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On the day of the wedding, my sister ran. My parents forced me into her wedding dress and made me walk into the Greyhaven Pack’s wedding hall in her place. Nolan was still smiling when he lifted the veil. The moment he saw my face, the smile froze. He turned to leave. I caught his sleeve and, in front of the registrar and both our families, laid out three conditions. First, replacing the bride had not been my choice. He was to find out why it happened, and he could not hold what my sister did against me. Second, we would stay married for only three years. After three years, I would apply to dissolve the bond. Third, until that dissolution, he had to treat me with the respect a lawful spouse deserves. Nolan agreed. Three years passed in the blink of an eye. He kept his promise, remaining polite and restrained. I managed Pierce Estate and all our social obligations within the Greyhaven Pack. We both thought our quiet life might just go on like that forever. Until my sister, Celeste, came back. She collapsed in front of Nolan’s car, clutching the obsidian pendant he had given her years ago. Nolan carried her into the car himself and took her to the Pack hospital. When he came back, he told me the past was in the past, that he wasn’t going back. But Celeste insisted on making it up to him. She waited outside his office, knelt at the gates of Pierce Estate, attended charity events in his name, and sorted through rare archival files on his behalf. She became the talk of the entire Pack, but she refused to stop. On the day our three-year term ended, Nolan suddenly asked me, “If life stays this quiet forever, could you really be happy with that?” I looked at him and answered calmly, “No. Which is why we’re getting divorced.” ... I pushed the dissolution agreement I’d already prepared across the table to him. His fingers hovered at the edge of the paper, unmoving. His dark, steady eyes slowly reddened. “Lydia… you already prepared this?” Not at first. I had wavered, once. Over those three years, Eleanor had come to love me like a daughter. The Estate staff respected me. Nolan had never made my life difficult. I’d even thought that if things could just continue like this, staying might not be so bad. But the day Celeste came back, I made my decision. I refused to live a life where I was always being chosen for, replaced, and compared. What I wanted was to be chosen. To be the one and only choice, from beginning to end. Nolan couldn’t give me that. So I gave that certainty to myself. I would always stand on my own side. I asked him, “The day Celeste came back, you carried her into the car. Do you have any idea how everyone in the square looked at me after you left?” Nolan flinched, guilt washing over his face. “She was bleeding from her forehead, and her breathing was shallow. All I could think about was getting her to the hospital.” “There were Greyhaven Pack medics on-site, your driver was there, and so were four security guards. I was there, too,” I cut in. “Any one of them could have saved her. But you shook off my hand and carried your old flame away yourself, in front of dozens of people.” The color drained from his lips. “Lydia, I wasn’t thinking that far ahead.” “That’s the entire problem. You don’t have to think. The humiliation just lands on me.” I lifted my eyes, my voice turning cold. “I don’t care what people on the Pack forum say. What I care about is that you broke our agreement first. You made me the one left behind again, and I swore to myself long ago that I would never bear that kind of humiliation for anyone, ever again.” Nolan knew exactly what I meant. Three years ago, at the wedding, he’d lifted the veil and found me standing there instead of Celeste. We weren’t fated mates. There was no bond between us. His engagement to Celeste had been a private arrangement between our families after we came of age. When she vanished at the last minute, the wedding could have been called off. But my parents couldn’t stand to lose the money they’d already spent on the ceremony, nor could they bear to sever their connection to the Pierces, a family on the rise. They took my phone, locked me in the dressing room, and threatened to revoke my Greyhaven Pack family sponsorship. They knew that for a young werewolf with no stable income, no independent residence, and no family sponsorship, getting permission to live across territories would be nearly impossible. So I had no choice but to put on that wedding dress. When Nolan recognized me, his face was a mask of fury and disappointment. He turned to leave without a word. I was the one who grabbed his arm and told him to find out the truth first. “I didn’t steal anyone’s place. If you want to cancel the wedding, I’ll cooperate. But you can’t just decide I’m the one who deceived you because I’m the one standing here.” I had the registrar pause the ceremony and took Nolan to confront my parents. Martin and Victoria Cooper put on a show of shame, but all they would say was that Celeste had suddenly disappeared. They couldn’t find her, so to keep our families from becoming a joke, they’d made me take her place. I