They Called Me A Defective Copy Of My Sister Chapter 02

They Called Me A Defective Copy Of My Sister Chapter 02

Marrying Vance was fate’s idea of a cruel joke. He’d claimed the wrong savior from the very beginning.

He signed up for the mate-matching registry and wrote down the wrong name — mine. All I did was look at the photo they sent me and say yes.

We didn’t see each other in person until the day we signed the license. One look at me, and something behind his eyes caved in.

It was September, summer’s last breath. The sun behind him was so bright it bleached the world white.

His tail had been swishing eagerly when he walked in. It stopped the second he got a good look at my face, then slowly dropped. The warmth in his eyes didn’t fade — it disappeared.

“You —” His fingers crushed the edge of the application. He stared at me for a long time, his jaw tight, like the rest of the sentence was stuck in his throat.

He never asked. But I heard it anyway: Why did it have to be you?

We both knew the rules. A match was final in this world — no divorce, no annulment. The only way out was death.

So Vance swallowed the bitter truth. He’d made the mistake, and now he’d have to live with it for the rest of his life.

Maybe it was easier for me. I’d spent my whole childhood wanting things I couldn’t have — I’d had more practice letting go.

Some nights, I even caught myself feeling grateful. After all, Vance looked almost exactly like him.

Ruby and I were twins, identical in photos. But in person, you could tell us apart in a heartbeat.

I was shorter, quieter, duller. Ruby was all flash and heat. I was the one who kept my head down.

“Nobody’d mistake Ruby for her defective sister. Except you, Vance.”

“Highest sensitivity scores in the entire training cohort, and you still couldn’t tell your own savior from her sister?”

“And honestly? With Hazel’s mental energy, she wouldn’t have matched with you if she’d trained for another fifty years.”

I came back from taking a call and caught the tail end of it — his friends, furious on his behalf. Vance didn’t seem to care. He was sprawled across the couch, flicking a lighter open and shut.

His eyes stayed on the flame — flare, fade, flare, fade. When he finally answered, his voice was flat.

“Everybody’s got regrets. We signed the papers — what’s done is done.”

“We’ll just… make do.”

That was our first wedding anniversary.

Standing there, it finally clicked — why his face had changed the day we signed the license. I wasn’t the one who’d saved him. I was never the one he wanted.

I was so ordinary that “make do” was the kindest thing he could say about me. The club lights pulsed at the edges of my vision.

I stood outside the booth, watching through the gap. Vance was laughing again, tipping his glass back. A thin line of liquor slipped past his lip and slid down his throat.

And there, just below his collarbone — the pale pink imprint of my teeth. My claiming mark.

A real claim was supposed to go deep — teeth sinking into skin with everything you had, marking your mate as yours.

Except mine was pathetic. My mental energy was too weak.

Even when I’d given it everything, the mark had come out faint. Barely there. Something bitter clawed up my throat, and I had to shut my eyes against it.

Maybe it was the noise. Maybe I just couldn’t stand to look at him.

I didn’t go back to the booth. I walked out onto the terrace alone and let the night air hit my face.

Make do.

I leaned against the railing, and the words kept circling — make do, make do — until I was back on our wedding day.

I’d looked at Vance’s cold, sharp face and thought the exact same thing. It doesn’t matter that it’s not him.

This face is close enough. But then we started sharing a bed, sharing mornings, sharing silence.

That kind of closeness breeds feelings whether you want it to or not. My mouth twisted. I pulled off my ring and let it drop.

A hand shot out and caught it before it hit the ground.

“Hazel — are you drunk?”

Beastman reflexes. The ring was back in my palm before I could blink.

I looked down at it, then laughed — a real laugh, dimples and all. He raised an eyebrow, caught somewhere between amused and exasperated.

“You’re a mess. How are you still this bad at holding your liquor?”

His tail — massive, silver-white, absurdly fluffy — swept through the warm night air like it owned the terrace.

I wasn’t used to seeing it — not around me. So I threw my arms around him and grabbed that ridiculous tail just to watch him freeze. A low, satisfied laugh hummed in my chest.

He went rigid — his tail was his weak spot, and I knew it. Against my ear, his heartbeat pounded, steady and strong.

I held on. Kept holding on. Then a sigh slipped out of me.

“Vance.”

I closed my eyes, my cheek pressed against his chest.

“Whenever you can’t make do anymore — we’ll end it.”