Replaced by Fate

Thalia

My fingers twisted into the fabric of Kaelen's shirt, tugging hard as a silent plea tore through my mind, yet he didn't even blink. Across the room, the newcomer finally broke their locked gaze, her lashes fluttering down as she offered him a shy, tentative smile.

"Kaelen, dear, allow me to present Sabine," his grandmother announced, her voice cutting straight through the hushed dining hall. "I have recently taken her under my personal guardianship. A terrible tragedy claimed both of her parents, leaving the poor girl completely on her own."

Around the table, several pairs of eyes darted toward me filled with sudden, condescending pity. It was obvious how quickly his relatives would rally around a convenient tragedy, especially when the raw, magnetic pull between Kaelen and the girl was impossible for anyone in the room to miss.

As if waking from a trance, Kaelen finally stirred. Reaching down, he firmly uncurled my gripping fingers from his shirt and stepped away from my side. He walked straight up to the newcomer, lifting her hand and bowing his head to press his lips against her knuckles. "It is a true pleasure to meet you, Sabine," he murmured, his tone distant and utterly unfamiliar. Under the weight of his undivided focus, the girl practically beamed.

"Kaelen?" I spoke up again, pasting a polite smile onto my face in a desperate bid to remind my husband I was still standing right behind him.

He barely turned his head, offering me only a fleeting look over his shoulder. "Yes, Thalia?" For a split second, raw guilt flickered across his face, before Sabine murmured something soft that pulled his entire focus right back to her.

I swallowed hard against the tight knot forming in my throat, refusing to accept what was unfolding right in front of me.

Everything between Kaelen and me had finally settled into place, and now it was unraveling in seconds. An urge to shout tore at me—to grab him by the shoulders and force him to remember that I was his chosen Luna, and that he had sworn on everything sacred to reject his fated bond if she ever surfaced. Goddess knew I would have done the exact same thing for him without a second thought.

Yet no sound came out, leaving me frozen in place as this stranger drew him deeper and deeper under her pull.

There was zero doubt left in my mind that they were fated mates; the dazed, intoxicated look in his eyes gave it all away. In the span of a single breath, everything Kaelen and I had built together had been reduced to nothing.

Nausea rose in my throat when Sabine let out a breathy, flirtatious laugh and trailed her fingertips lightly up his forearm. That soft sound tore right through me. Just the night before, I had been tangled bare in his sheets, held tight against his chest, foolishly convinced our future was untouchable. Now, I stood here completely erased.

Forcing myself to speak through the crushing realization, I tried to salvage some shred of dignity. "Kaelen, aren't you going to introduce the two of us?" Even knowing the devastating answer, I clung to basic manners so his family wouldn't have another excuse to sneer at me.

Sabine swiveled her wide, doe-like eyes in my direction. "Oh, you must be Thalia—Kaelen's lover!" she chirped brightly. The polite expression froze right off my face at the label. A lover. He was my lawful husband, not some secret affair.

Before I could even open my mouth to set her straight, she rushed right on. "I realize all of this is terribly abrupt, truly, yet Kaelen and I are fated mates," she declared, casting a pointed, lingering look back up at him. "Joined together by the moon goddess herself."

My eyes locked onto my husband in silent desperation. "Is that the truth, Kaelen?"

His throat worked as he swallowed heavily, his gaze dropping to the floor rather than meeting mine. "Thalia... this is Sabine. She is my—"

"Mate. His mate," Sabine supplied boldly over his hesitation, stepping in to press her body flush against Kaelen's side—an intimate claim he made no effort to step away from.

I drew in a sharp, shaky breath, fighting with everything I had to keep the burning tears from spilling over my lashes.

"I understand. It's nice to meet you, Sabine."

"I know how hard this must be for you to accept, Thalia, especially considering the time the two of you have spent together," she continued softly. "Still, surely you can see now that you and Kaelen were simply never meant to last. It is the clear will of the goddess that I step into my rightful position here as his Luna."

"Sabine..." Kaelen started in a low warning tone, but I spoke right over him, completely finished with playing polite.

"Never meant to last? Is that truly what you believe?" Lifting my left hand high, I flashed the gleaming moonstone band resting against my finger for the entire room to see. "I hate to be the one to break the news, but Kaelen and I are already married. We spoke our sacred vows in front of the entire pack not long ago, which means you arrived far too late."

For a fraction of a second, Sabine's wide eyes narrowed with cold calculation, the fragile act slipping just before she spun toward the foot of the dining table.

"Matriarch Octavia, I swear I never intended to arrive too late," she whimpered, her voice breaking into a loud, ragged sob. "After losing everything with my family... please, I am so sorry. I cannot bear to lose my mate after all I've survived. Kaelen is the only person I have left in this world!" Her remaining words dissolved into loud, helpless weeping, instantly twisting the confrontation to make me look like a heartless bully.