saw my younger brother, Ethan, fidgeting, desperate to speak, so I cornered him. “Didn’t you call a car for Celeste last night? Once the Royal Guard pulls the intersection records, they’ll find it.” Terrified of taking the fall, Ethan blurted out the truth. The night before the wedding, Celeste had left the capital with Prince Julian. Prince Julian was a member of the Royal Family and the publicly designated heir of Prince Roland. Prince Roland had been entrusted by the Crown to coordinate affairs between several western Packs and the Royal Council, but he was not the Alpha of those Packs. My parents had always fantasized that Celeste would become Prince Julian’s publicly acknowledged partner. If that happened, they could leapfrog from being ordinary Greyhaven Pack members to having direct access to Royal Family connections. That was why they refused to call the authorities and refused to cancel the wedding. They just kept apologizing to Nolan and begging him to keep quiet, so Prince Julian’s father wouldn’t investigate, and so Celeste would still have a path back if she returned someday. No one asked me how it felt to suddenly marry the man who was supposed to be my brother-in-law. When Nolan left my family’s private residence, he walked the long driveway alone, dusk settling across his shoulders. He looked like a wolf abandoned by his own kind. I followed behind him, feeling strangely calm. My parents were worried about Celeste’s safety, worried about her future, worried about whether Prince Julian would abandon her. Not one of them was worried about me. After a long time, Nolan stopped. He turned back to look at me, his voice low. “Lydia, you’re the most innocent person in all of this. As long as this marriage exists, I won’t let you go through something like this again.” For a moment, I just stared at him. Very few people had ever noticed my pain before their own. That one sentence was enough to make me willing to stay at Pierce Estate for three years. I told him, “Thank you. For me, this isn’t a total loss, either. I’ve already used this wedding to settle my debt to my parents for raising me.” He thought I was just trying to make myself feel better. I wasn’t. Before I put on that dress, I’d pressed a shard of broken glass to my wrist and forced my parents to sign a binding agreement, witnessed and notarized. It was written very clearly. Once I attended the wedding in Celeste’s place, they could never again use the cost of my upbringing to demand my obedience. If Celeste returned, they had to restrain her and were forbidden from interfering in my life. If Nolan and I dissolved our bond, they had to support my release from family sponsorship and could not arrange another partner for me. At the time, I didn’t tell Nolan any of that. We barely knew each other, and I didn’t need him judging the methods I’d used to survive. Now, as he stared at the papers on the table, he finally understood that I would not change my mind. “That day Celeste collapsed, I really was just trying to save her.” “You could have saved her,” I said. “But you chose the one way that would humiliate me in public.” I slid the pen toward him. “Sign.” Nolan suddenly stood, slamming his palm down on the table. “Enough!” The study at the Estate fell instantly silent. The staff outside the door froze in their tracks. I lifted my coffee, now cold, and took a sip. Why does a person suddenly lose their temper? Probably because they realize you’ve said the one thing they don’t want to admit. Nolan stared at the pen, his chest rising and falling. Finally, he said in a low voice, “Dissolving the marriage means updating Greyhaven Pack’s official records. I’m going to tell my mother first.” He all but fled the study. I watched him go. Three years ago, when Celeste abandoned him, he had looked just as miserable.After returning to Pierce Estate, Nolan and I had those conditions written into a formal addendum. First, since neither of us chose this, we wouldn’t take our resentment out on each other. Second, the marriage would end after three years. During that time, there would be no mate bond and no claiming mark. Third, until the relationship ended, he had to acknowledge me as his sole, lawful spouse, affording me the public respect and security that title entailed. Nolan signed it in front of the registrar and a Pack mediator. I added one more sentence. “Including after Celeste comes back.” At the time, all he felt for Celeste was anger. He answered without hesitation. “Of course.” But when he actually saw Celeste, he still lost control. It’s not like she appeared out of nowhere on some deserted road. She had been waiting outside the Pack administrative center. Only after Nolan finished his meeting did she rush in front of his SUV. The driver braked in time; she was never actually hit. She only scraped her forehead when she fell. The surveillance footage later proved it. But the second Nolan heard her call his name, he shoved open the car door. He didn’t let the medics examine her. He didn’t let me go with her. He carried her into the back seat himself and ordered the driver to the hospital. I got out of the car and stood alone in the