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For three years, I sang on stage while my sister lip-synced to my voice and collected the awards. I signed away my name. I hid in a soundproof booth behind a curtain. On the night she accepted a Grammy for "her" album, she thanked everyone in the world except the woman who'd actually sung it. Then she leaned into the microphone, looked straight at the wings where I stood, and called me "the little helper who handles my errands." By midnight, I was alone in a parking garage with a torn contract in my hands. By morning, I was finished being anyone's ghost. But let me start at the end of the lie. The Staples Center was a wall of light that night. Gold dresses, flashing cameras, a banner that read PIPER LANE — VOICE OF A GENERATION. The voice was mine. The face was hers. My sister Piper swept past me backstage in white sequins, untouched by the vocal nodules that had nearly cost me my throat, untouched by the eighteen-hour studio days that had broken me. She squeezed my shoulder like a boss thanking the catering staff. "Wish me luck, Mira," she said. She didn't wait for it. When they called her name, two hundred million people watched her cry. She clutched the statue for the song I'd written at 3 a.m. about the father who left us. She thanked her producer. Her stylist. Her "incredible team." Then she found me in the dark. "And to the little helper who handles my errands," she said, smiling that famous smile. "What would I do without my assistant?" Assistant. Three years. My voice on every track. My lyrics in her mouth. The crowd laughed warmly. Someone clapped. I stood in the shadows in a black staff polo while my sister introduced me to the world as the girl who fetched her coffee. Her manager, Damon — the man I'd once trusted — pressed a hand to his heart and mouthed be a professional at me. He'd practiced that look. I know now that he'd practiced everything. Backstage, Piper found me before the cameras could. "Don't make a face," she hissed, all the warmth gone. "You signed the deal. Nobody knows you exist, and that's the whole point. You're shy, remember? You hate stages. I'm doing you a favor." A favor. My ruined throat. My buried name. Every dream of my own music swallowed so hers could shine. "Just one song," I whispered. "On the next album. With my name on it. You promised—" "God, you're exhausting." She turned to Damon. "Get her out of my sightline. She's bringing the mood down." Damon took my arm and steered me toward the exit like a security incident. In the parking garage, with my ears still ringing from the applause that should've been mine, my phone lit up. A number I'd been too scared to call for two years. A lawyer's number. My late mother's old friend, who'd told me again and again: When you're ready to stop being their instrument, call me. He answered on the first ring. "Ms. Lane?" "For now," I said, my voice steadying with every word. "Mr. Reyes. Call him. Tell Sebastian Cross my answer is yes." A pause. Then, quietly: "He's been waiting two years to hear that, Mira." So had I. I just hadn't let myself know it.

Lena Drake spent three years as Ethan Cross's contract wife. She cooked his meals, managed his penthouse, smiled at his family, and never once complained — not even when he brought another woman home and called her "the love of my life" right in front of her. But when she heard him tell his mother, "I'm divorcing Lena. Serena is the only woman I'll ever love," something inside her finally cracked. She didn't scream. She didn't cry. She pulled off her wedding ring, placed it on the kitchen counter, and walked toward the door. His voice stopped her cold. "Where the hell do you think you're going?" *** Twelve hours earlier, the morning had started like every other. Lena woke at 5:30 a.m. She prepared Ethan's favorite breakfast — poached eggs, fresh-squeezed orange juice, and avocado toast with exactly the right amount of sea salt. She ironed his shirt, set out his cufflinks, and placed his briefcase by the door. By the time Ethan came downstairs, everything was perfect. He barely glanced at the table. "I won't be home for dinner," he said, adjusting his tie in the hallway mirror. "Serena's flying in tonight. I'm picking her up." Lena's hand tightened around her coffee mug. "Of course." She had heard the name Serena Blake a thousand times. Ethan's college sweetheart. The one who left him to pursue her modeling career in Paris. The one whose photo he still kept in his wallet — not Lena's. Never Lena's. "Also," Ethan added, his tone casual, almost bored, "my mother's coming for dinner tomorrow. Make sure the house looks presentable." "It always does," Lena said quietly. He didn't respond. The front door clicked shut behind him, and the penthouse fell silent. *** Lena stood in the kitchen for a long time, staring at the untouched breakfast. Three years. She had spent three years perfecting every detail of this man's life, and he couldn't even say thank you. Their marriage had been an arrangement — a contract designed by Ethan's grandfather, who believed Lena's quiet, dependable nature would "stabilize" his reckless grandson. In exchange, Lena received financial support for her younger brother's medical treatment. It was supposed to be simple. Clinical. Temporary. But somewhere along the way, Lena had made the fatal mistake of falling in love with her husband. She'd hidden it well. She never confessed, never pushed, never asked for more than he was willing to give. She told herself that if she was patient enough, kind enough, useful enough, he might eventually see her. He never did. Her phone buzzed. A text from her best friend, Maya. [Girl. Have you seen this?] Below the message was a link to a tabloid article. The headline screamed: **ETHAN CROSS SPOTTED AT AIRPORT WITH MYSTERY BRUNETTE — PASSIONATE REUNION KISS!** The photo showed Ethan holding Serena in his arms, his lips pressed against hers, his eyes closed as though the rest of the world had ceased to exist. Lena's chest tightened. She zoomed in on the image, her fingers trembling. He was wearing the tie she had ironed that morning. *** That evening, Ethan walked through the door with Serena on his arm. The woman was everything Lena was not — tall, striking, effortlessly glamorous. Her laugh filled the room like music, and Ethan looked at her the way he had never once looked at Lena. "You must be Lena!" Serena said brightly, extending a perfectly manicured hand. "Ethan's told me so much about you. It's so sweet that you've been helping him manage the house." Helping him manage the house. Not "his wife." Not even "his partner." Just the help. Lena shook her hand, her smile frozen in place. "Welcome." Ethan didn't even look at her. His attention was fixed entirely on Serena as he guided her to the couch, his hand resting on the small of her back. "Lena," he called over his shoulder, "make some tea for Serena. She likes chamomile." Lena turned toward the kitchen, her vision blurring. She had prepared chamomile tea for him once, early in their marriage. He'd pushed it away and said, "I don't drink this." Now she knew why he remembered the flavor. It had never been for him. It had always been for her. *** That night, lying in her cold, separate bedroom, Lena heard laughter drifting through the walls. Ethan and Serena were in the living room, talking, sharing wine, their voices warm and intimate. Her phone lit up with another message from Maya. [Are you okay? Please tell me you're okay.] Lena typed back three words: [I'm leaving him.] Then she pressed send before she could change her mind.