Every single relative around the table snapped their glares toward me in sharp accusation. "That is quite enough, child; you have caused more than enough harm tonight," Grandma Octavia snapped, her icy tone striking like a physical blow. "This poor girl has endured unspeakable loss, and there is no need for you to rub salt into her open wounds. Furthermore, no spoken promises or shiny trinkets can ever override a sacred bond ordained by the goddess," the old woman declared with absolute finality. "For the ultimate strength of the Eclipse pack, Kaelen must honor his duty and claim Sabine as his true Luna."

Low murmurs of agreement rippled down both sides of the table. Worse still, Kaelen's arm tensed and tightened around Sabine's shoulders, his instincts automatically rising to shield his crying mate from distress.

"What? How am I suddenly being treated like the villain in this room? Kaelen and I are legally wed!" I protested, though my words fell on completely deaf ears. "Tell them the truth, Kaelen! How can you just stand there in silence while they do this?"

Finally lifting his head, Kaelen met my eyes with a look full of sheer torment. Instead of speaking up for me, he gave a slow, silent shake of his head, telling me without words to back down and stay quiet. How could he expect me to bite my tongue when this girl was tearing our marriage apart and he wouldn't even defend me?

"Unfortunate missteps were clearly made along the way to bring us to such an awkward pass," Giselle chimed in from across the table, her voice dripping with fake pity. "Still, it isn't the end of the world, dear Thalia. In time, you might very well stumble across a mate who is far better suited to your... humble station."

Hot rage surged through my chest right alongside a crushing wave of despair. Still refusing to believe this nightmare was real, I pressed my lips together and waited, clinging to one last shred of hope that Kaelen would step in and put a stop to it.

He said nothing at all, and Sabine seized the opening immediately. Stepping away from his side, she held out a visibly trembling hand toward me, her voice still thick with tears. "Please try to understand, Thalia. It was never my wish to come between the two of you, truly, yet Kaelen is all I have left."

Staring down at her open palm, every instinct screamed at me to turn my back on her. Yet rejecting a public peace offering would only hand Kaelen's judgmental family more ammunition to paint me as petty and bitter. Feeling completely numb, I raised my arm to take her hand—and the exact instant our skin met, a sharp, malicious smile curved Sabine's lips.

With a sudden, violent yank, she pulled me off balance, sending me stumbling straight into a passing servant whose tray tipped and splashed a full glass of red wine all down the front of Sabine's dress.

Letting out a dramatic gasp, Sabine snatched her wine-soaked glove back against her chest. "You ruined my dress!" she wailed aloud for the whole hall to hear. "How could you do something so cruel? This was the very last thing I had left from my late mother!"

"What? No, I didn't touch the tray, you pulled my—" I stammered in utter shock, trying to explain, only to be drowned out as Sabine collapsed into a fresh fit of hysterical weeping.

"Do not dare add blatant lies on top of your malice!" Giselle shrieked across the dining room. "Kaelen, have this girl removed from the estate this instant!"

Kaelen sucked in a tight breath, raking a hand roughly back through his hair.

"Kaelen, please... you were standing right here, you saw what just happened," I begged, stepping toward him. "I didn't spill that wine on her..."

Before I could finish the plea, his voice cut straight through mine. "Thalia, I think it would be for the best if you stepped outside for a little while."

The floor seemed to tilt beneath my feet. The flat, icy dismissal in my husband's tone left no room for argument, shattering the last fragile hope I was holding onto.

What crime had I committed in this room? Was it unforgivable simply to defend my own marriage? How had my entire world collapsed in a matter of minutes?

With hot tears blurring my vision, I spun on my heel and bolted from the suffocating dining hall, the sound of Kaelen's low, soothing murmurs to his weeping mate following me all the way through the doors.

Bursting out into the dark courtyard, I sucked in desperate lungfuls of the chill night air, the crushing weight inside my chest making it almost impossible to breathe.

Without a single conscious thought, I broke into a dead run toward the trees, tearing out of my clothes mid-stride to let the shift take over. Landing hard on four paws, I lunged deep into the dark forest as my wolf tore the silence apart with a raw, agonizing howl.

Kaelen was gone for good. My closest friend, my husband, my entire world—wiped out in the blink of an eye. The safe home and the belonging I had cherished so briefly had been ripped right out of my grasp by his calculating mate, leaving me right back where I had started: an unwanted orphan, a lone stray with nowhere to belong.

Only now, the betrayal cut deeper than anything I had ever survived before. Pushing my legs harder, I surrendered completely to my wolf, letting her wild, blinding rage carry me forward—anything to outrun the unbearable ache tearing me apart inside.

Swearing silently that I would never set foot on pack lands again, I sprinted blindly through the brush until the pads of my paws were torn and bleeding and my heaving flanks burned for air. At last, my legs gave out beneath me in a small, moonlit clearing, leaving me collapsed on the dirt, panting too hard to even lift my head and howl.

As darkness crept in around the edges of my vision and dragged me under, one relentless question echoed over and over through my exhausted mind.

Why, Kaelen? Why?