square. There were Pack staff all around us, meeting delegates, and people already holding up their phones. Their eyes all landed on me. Some faces held sympathy. Others, a sick sort of thrill. They were all waiting to see if I would make a scene—if I would chase after them. I simply had my driver open the door and went back to the Estate alone. That night, Nolan said Celeste only had a mild concussion. He also said the past was over and her return wouldn’t change his life. But after that, Celeste appeared near him every single day. She organized long-sought rare administrative materials for him, held up signs with his name at a charity run, delivered handmade tie holders to his office, and knelt outside the Estate gates in the cold rain, begging him for a chance to apologize. Nolan never invited her in, but he never gave security a clear order to bar her from approaching, either. He accepted the materials she brought. He let the staff put the things she sent in a storage room. Every time he said he didn’t care, yet he always knew exactly where she would be waiting for him next. And now he was using “saving someone” to explain his choice in the square that day. I looked at him and said slowly, “Three years ago, when my parents forced me to replace Celeste, I offered them other solutions.” “I told them we could contact the Pierce family immediately, publicly announce that she’d run from the wedding, and let the Coopers bear the cost of cancellation.” “I also said the ceremony could be paused until the Royal Guard confirmed Celeste’s safety, and then you could decide whether to continue.” “But they refused. I didn’t understand why then. I do now.” “They were gambling. Gambling that Prince Julian was truly infatuated with Celeste. Gambling that the Royal Family would accept her. Gambling that the Coopers would profit from it all.” Nolan looked at me in silence. I went on, “And the day Celeste came back, you were gambling, too.” “You could have let the medics handle her. You could have let your driver take her. You could have let me go with her. But no, you had to carry her away yourself.” “You wanted to know if she regretted it, didn’t you?” His jaw tightened. “After Prince Julian took her and then abandoned her, you were still willing to save her. You’re decent, you’re respectable, you have a solid future. The man who hurt her treated her like a passing amusement.” “When Celeste knelt before you and accepted the ridicule of the entire Pack just to make it up to you, the wound she’d dealt you three years ago finally started to heal.” “You started to believe that it wasn’t because you weren’t worth choosing. It was just that she had chosen wrong.” “So when you asked me if I could accept living a quiet life forever—” I set the dissolution agreement in front of him again. “Let me answer that for you. You can’t. You think that now that you’re the Royal Council’s youngest archives director, you deserve a more passionate love than a quiet life on an estate with an ordinary wife.” “I’ll make it easy for you.” Shame and anger warred in Nolan’s eyes. “You make me sound despicable.” “If I’m wrong, then why won’t you sign?” His fingers gripped the edge of the paper so tightly his knuckles went white. I didn’t push him any further. There had never been a mate bond between us; the wolf inside either of us would not be wounded by the end of this marriage. What kept him from letting go wasn’t fate. It was his refusal to face his own choices. Ten minutes later, he finally released the paper. “This is a major decision. I need to talk to my mother first.” I didn’t stop him. Not long after, Eleanor sent someone to ask me to her sitting room.Eleanor Pierce sat by the floor-to-ceiling windows. She hadn’t turned on the main lights, only a single warm wall lamp. Two cups of tea sat on the table beside the dissolution agreement Nolan had just brought her. We sat in silence for a long time. At last, she let out a sigh. “He has no idea what he had.” Eleanor had never been the kind of mother who blindly defended her son. Three years ago, after Nolan accepted me as the replacement bride, she took me back to the Cooper residence herself. She brought the Greyhaven Pack mediator with her, as well as a private lawyer. Once we were seated, she got straight to the point. “Lydia deceived no one. She was locked up by her parents and forced to attend this wedding in place of her missing sister. Since Nolan is willing to re-sign the registration, I won’t oppose it, but you will put the facts in writing.” My parents refused. They were afraid a written record would become proof that Celeste had eloped with Prince Julian. Eleanor took out her phone. “If you refuse, I’ll contact the Royal Guard right now. I’ll report that Prince Julian took an engaged member of the Greyhaven Pack, and I’ll request an investigation into whether you helped conceal his movements.” My father went pale. Prince Julian was a member of the Royal Family, but Crown law applied to him all the same. At the time, he had reported leaving the capital to the Royal Council, then secretly doubled back to pick up Celeste. If the route records were checked, even Prince Roland could