Waking up to an unfamiliar ceiling wasn’t the shock. The shock was the lingerie I was wearing—the tiniest, almost-transparent green corset I’d ever seen. It wasn’t mine. Neither was the bed, nor the room.
My hands were tied to the bedpost with handcuffs, and from somewhere close, I heard the sound of a shower running. I didn’t remember how I got here. The last thing I could recall was my sister Margot’s party by the hotel pool. I’d gone back to my room early, my head spinning.
Now I was in a shifter’s bedroom, dressed like a gift, and someone was about to walk out of that bathroom at any moment. I pulled at the handcuffs, tearing one free. Before I could work on the other, the bathroom door opened, steam billowing out. A tall, imposing figure stepped forward.
The scent hit me first—an alpha shifter, and one I knew all too well. “Vivien, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” Kieran purred. My mind went blank. Kieran.
My little sister’s mate. Her husband. The owner of this hotel. He lowered himself onto the bed slowly, like a predator approaching its prey.
I was no prey, but shock had me frozen for a moment too long. “What’s with the frown? ” he teased. “Why is the shower running?
” I asked, my voice steadier than I felt. Hours earlier, I’d been standing at Margot’s party, watching her smile at Kieran. They looked happy. She wore a light lavender dress, shimmering under the candlelight.
I’d come there for information—about Seth, an allied alpha who’d gone missing for a month. But my sister had other plans for the conversation, and so did her mate. “This could all have been yours,” Kieran had whispered to me at the party. “If you’d only said yes that day.
”
I’d broken things off with him five years ago, before they were ever official. He’d ended up with Margot. I’d never given him a real explanation. Now, back in his bedroom, he was watching me with an intensity that made me uneasy.
He touched my thigh, and I pushed his shoulder with my foot. “What do you think you’re doing? ” I asked. “I’ll only be doing what every husband ought to be doing with their wives,” he said, kissing the inside of my knee.
“And shouldn’t your wife be present for that? ”
“Do you not feel present, my love? ”
I was taken aback. He was acting like nothing was wrong, like he wasn’t mated to my little sister.
This total lack of remorse wasn’t what I expected from the man who’d been parading her around only hours ago. “Kieran,” I protested, “think about Margot. ”
He tensed, but when he met my eyes, he looked genuinely confused. “Your sister?
You want me to think of your sister now? ”
“You made a promise to her. To honor her, cherish her, be faithful to her. ”
“I really don’t,” he replied, furrowing his brows.
“I made those promises to you. To you alone. Why would I go and swear my fidelity to anyone other than my wife? ”
“I’m not your wife,” I protested, my voice wavering.
A knock interrupted us. “Alpha, sorry to bother you,” a voice called out. “Not now, Cole. ”
“I wouldn’t insist if this wasn’t a matter of life or death.
”
Kieran released me, grabbing clothes from a chair. He threw them on quickly. “Don’t move,” he ordered. “Can’t you release me before you go?
”
“Certainly not. Something has made you doubt my commitment to you. I’ll be needing to rectify this misconception. ” He looked at me darkly as he headed for the door.
“You are my wife, Vivien. You’ve been my wife for the past five years. And mark my words, soon you’ll be my mate as well. ”
Then he was gone.
I was alone, still trapped to the bed, my mind racing. Five years. He’d said we’d been married for five years. But we hadn’t.
I’d considered marrying him once, but I’d broken things off. Unless something was very, very wrong. I dislocated my wrist to slip free of the handcuff, reset it, and dressed in clothes from Margot’s closet—I was wearing her clothes, in her husband’s room. This was a mess.
I had to get out before anyone found out. I made it to the reception hall, but my plans to find my alpha Harry were derailed. I ran into my mother, and then I saw him. Seth Taylor.
The alpha we’d been looking for. The one who’d been missing for a month. The reason I’d come to this hotel. And I remembered, with a painful blow, that I’d found him before.
I’d found him dead. But here he was, walking around the lobby like nothing had happened. And my mother was asking me what I was staring at. I followed Seth to the fifth floor, where I saw a woman lead him into a room and leave him.
I snuck around the outside of the building, peering through a gap in the curtains. A man’s arm was strapped to a bed, blood flowing into a bag. He was being drained. I was about to intervene when I heard a voice behind me.
“There you are. ”
Kieran. He led me back to his room, and I tried to play along, to convince him I was fine, while my mind screamed that something was deeply wrong. Then he kissed me.
And I let him. And when I finally pulled away, gasping, I ran. I ran to the parking lot, looking for my car. But my car was gone.
Instead, I found Jake—my packmate, my best friend, the man I’d known my entire life. I ran to him, relief flooding through me. I told him everything—about Seth, about Kieran, about waking up in his bed. “Miss Reeves,” Jake said, looking confused.
“What did you just call me? ”
“By your name,” he said. “Well, it used to be Vivian Woods. But since you’ve married Kieran Reeves five years ago, you’ve been going by his last name.
”
My heart sank. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be real. “Also,” Jake added, looking genuinely curious, “I’m surprised you know my name, seeing how we’ve never actually met before.
”
Never met before. I knew this man—I knew his favorite plushie, his fear of ducks, the oak tree he climbed when he was sad. But he didn’t know me at all. That’s when I realized what had happened.
There was only one explanation for all of it. For Kieran thinking we were married, for Jake not remembering me, for Seth being alive. I’d made a wish. Months ago, I’d rescued a witch from a vampire.
She’d been insistent on granting me a free wish, and I’d refused. But somewhere in the blurry memories between finding Seth’s body and waking up in Kieran’s bed, I must have made one. And now the world was wrong. The witch came to me when I reached out through Jake.
She confirmed it: my wish had reshaped reality. She couldn’t even tell what I’d wished for, but her magic was everywhere, holding this new world together. There was a way to fix it. I had to force white magic back into the world—the light magic that binds faded pairs together.
The ones that existed in my life had been snuffed out by my wish. If I brought one back together, the white magic would counteract the dark and reset everything. Faded pairs in my life: my father, who’d left us for his faded mate Farah. And my friend Harry, who was mated to Emma.
But in this world, Harry wasn’t mated. He didn’t know Emma. And Emma was trapped in this hotel, working under Cole, Kieran’s creepy beta. I could fix this.
I could introduce Emma to Harry, and the bond would force reality back to normal. But first, I had to survive this world. Kieran was growing more suspicious. His man Cole was clearly part of something dark—he was the one running operations on Seth, and he was cruel.
When I found him hurting Emma, I told him to back off. I’d learned she was part of the pack here, newly turned, and terrified of Cole. Cole took me to see what he was really doing. A hidden room beneath the hotel.
An operating table. Seth’s body. “He’s dead,” Cole said with a shrug. “His body was getting too used to the vampire venom.
Guess he couldn’t handle it. ”
I’d failed. I’d found Seth alive in this world, and I’d let him die anyway. “I get you want to use Hargrove’s alpha cousin as the replacement,” Cole continued.
“But I think we should finally put your husband to use and make him the replacement. He’s growing suspicious anyway. It’s about time we get rid of him for good and officially crown you queen. ”
My heart stopped.
“Did he just call me boss? ”
Cole inclined his head. “You decide though, Alpha. We’ll do as you command, as we’ve always done.
”
I was not Kieran’s wife in this world. I was the one running it. I was the villain of this story.
