Reborn Luna: The Grand Alpha's Second Chance Mate

Lyra

"Hold still, Luna. Just one more pin."

I held still. It was harder than it sounded. The gown was heavier than I'd expected, pale silver silk with lace stitched through it and tiny crystals that flashed whenever I breathed. Three attendants circled me like bees. One tugged at my waist, one smoothed the train across the floor, and the third knelt at my hem, muttering around a mouthful of pins.

The tall mirror showed me a woman I almost didn't recognize. Dark hair pinned in loose curls. Hazel eyes too bright. And between my brows, the mark. It glowed a faint silver, pulsing slow like a second heartbeat, the way it always did when my nerves got the better of me. The Moon Goddess's seal. Every Alpha in every territory would lower their eyes to it. Tomorrow I'd walk toward Jaxon with it shining on my face, and he'd look at me like I was the only thing in the room.

My stomach fluttered. I pressed a palm flat against it and the attendant at my waist clicked her tongue.

"Please don't wrinkle it, my lady."

"Sorry." I smiled at the mirror, then noticed the window seat behind me.

Kira sat curled into the corner of it, knees pulled up, picking at a loose thread on her sleeve. She hadn't said a word in almost an hour. Kira, who never stopped talking. Kira, who had narrated every fitting since we were fifteen, who'd have been ranking the attendants' hairstyles out loud by now.

Same face as mine. Same hair, same eyes, same crooked left eyebrow. Only the mark told us apart. Growing up, we'd never needed anything else, because I always knew which of us was which without looking. I could feel her, a second half of me sitting just out of reach.

Right now that half felt wrong.

"That's enough for tonight," I said. "Thank you all. Really. Go rest."

They hesitated, glancing at the unfinished hem, then bowed and slipped out one by one. The door clicked shut. The room went quiet except for the fire.

I crossed to the window seat, lifting the skirt in both fists, and dropped down beside her. The silk puddled everywhere. Kira didn't look up.

"Okay. Talk. What's going on with you?"

"Nothing." She tugged the thread harder. It snapped. "I'm fine, Ly."

"You've said four words since lunch."

"I'm just tired."

"Kira."

Her thumb stopped moving. She finally raised her head, and her eyes were glassy, her smile small and wobbly. It tugged at my chest.

"I think I'm just feeling a bit lost," she said. "That's all. Tomorrow you'll be gone. Living in that big house with him, and I'll be... I don't know. Here. Without you."

A laugh burst out of me, mostly relief. I reached over and pinched her cheek, the way I had since we were small, and she swatted at my hand.

"You idiot. I'm getting married, not moving to the moon. You'll see me every week. Every day if you want. You'll even get sick of me."

"Really?"

"Really." I stood, bunching the skirt, and bent to pat the top of her head like she was twelve again. "Now stop sulking. You'll make your face puffy and ruin the photos."

Her hand caught my wrist.

Her grip was cold and tight. Too tight. I started to ask what she was doing, and she rose off the cushion in one smooth movement and pulled me in against her, her cheek pressed to mine, her lips at my ear.

"I'm going to miss you so much," she whispered.

Something hot and sharp punched into my stomach.

I didn't understand it at first. My body just stopped. My lungs locked mid breath and my fingers went numb, still curled in the silk. Kira stepped back and I saw her hand, wrapped around a black hilt that stuck out of my belly, my gorgeous silver gown already turning dark around it. Spreading. Warm down my thighs.

'Magic. Dark Magic.' Even through the shock I felt it, a burning chill crawling outward through my veins, eating at my wolf.

"Kira?" It came out a croak. My knees buckled and I caught myself on the window frame. "Why? Why would you..."

She was smiling, but it wasn't her smile. Her mouth had twisted, lips peeled back, her eyes wide and shining with something I had never once seen in her. It wasn't sadness. It was hunger.

"Why you?" She spat the word. "That's what I've asked my whole life. Why you? Why did the Goddess put her mark on your forehead and leave me with nothing? Same face, same blood, same womb, and you got everything. The title. The power. Jaxon." Her voice cracked on his name. "Even him. A future Grand Alpha, and he's yours too."

