Exchanging Vows: The Swapped Wife Is a Top Shaman novel Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Chapter 1

Ivy’s Point of View

Pain.

That was the first thing I registered. Sharp, throbbing pain radiating from the back of my neck down my spine. My skull felt like someone had taken a hammer to it.

I tried to move, but my body wouldn’t cooperate. Everything felt heavy, wrong. The ground beneath me was cold and hard. Not the soft mattress I expected on my wedding night.

Where the hell was I?

I forced my eyes open. Darkness. Dust. The underside of a bed frame inches from my face.

Under the bed?

My brain struggled to catch up. Why was I under a bed? Why did my neck feel like it had been snapped in half?

Then I heard it.

Whispering. Soft, breathy, intimate.

And the unmistakable sound of lips meeting skin.

"Are you sure you want to be with me?" A man’s voice. Low, husky, dripping with want. "There’s no turning back after tonight, Sera."

My blood turned to ice.

Sera?

"Bastian..." A woman’s voice now. Familiar. Too familiar. Dripping with charm and urgency. "Stop talking and hurry up. I’ve waited long enough."

No.

No, no, no.

That voice belonged to Seraphina. My cousin. The Crescent Moon Pack Alpha’s precious daughter.

And that man. Bastian Ashford. Second son of the Silvermoon Pack Alpha. He was supposed to be my husband.

The bed creaked above me. The movements started slow, deliberate, then grew more urgent. Through the thin mattress, I could hear every shift of weight, every rustle of sheets.

"Fuck, you’re so tight..." Bastian groaned, his voice rough with pleasure. "So much better than I imagined."

Seraphina let out a stifled cry. Half pain, half something else. "Harder... don’t hold back..."

The bed rocked. Faster. More desperate.

I pressed my hand over my mouth, bile rising in my throat.

This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening.

But it was. The sounds were too real. The wet slap of skin against skin, the breathless moans, the creak of the wooden frame straining above me. Each noise drilled into my skull like a knife.

My wedding night.

My husband.

And my cousin was the one writhing beneath him.

The memories slammed back into me like a freight train.

Tonight was supposed to be the night Seraphina and I married into the Silvermoon Pack together. Two cousins from the Crescent Moon Pack, sent to strengthen the alliance between our families. Seraphina was betrothed to Dominic Ashford, the eldest son and heir of the Silvermoon Pack. I was matched with Bastian, the second son.

Our fathers were half-brothers. Seraphina’s father, Roland, was the Alpha of Crescent Moon Pack. My father, Edwin, was only the Beta. Same blood, different status. That was the story of my entire life.

But six months ago, everything changed. Dominic had been injured in the war against the rogues. He’d shielded the king during an ambush and taken a brutal hit to the head. They said he might never wake up. A vegetable, some whispered. A dead man walking.

And Seraphina? She refused to be shackled to a corpse.

So she took what was mine instead.

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