Chapter 3
Isabella's POV
Xavier stared at me from the doorway. And he wasn't answering. He just stood there like he was trying to remember something important that kept slipping away.
"Daddy?" Noah's small voice came from behind me. "Are you okay?"
Xavier's gaze shifted to our son, and for a moment something flickered in his expression. Then it was gone, replaced by that awful blankness.
"I need to check on Aurora," he said. He turned and walked away.
Our son was standing there looking terrified, and Xavier walked away.
Noah grabbed my hand. "Mommy, what's wrong with Daddy?"
I knelt down and pulled him into my arms, trying to hold myself together for him. "Daddy's sick right now, baby. But we're going to figure it out, okay?"
"Is he going to get better?"
I wanted to say yes, I wanted to promise him that everything would go back to normal, that we'd be a happy family again, but I couldn't get the words out.
"I don't know," I whispered, and held him tighter.
That night, I couldn't sleep. I lay in our bed alone, staring at the ceiling, feeling Xavier's absence like a physical wound.
By morning, Dr. Miriam had called an emergency council meeting. The elders needed to decide what to do about the "situation," as they were calling it now. Like my marriage falling apart was just a problem to be managed.
The council chamber felt like a courtroom. I sat in my usual seat beside Xavier's chair, but Aurora stood on his other side. The elders formed a semicircle in front of us, their faces grave.
Elder Marcus cleared his throat. "The double marking is unprecedented. We must handle this with wisdom."
"There's nothing to handle." I said. "I'm Xavier's mate. I've been his mate for ten years."
"And Aurora is his fated mate." Elder Sarah's tone was gentle, pitying. That pity hurt worse than if she'd just been angry. "The blood moon has spoken."
"The blood moon cursed us," I shot back. "Dr. Miriam said so herself."
"Curse or blessing, we must adapt." Marcus looked at Xavier, who sat rigid in his Alpha chair, his eyes distant. "Until we find a solution, both women hold the position of Luna."
I wanted to scream at them that this was insane, that you can't have two Lunas, that I'd earned this position through ten years of standing by Xavier's side. But I bit down on my tongue hard enough to taste blood.
Aurora stepped forward, her voice soft and trembling. "I never wanted this. I don't want to hurt anyone." She looked at me with those big, innocent eyes. "Maybe I should just leave..."
"You can't." Elder Thomas shook his head. "The fated bond is too strong. If you leave, the Alpha might go mad trying to find you."
Right. So she gets to look like the martyr while I'm the inconvenient wife who won't disappear.
Xavier suddenly spoke, his voice rough. "Isabella stays. She's Noah's mother. She's my mate."
For a second, I thought maybe he'd come back to me, that the curse was breaking and he remembered us.
Then his expression shifted. His eyes went cold and empty. "But Aurora needs protection. She'll stay in the guest wing."
Guest wing. Our home.
"All in favor?" Marcus called for a vote.
Most hands went up. I watched Pack members I'd known for a decade choose to let another woman into my home. Some looked apologetic. Others looked relieved, like this solved a problem instead of creating one.
I'd never felt so completely alone while surrounded by people.
The first full moon after the marking was worse than anything I could have imagined.
I found Xavier in the pack's training grounds at midnight, his wolf partially emerged. His eyes kept changing between gold and silver, like two different beings were fighting for control of his body.
"Xavier?" I approached slowly.
He spun around. "Aurora?" His voice was desperate, "Is that you?"
Hearing him say her name when he was looking right at me made something break inside my chest. "It's me. It's Bella."
He blinked, confusion washing over his face. Then his eyes cleared for just a moment. "Bella. God, Bella, I'm sorry." He reached for me.
I took his hand. It was shaking badly.
"There are two voices in my head," he whispered, and he was squeezing my hand so tight it hurt. "One is screaming for you, one is screaming for her. I can't make them stop fighting."
"I'm here." I moved closer, trying to ground him somehow. "I'm right here."
His body went rigid. His eyes turned cold again, like someone had flipped a switch. "Where is Aurora? She needs me."
He pulled away from me and started walking, just like that, like I was nobody to him.
"Xavier, please." My voice cracked completely. "You know me. We've been together for ten years. We have a son together."
"Aurora is my fated mate." He said it like he was reading from a script someone had shoved in his head. "Destiny chose her."
"Destiny didn't choose anything!" I grabbed his arm, trying to make him look at me. "This is a curse! Dr. Miriam said so!"
But he was already walking away, heading toward the guest wing where Aurora was staying.
I stood there in the moonlight, watching my husband disappear into the darkness.
He called out her name when he was looking right at me.
The coughing started three weeks later.
At first, it was just a tickle in my throat. Then I started coughing up blood.
I stared at the crimson in my palm, my heart racing. This wasn't normal healing, wasn't normal anything. I cleaned up quickly before Noah could see and made an appointment with Dr. Miriam.
