Claiming The Spare Twin novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Moon Count
At midnight the Alpha ignores the golden twin and looks up at the window of the twin everyone calls defective; Linnea refuses to apologize and he steps in front of her.
Six hours before the pack of Ashfall named my twin sister its future Luna, I was peeling potatoes in the pack-house kitchen.
The party was Odette's, and the house had been shaking for three days to get ready.
Ovens roared. Servers ran past me with trays of crystal glasses.
My mother, Beta Greta, stood at the marble island and jammed white daisies into a vase.
"Everything has to be perfect," she said. "Tonight the Moon Count names the strongest she-wolf in Ashfall."
"Everyone knows it's Odette," I said.
"Everyone knows it's Odette," she agreed, and pushed a cup across the counter toward me. "Drink."
It was the same bitter tea she had handed me every morning since we were twelve.
I drank it standing up, the way I always did, while she watched me swallow the last of it.
"Your hands are shaking," she said. "Peel slower. Don't cut yourself and bleed on the daisies."
I almost said thank you, because that was the nicest thing she had said to me all week.
Then she turned to the room and said, loud enough for the cooks to hear, "Linnea stays in the kitchen tonight. A wolfless girl doesn't stand in the courtyard on Odette's night."
Nobody looked up.
Nobody ever did, anymore.
I was twenty-two, and I had never shifted once.
Wolves in Ashfall shifted at sixteen, and mine never came, so the pack called me defective and my mother called me Linnea instead of daughter.
Odette had shifted at sixteen in a flash of silver and had glowed ever since.
She came into the kitchen at eight, already in her gown, hair gold down her back.
"I stole you a lemon tart," she whispered, and pressed it into my palm. "Eat it before Mother sees."
"She'll count the tarts," I said.
"She'll live." Odette squeezed my hand. "Come to the window at midnight. I want to see your face when they say my name."
"I'll be there."
I meant it. She was my twin, and she was the only one in that house who still touched me.
At midnight, I stood at my second-floor window, looking down at three hundred wolves.
Odette stood in the middle of the courtyard in shimmering silver.
The pack had made a ring around her, and their faces were lit up.
Beside her stood Alpha Finlay MacDougall, my best friend since the day we were both eight, with his jaw set and his hands in his pockets.
The old elder lifted his staff, and the grandfather clock inside the house began to strike twelve.
"By law," the elder called, "the Alpha mates the strongest she-wolf of his pack."
He raised his voice. "At the last stroke, the Moon names her."
Twelve.
Finlay didn't look at Odette.
He lifted his head, and his dark eyes went straight up the face of the house to my window.
A growl ripped out of his chest, so deep I felt it come through the glass and into my ribs.
Something inside me turned over.
I knew what it was. Every child in Ashfall knew the story of the mate bond.
He was supposed to take Odette's hand. He was looking at me.
Three hundred heads turned and followed his eyes up to my window.
I had not even stepped back.
For one second I wanted to run to the farthest corner of my room and hide.
Instead I walked out of my room and down the stairs, one hand on the rail, and into the cold courtyard.
The crowd opened for me. Nobody spoke.
My mother caught my wrist hard enough to leave marks.
"You did this," she hissed, and then she raised her voice for the whole pack. "Apologize to your sister. On your knees."
Odette's eyes had gone wide and wet. She said nothing at all.
Every face was waiting for the defective twin to drop to the stones.
My wrist hurt. My face burned. I thought about every potato I had peeled in that kitchen.
"No," I said.
It was the first time I had ever said it to her.
My mother's hand rose to strike me.
Finlay was in front of me before it came down, his chest against my shoulder, his hand closed around her wrist.
"She apologizes to no one," the Alpha said.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend