After My Sister Stole My Mate, His Twin Rescued Me

I woke up on the floor again.

The cold marble pressed against my cheek, and for a moment I couldn't remember how I'd gotten there. The Alpha suite bed loomed above me, sheets tangled and empty. My body ached in that specific way that told me he'd been here during the night—the mysterious presence that came to me in the dark, all heat and possession and a scent that made my wolf purr even in her half-dead state.

Pine. Storm-charged earth. Something wild and clean that wrapped around my bones and made me feel, for those brief hours, like I wasn't completely alone.

I pressed my face into my forearm and inhaled. The scent clung to my skin, faint but unmistakable. My wolf, Luna, stirred somewhere deep inside me—a flicker of awareness she rarely showed anymore after three years of whatever poison was slowly killing her.

Mate, she whispered, the word barely audible even in my own head.

I pushed myself up on shaking arms. The nausea hit immediately, rolling through my stomach in waves. I'd been waking up sick for two weeks now, but I couldn't afford to think about what that might mean. Not today. Not with the Moon Festival starting in a few hours and a hundred tasks still waiting for the Alpha's glorified servant to complete.

The bathroom door opened. Tristan walked out, already dressed in his formal black suit, and the wrongness of it slammed into me like a physical blow.

Artificial cologne. Sharp and chemical, nothing like the scent I'd just been breathing in. And underneath it, unmistakable—perfume. Floral and cloying. A woman's scent that wasn't mine.

He looked down at me still on the floor and his lip curled. "You're still here? I thought I told you to start on the pack house floors an hour ago."

I stared up at him, my mind trying to reconcile the man standing in front of me with the presence that had claimed me in the dark. They wore the same face. They had to be the same person. But nothing else matched—not the scent, not the way he looked at me like I was something stuck to his shoe, not the cold contempt in every word.

"I—" The nausea surged again and I had to swallow hard. "I'll start now."

"You look like hell." He adjusted his cufflinks without looking at me. "Try not to embarrass me in front of the guests. Your sister's coming home today, and I won't have you making the pack look weak."

Katie. Of course. The golden child returning from her convenient three-year absence, right when the pack's wealth was finally secured and the Luna title was worth having again.

Tristan's boot connected with my hip—not hard enough to bruise, just enough to make his point. "Move."

I moved.

Two hours later, I was on my knees in the foyer, scrubbing marble that was already clean. My hands were raw and chemical-burned from the harsh soap they made me use—the