be implicated. Eleanor continued, “The Pierces are only ordinary Greyhaven Pack members. I don’t have the power to fight Prince Roland. But if he tries to crush this with his influence, I will hand over the wedding records and your testimony to the royal media office.” “And before he gets to me, I’ll make sure everyone knows that it was you who used your younger daughter to fill the hole your elder daughter abandoned.” It wasn’t an empty threat. In the end, my parents caved and signed a factual statement. It stated clearly that Celeste had voluntarily left with Prince Julian on the night before the wedding, that I had known nothing about it, and that I had never coveted my sister’s fiancé. The substitution at the wedding had been forced by Martin and Victoria. The Greyhaven Pack mediator, Eleanor, and two wedding staffers all signed as witnesses. As we were leaving, my mother finally lost her temper and swung at my shoulder. “This is all your fault for being so useless! If you could have made Nolan accept this willingly, there’d be no need for a record like this!” I dodged her second blow and answered evenly, “You’re right. I’m not as capable as Celeste. She can get two men running in circles and cleaning up her messes in one shot.” My mother raised her hand to slap my face. Eleanor pulled me behind her in one swift motion. “She is now my son’s lawful spouse, and she came here with me. You attack her in front of me—who, exactly, are you trying to express your dissatisfaction with?” My mother’s rage instantly froze into a forced smile. From that day on, the Cooper and Pierce families had no further dealings. A week after the wedding, there was a pre-arranged family dinner. I didn’t want to go, so I had one of the Estate employees deliver the gifts we’d prepared. When the employee returned, she was furious. “There wasn’t a single person at the Cooper house. They’d gone first thing in the morning to the Royal Guard’s missing persons center and even asked the media to help issue a search notice for Celeste. Not one of them sent you a single message.” I wasn’t surprised. In three years, I never again stepped inside my parents’ home. Eleanor, however, treated me like her own family. She taught me how to manage private assets, helped me obtain a business license, and publicly acknowledged my status as Nolan’s spouse whenever Pack members looked down on me for the substituted wedding. A large part of why I hated to leave Pierce Estate was because of her. She was the only person who had ever shown me true motherly love. Looking at the agreement, Eleanor said tiredly, “I never liked Celeste. She was beautiful and lively, and everyone flocked to her at parties. But sharing a life isn’t a party. She never had the patience to shoulder responsibility.” “But when I was young, my parents forced me to marry Gregory. We hated each other, and it wasn’t until he died that I truly felt free of that relationship.” “I didn’t want Nolan to repeat my life, so when he chose Celeste after coming of age, I didn’t stop him.” She gave a bitter little smile. “People always think the road not taken must be the better one. But roads don’t care for people. People do.” “Nolan isn’t ready to accept this. He has to taste the bitterness Celeste brings with his own mouth before he’ll admit he was wrong.” She lifted her eyes to me. There was hope in them, but pain, too. “If he regrets it—” I cut her off softly. “Eleanor, if someone always has a way back, he’ll never learn to take responsibility for his choices.” Her shoulders slumped a little. After a long silence, she asked, “I’ll make him sign. After the bond is dissolved, what are your plans?” “I’ll apply for independent member status within Greyhaven Pack, then leave the capital. I have my own money, and I can run a small business.” A werewolf without family sponsorship, spousal sponsorship, or a fixed Pack post could easily be mistaken for a rogue while traveling across territories. I had already consulted the Crown’s member administration office. Once my marriage records were updated and I obtained Greyhaven Pack’s release certificate, I could apply for an independent trade-travel permit and legally live and do business between Pack territories. In my first year at Pierce Estate, I had been preparing to leave. I learned baking and food-service management, invested in a small supply shop, and made a list of every Pack and city that might take me in. In the second year, Eleanor loved me, the staff respected me, and Nolan remained courteous. My resolve began to weaken. By the third year, I had even started to think that if life stayed this quiet, having a family like this might be enough. But then Celeste came back. Nolan changed. And I finally woke up. I would never again walk into a life where I had to compete with Celeste for a place. Lydia Cooper deserved a life of her own. That night, Nolan stood outside Eleanor’s door until dawn. He wanted Celeste to move into his city apartment as his private partner while he remained married to me. Eleanor refused. The morning chill dampened his hair as I walked past him without stopping.

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