He Chose My Sister, But Now He Wants Me Back novel · Chapter 1 of 32
Chapter 1: The Lantern Boat
At the Riverlight Festival, Linnet finds her fiancé holding her sister and hears her father confirm the five years in Southbay. She stops waiting, then hears her mother say she can never find out.
On the night of the lantern festival, the biggest screen in the capital showed my fiancé promising the city the grandest wedding it had ever seen.
I stood under it with a paper lantern in my hands and cried a little.
Garrick Dunleavy had been missing for five years, after his convoy was hit on the northern border.
I had waited every one of them.
Two weeks ago he walked back into the capital, and the whole city called it a miracle.
My parents and my little sister had hugged me on the riverbank and told me my waiting was over.
Then the crowd surged toward the water and carried me downstream, away from all three of them.
I was lifting my hand to wave for Mother when a tiny paper boat knocked against my shoe.
I picked it up because it was a lantern boat, and someone would want it back.
Inside, in handwriting I would know anywhere, it said: May Bridie be safe and happy, always.
Under it was his initial. G.
I looked up the bank.
Under a willow, Garrick, who had spent the evening tucking his scarf around my neck, was holding my sister while she shook.
My father stood in front of them with his voice kept low.
"You used that mission as cover for five years in Southbay with her," he said. "At least you've got it out of your system now."
Bridie leaned into Garrick's chest and spoke thickly.
"I keep counting the days to the ninth. Every time I do, I can't breathe."
Garrick held her tighter.
"The wedding is what I owe her family," he said. "You are who I'd choose."
The flame inside my lantern climbed the paper wall and turned it black.
I let go of the boat and watched the river take it.
For five years I had been dreaming. I was awake now.
So I stopped waiting.
Someone touched my hand.
"Linnet, your fingers are freezing."
Bridie had come up behind me, and she was already smiling.
Her palms were warm. Mine were always cold, and at twenty-seven my wolf had never once surfaced.
On her cuff I smelled cedar, the smell of Garrick's coat.
Garrick and I had never completed the bonding vows. We had no mate bond and no mark between us.
I still knew his scent better than my own name.
I did not pull my hand away.
"I stood by the water too long," I said.
"Then come on. Mother has the car waiting, and she made you ginger tea."
Bridie linked her arm through mine and talked the whole way up the bank.
She had checked three forecasts, and March ninth was the only dry day that week.
She had drawn three dress designs and wanted to show me all of them in the morning.
If I had not seen that boat, I would have said no one had a more thoughtful sister.
Garrick caught up and walked on my left, between me and the wind.
"I'll drive you home," he said.
He looked at my face, gentle and careful.
Then his eyes went to Bridie and stayed there a moment too long.
Nobody said a word in the car.
My father was a senior official on the Royal Council, with no territory and no Alpha's rank.
He had wanted Garrick for me from the day he learned Garrick was the youngest border commander in the Royal Guard.
At the door, the housekeeper handed him a cream envelope with the Royal Registry seal.
The Registry sends one every February, around my birthday.
Father slid it into his coat without looking at it.
"Council paperwork," he said, as he had every year.
Mother waited on the porch with a thermos.
"Linnet, drink this. Bridie, you too. Your circulation is poor, and you catch cold faster than your sister."
Bridie took her cup with a soft thank you.
Garrick stayed at the bottom of the steps.
"You should come in," Mother said.
"Not tonight. Rest, all of you."
He turned to leave, and his eyes found Bridie again.
She lowered her head to her tea, and color rose in her cheeks.
Mother saw it. She looked away and steered me into the living room.
"You waited five years," she said. "The hard part is over."
I held the cup.
It had stopped being hot.
"Mother, in all that time, did you really know nothing about where he was?"
Her hand paused on my collar.
Then she smiled, easy and warm.
"The report said missing. The Guard said classified. How could we have known?"
"Everyone thought he was dead except you. Your faith was rewarded."
I looked into her eyes and found nothing to catch.
She had stood right behind Father at the river, and she had heard every word about Southbay.
I did not push her.
She would never admit it, any more than she had admitted in twenty years that she loved Bridie best.
"I'm tired," I said. "I'm going up."
I was on the landing when Bridie's voice drifted up from below.
"Mother, does Linnet seem unhappy tonight?"
"She's marrying the man she waited five years for," Mother said. "She hides things, that's all. Not like you."
Bridie was quiet.
"If she ever finds out the truth, she'll hate me."
Mother took a moment to answer.
"Then she can never find out. Some things are better left unsaid, for everyone's sake."
I set the cup on the windowsill without tasting it.
Then I took out my phone and opened a new note.
Seventeen days to March ninth.
I wrote it at the top, and under it: They don't know that I know.
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