The crystal chandelier in Maison Blanche, London's most exclusive bridal boutique, cast rainbow fragments across the ivory marble floor as I stood in the doorway watching my world implode. The massive fixture hung like a glittering spider web above the chaos, its countless diamonds catching the afternoon light streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked Hyde Park.
This boutique was legendary among Europe's elite—the kind of place where royalty came to find their wedding gowns, where appointments were booked two years in advance, and where a single dress cost more than most people's houses. The atmosphere was usually one of hushed reverence and champagne-fueled celebration.
Today, it felt like a battlefield.
"I can't do this!" Isabelle's voice cracked with hysteria as she clawed at the delicate pearl buttons running down the back of her wedding dress. The custom Valentino gown—worth over two hundred thousand pounds—pooled around her feet like spilled cream against the pristine marble floor.
My half-sister had always been dramatic, but this meltdown was extreme even for her standards. Her silver-blonde hair, professionally styled in soft waves just an hour earlier, now hung in disheveled strands around her shoulders. Her gray eyes—those signature Blackwood eyes that I had never inherited—were red-rimmed with tears that had already destroyed her carefully applied makeup.
"Miss Blackwood, please," Patricia, the head stylist, pleaded in her refined British accent. The older woman's hands fluttered helplessly as she watched hundreds of hours of custom fitting work being destroyed in real time. "The dress is delicate. If we could just—"
"I don't care about the dress!" Isabelle shrieked, spinning around to face the mirror wall that dominated the fitting room. Her reflection stared back—beautiful, blonde, and completely unhinged. "Adrian called it off! He said he's been in love with someone else all along!"
The mention of Adrian Cross sent ice through my veins. Adrian—with his golden hair, warm brown eyes, and easy smile. The heir to Cross Industries who had been secretly meeting me for coffee and stolen moments for the past six months. Adrian, who had whispered promises about finding a way to escape his arranged engagement.
My stomach twisted as understanding crashed over me. When he talked about being in love with someone else, he meant me.
But why call off the engagement today, on the morning of his wedding to my sister?
I pressed myself against the doorframe of the fitting room, hoping to remain invisible in my simple black dress—the uniform that marked me as staff rather than family, despite sharing Victor Blackwood's DNA. As his illegitimate daughter, I had learned that the safest place during family crises was on the periphery, unnoticed and forgotten.
The boutique's main doors burst open with enough force to rattle the crystal display cases. Victor Blackwood strode into the space like a conquering general, his polished Oxford shoes clicking against the marble with sharp precision. At six feet two inches, he commanded attention even without his Alpha aura, but today that supernatural power rolled off him in waves that made every person in the boutique instinctively lower their heads.
Our father cut an imposing figure in his charcoal Savile Row suit, his silver hair slicked back in the same style he'd worn for decades. His sharp gray eyes surveyed the scene with cold calculation—taking in Isabelle's breakdown, the ruined dress, the terrified staff members who were trying to pretend they weren't witnessing the breakdown of one of London's most prominent families.
"Everyone out," Victor commanded, his voice carrying the unmistakable authority of an Alpha who ruled over three thousand pack members across Europe. "Now."
Patricia and her assistants scrambled to obey, gathering fabric samples and champagne flutes as they fled toward the back rooms. Within thirty seconds, the main boutique was empty except for family.
"Explain," Victor said, his jaw tight with barely controlled fury.
Isabelle lifted her chin in the stubborn gesture I remembered from childhood. "Adrian called off our engagement an hour ago. He said he couldn't go through with marrying me because his heart belongs to someone else!"
She collapsed dramatically onto the ivory velvet settee positioned in front of the three-way mirror, her destroyed dress trailing behind her like the remnants of a fairy tale gone wrong.
"He said he's been living a lie!" she continued, her voice rising with each word. "That he can't marry someone he doesn't love when his soul is bound to another! It was all very romantic and tragic, except for the part where it ruins MY wedding day!"