"Kira, please." Blood bubbled at the corner of my mouth. I tried to lift a hand toward her and my arm shook so hard I couldn't. "We're twins. It doesn't mean we have to fight over the same life. There's room for us both. There always was."

She barked a laugh, sharp and ugly. "Spoken like someone who's never been invisible."

"I never..."

"Everyone looked at you!" she screamed. "I stood next to you in every room, every ceremony, every photo, and nobody saw me! I was the spare! I'm done living in your shadow, Lyra!"

She grabbed the hilt and twisted.

The scream tore out of me before I could stop it. White light burst behind my eyes. The pain wasn't in one place anymore. It was my whole body, a hook dragging through meat, and when she shoved the blade deeper, my legs gave out completely. I hit the floor on my side. The carpet was wet. I couldn't tell if it was mine.

I choked. Coughed. Warmth poured over my chin and I tasted copper and salt.

Kira grabbed me under the arms. My head lolled against her shoulder and my heels dragged across the floor, leaving two dark smears on the pale wood. Her breath came in rough, excited gasps, like she was hauling something she'd wanted for years. Where was she taking me? I couldn't turn my head far enough to see. Tile under my back. Cold. Water running somewhere, loud, so loud.

'Please. Somebody. Please come in.'

Nobody came. I'd sent them all away.

She dropped to her knees beside me and slapped her palm against my forehead, right over the mark. It burned like a brand, like she'd pressed a hot iron to my skull. Something inside me ripped. The silver glow flared white, then bled out of me through her fingers, and my wolf let out one long, broken howl somewhere deep in my chest before going quiet.

Gone. Just like that. The warmth, the strength, the Goddess's voice that had hummed under my skin since birth. Gone.

"Thank you," Kira breathed, pressing her hand harder. Light crawled up her wrist. "I'll take such good care of it."

Then she heaved me over the lip of the tub.

Water closed over my face, warm and heavy, soaking my hair, my gown, the wound. I tried to kick and my legs did nothing. Her hands pinned my shoulders under. Through the rippling surface her face wavered, my own face, crying and smiling at once.

My lungs screamed. Bubbles streamed up past my lips.

'Jaxon.' His name was the only thing I could still hold onto. Would he feel it? Would he wake up tomorrow and know something was wrong? Would he look at her and see the difference?

'Mama. Papa.' They'd be waiting at the ceremony in their best clothes. Mama had already picked her earrings.

And Kira. My Kira. The girl who used to crawl into my bed during thunderstorms and swear on our birthday, on the moon, on everything, that she'd always be my other half.

The edges of the light began to curl and darken. My fingers stopped twitching. It didn't hurt anymore, and that scared me worse than the pain had.

Then, softly, through the black, a voice. It sounded like warm water and silver bells, and it came from everywhere at once.

'Not yet, my child. Your story is not finished.'

I tried to answer. I had no mouth left to do it with.

'I can give you another chance,' the voice said. 'But you will pay for it. To return, you must give up who you were. Your face. Your name. Everything you knew.'

I didn't think. I didn't need to.

'Yes.'​

Lyra (Elara)

Light. Too much of it, white and flat, stabbing straight through my eyelids.

Something beeped beside my head. Steady, tinny, relentless. My mouth tasted like metal and old pennies, and my skull felt split down the middle and loosely glued back together. I tried to swallow. My throat scraped like sandpaper.

Where was the water?

My hands flew up to my face before I'd decided to move them. Fingers on my cheeks. My jaw. My forehead, right between the brows, pressing hard, then harder, digging for the warm hum that had lived there my entire life.

Smooth skin. Nothing else.

"No." It came out a rasp. "No, no, no."

I reached inward for my wolf. Reached the way you reach for a wall in the dark, certain it'll be there. My hand closed on empty air. No growl. No answering pulse. Just a hollow, echoing quiet where she used to be, so wide and so still that my chest began to heave.

The beeping sped up. A plastic clip pinched my fi