it, nor how she was able to draw each detail without ever having laid eyes on it. And yet it haunted her. Waited for her. Every time her pencil touched paper, it waited.

Like her own wolf.

If she had one.

She gazed down at the ground below. Isla was running drills with the warriors-strong, fast, regal. Her silvery-white wolf shape shone under the growing moonlight. Even when she changed back, clad in nothing but power and pride, she held every gaze.

"Beautiful," a voice breathed from below.

Aria felt it too. Isla was lovely. Golden hair, stormy gray eyes, the bearing of a born Luna. She was the image of what a Moonshade daughter should be.

Aria wasn't.

She was shorter, plumper, all the wrong colors. Hair too dull, eyes too strange. She didn't glow under the moonlight-she vanished.

Still, she watched. As if proximity might someday shape her into something more.

She didn't hate Isla. Not really.

She just... needed to be seen.

The ache in her bones pulsed again, low and dull like distant thunder. It had started months ago, this strange hum under her skin. Her mother told her it was growing pains. Her father said nothing. He barely spoke to her unless Isla was around.

She dug deeper into her coat, watching Isla's form disappear into the main house. She couldn't hear what was said from this distance, but she could read body language. Wolves stood up straight when Isla entered a room. They nodded in respect. Smiled. She was the future Luna, after all. She was the Alpha's true daughter. Chosen, powerful, fate-ordained.

Aria was the accident.

The one her mother brought with her from a previous life.

The one who hadn't shifted.

Not once. Not even during the blood moon last year when all the teenage wolves shifted for the first time.

Aria had passed out alone in the woods with nothing but ripped fingernails and scratch marks in the dirt to show for it.

Still, she didn't cry. Not anymore.

Instead, she observed the stars sparkle into life above her. And that's when it happened.

A wind breathed past her face. Cold. Wild. Carrying something it shouldn't.

Smoke. Spice. Forest fire.

She snapped upright, her heart missing beats. That scent wasn't from Moonshade.

It was foreign. Primitive.

And yet... it made her bones hum.

A strange vibration quivered across her skin. She grasped her coat tight, standing too fast. Her sketchbook tumbled from her lap into the underbrush.

She barely noticed.

Because just then, the first howl broke out.

Not a plaintive howl. Not an alert call. A declaration.

He had arrived.

The one Isla was meant to be matched with.

Alpha Kael Dren of Bloodfang.

She'd heard of him since she was a child. Everyone had.

He was the Alpha who had battled his own father at age nineteen and won. The wolf with blood-red eyes and a shadow pack that followed him not out of loyalty-but fear. The stories said he didn't need a mate because he had power instead. They said stories that no female ever survived his court.

Aria hadn't believed the stories were true. Stories were often twisted over time. But the fear settled in her belly nonetheless.

She backed down the hill, staying hidden. She didn't want to see him. She didn't want to be seen.

And yet-

A voice in her said:

Go.

She ignored it. For a moment.

Until she caught it again.

That same wildfire heat. That pull.

As if something in her recognized something in him. And a shiver coursed through her chest like a second heartbeat.

The Moonshade manor buzzed with life. Aria slipped in at the back, unnoticed as ever. She had learned to hover at the edges. To not be seen.

Inside, the ceremony hall was recreated. Dark forest green and silver pennants draped the walls. The lanterns all burned with gentle witchlight. Crystal goblets of mountain wine shone on the long oak table. Servers moved between high-rank wolves and their partners, who were all dressed in ceremonial gray.

Aria tried to lose herself in her work-placing goblets, straightening forks, avoiding Isla's gaze.

Her stepmother glided across the room, pursing her lips in approval. She paused alongside Aria just long enough to say, "Stand straighter."

No hello. No hug. Just that.

Aria obliged.

At the far end, Isla entered the room like a moon goddess.

Wrapped in white silk threaded with silver, Isla was the Luna she was born to be. Her hair fell in thick curls, her eyes glittered like new frost. She was perfect.

Aria swallowed the jagged thing that churned inside her.

She was used to it. Isla was born for this.

And Aria... Aria was just-

The door opened.

And the cold came in.

There was a silence.

Even the air was different. He hadn't spoken a word. He didn't need to.

Alpha Kael Dren was tall and lean, in dark leather and steel-gray wool. His eyes sliced through the room like a blade. And for a moment, the space between Aria and the rest of the world vanished.

Because he looked at her.

Not at Isla. Not at the Alphas. Not at the head table.

At her.

And his wolf stirred behind his eyes.

Aria froze. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't look away.

Just for a moment.

Then he turned to Isla, walking towards her with measured grace, extending a hand as propriety demanded.

Aria's legs nearly buckled. Her lungs burned.

She dropped the tray she was carrying.

Glass shattered.

Wine flowed like blood across the floor.

And just like that-everyone looked at her.