Switched Bride, True Luna - Chapter 51: Chapter 51

Third Person
The call came just after sunset, as the last rays of light filtered through the etched glass windows of the sitting room. Hannah Blackwood didn’t bother to greet the voice on the other end. She simply said, “It’s time.”
Her fingers traced the rim of her crystal glass as the reporter—someone she had known since her sorority days—responded with a pleased hum. “You’re sure this will stick?”
“Oh, it will spread like wildfire,” Hannah said smoothly. “People have always wondered how a dormant, discarded daughter like Emily ended up in Titanfang’s arms. All I’ve done is… offer a reason that explains it.”
“Anonymous sources,” the reporter confirmed. “From within her former Pack?”
“Within and close to the Titanfang estate,” Hannah said, smiling faintly as she swirled her drink. “It doesn’t have to be true. It only has to seem true.”
The keyboard clicked in the background, followed by the faint hum of a headline being workshopped.
Hannah could imagine it already: Contracted for Power: Inside the Loveless Alliance of Titanfang’s Alpha and the Dormant She-Wolf. Or something equally vicious.
She leaned back in her chair, satisfied. Chloe had gone quiet at home. She was “rebuilding” as she called it; her latest term for wheedling her way back into social favor.
But Hannah knew better than to let he daughter’s quiet lull her into complacency. Emily’s continued presence at Logan’s side—despite Chloe’s sabotage, despite Michael’s betrayal—meant the little brat wasn’t breaking. Yet.
That wouldn’t do. It also wouldn’t do having her only daughter mate with that washed up old windbag of an Alpha. She wanted powerful grandchildren, after all.
“This won’t just damage Emily,” the reporter mused. “It’ll make Logan look manipulative. Like he took a broken thing and turned used her.”
“Exactly,” Hannah said, her tone as smooth as silk. “The truth doesn’t matter. The appearance will eat them alive. They’ve been parading her around like a proper Luna—this will remind everyone she’s a placeholder for Chloe. And a pitiful one, at that.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line, then: “Would you like to be quoted directly?”
Hannah let out a sharp laugh. “No, darling. I’m not the villain in this story. Just a concerned Pack member offering context. Let the other wolves tear her apart—I’ll remain the worried, caring mother.”
She hung up before hearing the reporter’s reply. The glass in her hand caught the dying sunlight, casting colorful prisms across the wallpaper.
She set it down carefully on the table beside her and rose to her feet.
Across the room, a single framed photo sat untouched on the table. It was Emily as a child, reaching for her father’s hand. Hannah had always hated that photo.
She saw so much deference in Emily’s eyes. So much need for attention and affection.
Hannah picked it up and studied it.
“How was she lasted this long without breaking,” she murmured.
Emily might still be standing, but Hannah would remind the world what she really was. A dormant wolf. A contract bride. A liability to the Packs.
And then, when the cracks widened enough, she and Chloe would step into the light—perfectly poised, perfectly placed—and sweep up the pieces.
Let the girl burn.
Emily
The headline with my face and was everywhere in the early morning. I was front page news and being blasted on social media.
I wasn’t the first to see it. One of the lower aides had the decency to try and hide it—she folded the tabloid backwards on the counter beside the coffee urn in the break room, as if I wouldn’t recognize my picture from three feet away.
As if I hadn’t been trained my entire life to sense when people were talking about me behind my back… or trying to be discreet and do it in front of me.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but I picked it up anyway.
“Contracted to Climb: Dormant Blackwood Daughter Marriage Deal Exposed!”
There was no byline. Just anonymous sources from my Pack. Carefully placed. Perfectly timed.
I could practically hear Hannah’s voice behind the accusation, pretending to be above it all while feeding the press her poison.
It shouldn’t have hurt. Not after everything. Not after the leaked photo with Chloe, the rumors, the financial document scandal.
But this one hit differently.
Because it came just days after Logan kissed me. Not out of obligation or for optics. We shared a real kiss, unguarded, and it had nearly undone me.
And now this. A reminder that I was still a contract. Still temporary. Still the convenient answer to a political problem.
I dropped the paper on the counter and walked away before anyone could see any emotions I couldn’t swallow down.
I found Logan an hour later in the sunroom at home, half-distracted with work, dark circles under his eyes. He looked up when I stepped in, his gaze scanning me like he was reassuring himself I was alright.
“I saw the headline,” he said.
I crossed my arms. “So did everyone else.”
His jaw tightened. “We’ll release a statement. Shut it down.”
“No,” I said, too quickly. “Denying it will only make it seem true. Which of course it is, though how this ‘anonymous source’ knows that is beyond me.”
I took a deep breath to steady myself before continuing. “If I spend the rest of this contract proving I belong here, I’ll forget who I am.”
Logan hesitated. “Then what do you want to do?”
I could tell he meant it. He wasn’t humoring me. He was, in his own way, offering me the wheel. That made it worse somehow. More intimate than if he’d kissed me again.
“I don’t know,” I said softly. “Just once, I want something to be mine.”
Logan stood. “Then pick the first move. Whatever it is.”
I blinked at him.
His voice lowered. “Let’s flip the story. Take the attention and turn it. If they want to watch, let them watch us on our terms.”
That’s how we ended up in his office later that afternoon, half a dozen stylists and press aides waiting outside the door, and me typing out the location for our next public outing into his tablet.
He read it twice.
“You’re sure?”
I nodded.
“Silverroot Sanctuary?”
“It’s important to me,” I said.
He didn’t ask why. He just held my gaze for a long moment, then nodded once.
I think I expected him to protest. Or suggest something more expected. Something easier to explain. But Logan just reached for his calendar and said, “I’ll have the team notify the press.”
It wasn’t until he turned away that I let myself breathe again.
Silverroot wasn’t a flashy estate or a society gala. It was a quiet wellness retreat hidden near the edges of Titanfang territory—known mostly for its moonbathing gardens, herbal treatments, and wolf support programs.
I had gone there a few times, years ago, when the weight of my dormancy had become too heavy to carry alone.
I’d walked their salt paths barefoot, bathed under moonlight with other wolves whose shifts had gone quiet, whose power had curled inward like mine.
It was the only place that had ever made me feel like dormancy wasn’t a curse.
But I hadn’t told Logan any of that. I didn’t plan to. He didn’t need to know how personal this was. How terrified I was that the press would twist it, or that he would.
But I wanted to go. With him. And not because it would look good. But because I wanted him to see that part of me.
The one that had nothing to do with being useful or impressive. Just real. Just… me.
I didn’t realize how tightly I’d been holding onto the tablet until Logan reached out and gently took it from me.
His thumb brushed mine. Barely a touch.
But it was enough to send a shiver up my arm.
“You picked the place,” he said. “Now let me pick the timing. We’ll go tomorrow. Early. Before the rest of the wolves wake.”
I nodded.
And for the first time in weeks, I felt something unfurl in my chest…the faintest thread of hope.
And that, maybe, was the most dangerous thing of all.