Victor's expression darkened to something resembling a thundercloud. His Alpha power pressed against the room with crushing weight, making my wolf Luna whimper in submission within my mind.
"The Silverstone delegation landed at Heathrow two hours ago," he said, his voice dropping to the dangerous whisper that had made grown men beg for mercy in business negotiations. "Damon Silverstone himself is staying at the Dorchester. Three hundred wedding guests are already arriving at St. Margaret's Westminster. The merger contract with Silverstone Empire—worth three billion pounds—depends entirely on this alliance."
He began to pace, each step measured and predatory. "The Prime Minister's wife bought a new hat for this occasion. The Archbishop cleared his schedule. Half of Europe's supernatural elite have traveled here specifically for this wedding."
Isabelle's response was to bury her face in her hands and sob louder.
That's when Victor's predatory gaze found me hovering near the doorway.
"Seraphina," he said, and the way he spoke my name made my blood turn to ice water. "Come here."
I had no choice but to obey. An Alpha's direct command was impossible for a pack member to resist, especially when that Alpha was also your father—acknowledged or not. My feet moved across the marble floor without conscious direction, each step bringing me closer to whatever scheme was forming behind Victor's calculating gray eyes.
"Sir?" I said quietly, keeping my head bowed in the submissive posture that had kept me safe throughout my twenty-three years in the Blackwood household.
Victor circled me slowly, like a predator evaluating prey. I could feel his gaze cataloging every detail—my height, my build, the way my dark chestnut hair fell in waves past my waist. Where Isabelle was silver and sharp angles, I was earth tones and soft curves, but we shared enough similarities that strangers occasionally mistook us for twins.
"You're five foot six," he mused, his voice taking on the clinical tone he used during business acquisitions. "Isabelle is five foot seven in heels. Same general build, same bone structure. Your hair is different, obviously, but that can be corrected."
My heart began to hammer against my ribs as understanding dawned.
"Father, no," I whispered.
"The Silverstone family has never met either of you in person," Victor continued, ignoring my protest entirely. "All their information comes from business profiles and carefully selected photographs. The engagement was arranged through intermediaries and lawyers."
Isabelle looked up from her dramatic pose, her tear-streaked face suddenly bright with malicious interest. "Oh my God, that's brilliant!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "Seraphina can take my place! She's always pretended to be a real Blackwood anyway—now she gets her chance to make it official!"
The casual cruelty in her words cut deeper than any knife. We had grown up in the same house, shared the same tutors, eaten at the same table—but Isabelle had never let me forget that she was the legitimate heir while I was just the bastard daughter Victor had reluctantly acknowledged after my mother's death.
"I won't do it," I said, surprising myself with the steadiness of my voice. Luna was cowering in submission within my mind, but something deeper—some core of pride I had never known existed—rebelled against this latest humiliation.
Victor's face went completely still, and the temperature in the boutique seemed to drop ten degrees. His Alpha power slammed into me with crushing force, driving me to my knees on the marble floor.
"You will do exactly as I command," he said softly, "or you will find yourself packless and homeless before sunset. Tell me, Seraphina—how long does a lone wolf survive in London's supernatural underground?"
The threat hit me like a physical blow. As Victor's illegitimate daughter, I existed in the pack only by his sufferance. If he cast me out, I would be completely defenseless—a rogue wolf with no protection, no resources, no allies in a world that devoured the weak.
"Besides," Isabelle added with that sweet smile that had charmed countless adults throughout our childhood, "you should be thanking me! I'm giving you the chance to marry one of the most powerful men in Europe. Think of it as the ultimate makeover—from bastard daughter to billionaire's wife in one afternoon!"
She stood and began pacing excitedly, her earlier breakdown completely forgotten in light of this new entertainment.
"You'll get to live in castles and penthouses, wear designer clothes, attend state dinners with presidents and prime ministers! It's everything you've ever dreamed of, isn't it? Finally getting to play princess instead of servant?"
