My Sister Stole My Mate And I Let Her (Seraphina) novel Chapter 273

Chapter 273: Chapter 273 FATE OR CHOICE?

SERAPHINA’S POV

Selene’s gaze stayed fixed on the horizon for a long moment after her last words.

She leaned back in her chair, the wood creaking softly beneath her weight. For a heartbeat, she looked younger—less Luna, more woman remembering something she’d once survived.

“It was my coming-of-age ceremony,” she said. “The night the pack formally recognized me as an adult. As...eligible.”

I pictured it instinctively: firelight, ritual markings, the weight of expectation pressing in from all sides.

“I knew Adrian was planning something,” she continued. “He was terrible at hiding it. Disappearing for hours. I’d catch him practicing speeches he pretended weren’t speeches. I pretended not to notice, but I did.”

Her lips softened into a wistful curve. “I was excited. Nervous. Hopeful.”

I swallowed.

“When the midnight bell tolled, tradition dictated that I follow my mate’s scent,” Selene said. “You don’t question it. You don’t hesitate. You trust the pull.”

She exhaled slowly. “So I followed it.”

A charged silence stretched between us, thick with anticipation.

“And it led me,” she said, voice hardening, “to Barry.”

The name landed like a shattered plate.

“He was the Alpha of a neighboring pack,” Selene went on. “Powerful. Arrogant. Loud about it. He’d mocked me openly for years—said a daughter couldn’t inherit leadership properly, that my father was wasting his legacy on sentiment.”

My fingers curled tighter around the cup.

“I remember standing there, staring at him, thinking there had been a mistake,” she said. “That the bond would correct itself. That if I waited long enough, Adrian would step out of the shadows and laugh and tell me it was a joke.”

She shook her head. “But the pull didn’t waver.”

“What did you do?” I asked softly.

“At first?” Selene gave a short, humorless laugh. “I considered defying it outright. I’d always been stubborn. Always believed everything in life was a choice.”

Her gaze drifted. “But the mate bond is...convincing. It’s not loud or aggressive. It presses. It reasons. It makes you believe that what it wants is what you want.”

My breath caught. Convincing. The mate bond was definitely convincing. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Selene took a sip of her coffee, then set it aside, forgotten.

“So I resigned myself to it,” she said. “I convinced myself that if that was what the Moon Goddess wanted, I could learn to be happy with Barry.”

Even I could taste the bitterness in those words.

“Our engagement was swift. Politically celebrated. Personally suffocating.” Her jaw tightened. “Barry liked to remind me that I was lucky. That a powerful Alpha-to-be like him had chosen me—a half-breed.”

I flinched.

“But the night before the wedding,” Selene continued, voice low, “I caught him with a maid.”

The atmosphere changed, charged with something sharp and uneasy.

She shook her head and said flatly, “So unoriginal.”

Her eyes darkened as she continued. “He didn’t notice me at first. He was too busy boasting to her about all he planned to do once we were bonded.”

My heart sank.

“He spoke about usurping my father. Exiling my family of ‘aberrations.’ Absorbing our pack under the guise of unity.” Selene’s hands clenched in her lap. “I listened until I couldn’t anymore.”

“And then?” I whispered.

“And then I made myself known—and I rejected the bond.”

Even knowing the outcome, the words sent a shock through me.

“The pain,” Selene said, closing her eyes briefly, “was unlike anything I’d been prepared for. It felt like tearing my heart out of my chest with bare hands. But clarity came with it. A kind of...rightness.”

Her eyes opened, blazing. “I would rather suffer than spend the rest of my life tethered to a monster.”

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

“I doubt Barry even registered the pain.” She shrugged. “What he couldn’t stand was the humiliation. And he nearly killed me for it.”

A sick twist coiled in my stomach.

“I was too weak to fight for myself, still reeling from the agony of having my soul ripped in half. But then Adrian intervened.”

Something fierce and proud seeped into her tone. “He was a Beta. No official title, no bond advantage.”

She smiled, sharp and bright. “And he beat Barry.”

I felt my own lips curl.

“He shouldn’t have been able to,” she said. “But he refused to lose. For me.” Her voice softened. “For us.”

The victory, she told me, had ignited conflict between the packs. Her wedding venue had turned into a battlefield. Blood had been spilled. Threats exchanged.

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