My husband held a funeral for our daughter while I was still in the hospital. He didn't tell me she was dead. He didn't even let me see her body. For three days, Damon Ashford let me lie in that bed, drugged and dreaming she was alive. And while I slept, he stood beside another woman at my baby's grave. The same woman who'd been living in our guest room for eight months. The same woman everyone called "the real Mrs. Ashford." I found out from a nurse who thought I already knew. "I'm so sorry for your loss," she whispered, squeezing my hand. "The service yesterday was beautiful." The heart monitor screamed before I understood why. My daughter. Lily. Six days old. Gone. And buried. Without me. I tore the IV from my arm and ran down that hallway in a paper gown, screaming her name until my throat bled. Two orderlies caught me before I reached the elevator. They thought I was hysterical. They thought I was unstable. They didn't know I'd just learned my husband had erased our child from the world while I slept. When Damon finally arrived, he didn't run to me. He walked. Slowly. His hands in his pockets, his face carved from stone. "You're awake," he said. Not relieved. Annoyed. "Where is she?" My voice cracked. "Where is my daughter, Damon?" "Lily passed during the night you were sedated." He said it like reading a weather report. "There was nothing anyone could do. I handled the arrangements. You were in no condition." "You buried her without me." I could barely breathe. "You had a funeral and didn't wake me—" "Cassandra was there," he interrupted. "She helped me through it." Cassandra. The other woman. I stared at him, this man I'd loved for six years, and I finally saw it. The thing I'd been refusing to see for eight months. He didn't grieve our daughter. He was relieved she was gone. Because Lily had been the only thing tying him to me — instead of to her.

The moment my mate looked me in the eyes and said "I reject you, Aria Vale," the entire pack howled in approval. I didn't cry. I smiled. Because what no one in the Crimson Moon Pack knew—not my mate, not the elders, not the she-wolf draped over his arm—was that the "weak, wolfless reject" they'd spent eighteen years humiliating was about to become the one thing they feared most. But that came later. First, the rejection. "Say it back," Dorian commanded, his Alpha voice vibrating through the packed ceremonial hall. Three hundred wolves watched. My foster family watched. The girl he'd chosen over me—Selene, beautiful, golden, pregnant—pressed her hand to her stomach and watched. His baby. They'd been sleeping together for two years while I waited like a fool for the Moon Goddess to bless our bond. "Say it, Aria. Accept the rejection so I can take a real Luna." My chest burned where our mate-bond lived—a thread the Goddess herself had tied between us at my eighteenth birthday, the most sacred connection a wolf could have. Rejecting it would tear something out of me forever. So I let him feel it. I let the bond go wide open for one heartbeat—just long enough for his arrogant gold eyes to flicker with something he couldn't name. Confusion. Pull. Then I closed it like a door. "I, Aria Vale, accept your rejection, Alpha Dorian Thorne." My voice didn't shake. "And I release you from the bond." The thread snapped. Pain detonated down my spine. I stayed standing. Selene smirked. "Aw. The reject's heartbroken." I looked at her swollen belly, then at the man who'd called me worthless every day since we were children. And I felt the second thing no one knew about me wake up inside my blood—warm, ancient, enormous. "No," I said softly. "I'm not heartbroken, Selene." I turned to leave the hall I'd never enter again. "I'm finally free to stop hiding what I am." Behind me, somewhere deep in the mountain, a wolf far older than this pack opened her eyes. And she was furious.

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