I stared at her perfect face—the face that looked so much like mine but had never known a moment's uncertainty about its place in the world. Twenty-three years of taking Isabelle's punishments, cleaning up her messes, and living in her shadow had led to this ultimate insult.
"The ceremony is in four hours," Victor announced, checking his platinum Rolex. "That gives us just enough time for the transformation. Where is Helena?"
As if summoned by his words, Helena Westbrook appeared in the boutique's entrance. The head housekeeper must have been waiting in the car, because she carried a large leather case that I recognized as Isabelle's emergency beauty kit.
Helena had been with our family for over thirty years, arriving as a young woman and rising to manage everything from staff schedules to social calendars. Her graying brown hair was pulled back in a perfect chignon, and her dark eyes held a warmth that I rarely saw from anyone else in the Blackwood orbit.
"Prepare Seraphina," Victor commanded. "She needs to be transformed into an exact replica of Isabelle. Hair, makeup, mannerisms—everything. Use whatever means necessary."
Helena's expression remained carefully neutral, but I caught the slight tightening around her eyes that indicated distress. She had been the closest thing to a mother figure I had ever known, reading me bedtime stories when the nannies were busy with Isabelle, bandaging scraped knees that no one else noticed.
"Sir," Helena said carefully, "the young lady's hair is significantly longer and darker than Miss Isabelle's current style."
Victor's response was immediate and merciless. "Then cut it. Dye it. Do whatever it takes to make them identical. And Helena—" his voice carried a warning that made the older woman straighten. "If anyone discovers the substitution, I will hold you personally responsible."
I felt tears burn behind my eyes as I touched my long hair—the one thing in my life that was truly mine. Unlike everything else about my appearance, which was constantly compared to Isabelle's, my hair had never been styled or cut to match hers. It was my one claim to individual identity.
"Come along, dear," Helena said gently, placing a motherly hand on my shoulder. Her touch was warm and steady, the only source of comfort in this nightmare scenario.
As she led me toward the boutique's private styling suite, I caught sight of my reflection in one of the three-way mirrors. My dark chestnut hair cascaded past my waist in waves, and my green eyes—so different from the Blackwood family's signature gray—stared back at me with a mixture of terror and growing determination.
In four hours, I would walk down the aisle of Westminster's most prestigious church as Isabelle Blackwood, marrying a man whose name was whispered in London's financial circles with equal parts respect and fear. Damon Silverstone—the billionaire they called "The Ice King" because he had never shown mercy to anyone who crossed him.
He would become my husband without ever knowing my real name.
"Helena," I whispered as we entered the styling suite, "what do you know about Damon Silverstone?"
The older woman's hands stilled as she began unpacking brushes and cosmetics from the leather case. When she spoke, her voice was pitched so low that only supernatural hearing could detect it.
"He's dangerous, child," she said quietly. "Built his empire by crushing anyone who stood in his way. They say his wolf is one of the strongest in Europe, that he's never lost a challenge or a business deal. His pack controls territory from Scotland to the Mediterranean."
She paused, selecting a pair of professional haircutting shears with hands that trembled almost imperceptibly.
"But I've also heard he lives by a code. He protects what belongs to him with absolute ruthlessness. If you can somehow earn his respect..." She met my eyes in the mirror. "You might find yourself safer than you've ever been in your father's house."
As Helena lifted the first section of my hair and positioned the scissors, I felt something fundamental shift inside me. Luna stopped cowering and began to pace with anticipation rather than fear.
Maybe this forced marriage was exactly the escape I had been unconsciously yearning for. Maybe wedding a dangerous stranger was my chance to finally discover who Seraphina could become when she wasn't living as Isabelle's shadow.
The sound of scissors cutting through my hair marked the end of one life and the beginning of another. As long locks fell to the marble floor like severed chains, I made a silent vow.
I might walk down that aisle as Isabelle Blackwood, but I would find a way to make this marriage serve my purposes rather than Victor's. Somehow, I would transform this latest humiliation into my path to real power.
After all, what did I have left to lose?
End of Chapter 1