Forsaken for Her Sister: The Supreme Alpha's True Mate

The night before I fell into the border river, the Moon Goddess sent me a dream.

Not a fragment, not a whisper-but an entire lifetime, compressed into the span of a single sleep. I lived every bitter moment of it. I married Thorne, the Alpha of the Silver Moon Pack. I drained my own blood to heal him when he lay dying in battle. I endured the mockery of high-ranking females who sneered at my Omega status. And I watched, helpless, as my older sister Seraphina died in childbirth-and Thorne went completely insane with grief.

In the dream, he shoved me against a stone wall. I felt the impact in my bones, felt the life bleed out of the child I had been carrying. And as I lay dying in a pool of my own blood, I heard his final words, whispered like a prayer.

"Please, let me be with your sister in the next life."

When I woke, the dream was seared into my bones like a brand. My pillow was dry, but my soul was soaked in the knowledge of what was to come. And I knew-with a certainty that went deeper than instinct-that the Moon Goddess had not sent me a nightmare.

She had sent me a warning.

Chapter 1

Elara POV

The border river's glacial water was not a liquid but a pressure, a solid weight forcing its way into the delicate tissues of my lungs.

I thrashed against the churning current, a convulsion of limbs that had already lost all sensation of cold and were now simply numb.

Through the fractured curtain of splashing water, I saw the riverbank, and on it, a figure.

It was Thorne.

He was the Alpha of the Silver Moon Pack, the man for whom-in the dream-I had spent an entire lifetime loving, mending, and ultimately dying.

He was not looking at the river; he was looking directly into my eyes.

His own were cold, the flat, dispassionate grey of a calculating mind, utterly vacant of the panic that should have seized any Alpha watching his pack-mate drown.

No hand was offered.

There was only the pivot of his heel, the straight line of his back as he turned and was swallowed by the dense weave of the forest.

And I understood, with a clarity more devastating than the freezing water itself: the dream had not lied. Every moment of it was true-or soon would be. Thorne had not reached for me in the dream, and he would not reach for me now.

This was the man he had always been. The dream had simply peeled back the illusions.

Deep within the cage of my ribs, my Inner Wolf-the primal spirit tethered to my own-let out a low sound, not of pain, but of something akin to the whimper of a loyal hound kicked by its master.

But I refused to die.

Not here. Not like this. Not when the dream had shown me exactly what awaited if I surrendered.

As a profound darkness threatened to drag me into the silt, a strange, incandescent warmth ignited in the hollow of my chest. It was not the fire of adrenaline; it felt ancient, a force that began to push the river's ice from my very veins. Just as my vision began to fray at the edges, I felt a powerful, unseen current grip me from below, hauling my body through the rapids with an intelligence that was not the river's own. I was too weak to comprehend it, my consciousness a flickering candle flame. The last thing I registered was the brutal scrape of solid ground against my back before the flame was extinguished entirely.

I fought my way back to consciousness, using every remaining ounce of strength to drag my waterlogged body fully onto the muddy bank.

I lay there, the air tearing at my throat in ragged gasps, the bitter wind a razor against my skin.

I forced myself up and began the long, agonizing trek back to the Pack House, the massive stone mansion that loomed like a mausoleum at the center of our territory.

I pushed the heavy oak doors open.

Water sluiced from my hair, forming a dark, spreading pool on the polished hardwood floor.

The grand hall was filled with the sounds of laughter and the thick, savory scent of roasted meat.

Thorne stood in the center of the room.

He had changed into a clean, crisp shirt.

At his feet lay a small mountain of lavish gifts and a velvet box, its lid gaping to reveal a bed of sparkling gems. He must have driven back from the river, leaving me to the torturous walk, which afforded him just enough time to orchestrate this scene.

He was proposing.

And the female standing before him, her cheeks flushed and a smile playing on her lips, was my older sister, Seraphina.

The dream had shown me this moment too. The proposal. The gifts. The way everyone's eyes would slide past me as if I were already a ghost.

My mother turned and saw me standing by the door.

Her smile did not vanish; it was sheared from her face.

She marched toward me, her features twisting in disgust.

"Look at you, trailing mud everywhere," she hissed. "You're an Omega, Elara. You are meant to remain unseen, not to embarrass us appearing like a drowned rat."

My father stepped up right behind her.

He did not inquire if I was injured.

He did not question the state of my sodden clothes.

"Always causing a scene," he growled, his voice thick with a proprietary anger. "Your sister is about to become Luna. And you dare to interrupt this moment?"

Seraphina peeked out from behind Thorne.

She picked up a small towel from a nearby table and held it out to me with a false, pitying smile.

"Elara, sweetie, you must be freezing," she said softly, her tone pitched for the benefit of the room.

I looked past her to Thorne.

The deep red wine in his glass clung to the crystal as he swirled it, his gaze fixed on the motion. He took a slow sip, allowing my own stare to fall uselessly upon the empty air between us.

I ignored the towel, turned around, and walked, my boots leaving heavy, wet tracks up the stairs to my small room in the attic.

I peeled off my wet clothes, my teeth chattering in a violent, uncontrollable rhythm.

As I reached for a dry shirt, a strange vibration echoed in the architecture of my mind.

It was the Mind-Link.

As an Omega, my mental walls were practically nonexistent, leaving me vulnerable to the telepathic whispers of higher-ranking wolves.

I heard Thorne's deep voice echoing in that shared space.

Stay away from Elara, he warned Seraphina. Her mind is not as simple as it seems. Keep your distance.

The soft cartilage deep in my throat constricted, trapping the air I was about to exhale.

A moment later, I heard Seraphina speaking out loud in the hallway just outside my door.

"Maybe we should just marry her off to a low-ranking Warrior," Seraphina said to our parents. "So she doesn't get banished."

My mother scoffed loudly.

"Absolutely not. The Alpha ordered us to send someone to the Rogue border. Let her go. It's a death sentence anyway, and it's the only useful thing she can do for this family."

Thorne's voice joined the conversation in the hallway.

"Send her," he agreed coldly. "Maybe the Rogues will finally fix her pathetic nature."

I sat on the edge of my bed, gripping my dry shirt until my knuckles were white bone.

The dream flooded back, unbidden.

I remembered marrying Thorne because in the dream he had saved me from this very river.

I remembered the high-ranking females mocking me.

I remembered draining my own blood to heal Thorne when he was wounded in battle.

And I remembered the day Seraphina died in childbirth.

Thorne had gone completely insane with grief.

He had shoved me against a stone wall, causing me to lose the baby I was carrying.

As I lay dying in a pool of my own blood, Thorne had looked down at me and whispered his final words.

Please, let me be with your sister in the next life.

A bitter, rasping sound escaped my lips in the quiet of my room.

My eye sockets ached with a profound dryness, and the muscles at the corner of my mouth twitched, pulling my lips into an arc more hideous than any sob.

They were not tears of sorrow; they were the fluid of absolute, searing clarity.

I wiped my face and stared at my reflection in the cracked mirror.

"She's all yours, Thorne," I whispered to the empty room.

I will not stand in your way.

But I will never, ever let you destroy me again.

And this time, I would not need a dream to tell me what was coming. I would write my own ending.