Cassandra in Pursuing My Rejected Luna: The Sister's Lie

Cassandra in Pursuing My Rejected Luna is Skye's older sister and the reason her marriage finally breaks. This analysis covers what she does, why, and where the sequel takes her. Spoilers for the whole book.

Who she is

Cassandra Winters is Skye's older sister: beautiful, poised and used to being the one people look at. Years ago she had a brief relationship with Jaxon, then left the pack. She comes back a month before the book opens, with a four-year-old son, Liam, and a story: Liam is Jaxon's child, conceived before his bond with Skye, and he is sick.

The method

Cassandra rarely does anything openly cruel. Her weapons are timing and sympathy:

• Moving in. Within days she and Liam live in the Alpha house, and the pack whispers about a second Luna.
• The nightgown. She comes downstairs in white silk during a family dinner.
• Tears. At the resort she cries that Skye hates her, and Jaxon comforts her.
• Emergencies. Liam's breathing crises and headaches arrive whenever Skye and Jaxon are about to talk. Jaxon notices the pattern only in chapter 78.
• Suggestions. She persuades Jaxon to have Skye followed, hints at an affair with Nicolai, and suggests pregnancy hormones are making Skye irrational.

Jaxon's own guilt about their one night makes him easy to steer.

The test

The first crack appears at the divorce hearing in chapter 74, when Skye's lawyer asks who supplied Liam's paternity test. Cassandra did. Jaxon later demands an independent test and expels her. She returns with new documents, and in chapter 113 a council-supervised test proves Liam is not Jaxon's son. She admits she paid a technician to fake the first result. Liam's real father is Jarrett Mays, who had tried to be part of his life.

Worse than a lie

Even then, Cassandra doubles down with staged photos of Skye and Nicolai. When Jaxon bluffs her into a corner in chapter 117, the full story comes out. The photos were fake. She wanted Skye gone so Jaxon would be available. And she made a call that pointed the dangerous people from Dalton's case toward Skye, which led to the attack in the rose garden. Her lies put her sister and an unborn child in danger.

The mate she refused

The final reveal reframes her. Noah, Jaxon's Beta and Skye's best friend, is Cassandra's fated mate. She knew it from the moment they met at the gate and chose to chase Jaxon instead, for status. Noah rejects the bond, and Cassandra is banished from the territory. Liam goes to his father's family.

Why she does it

The book suggests envy more than love. Cassandra wanted the life Skye had, the Alpha, the title and the house, and could not accept that the bond chose her sister. In the sequel's opening chapters she calls it a misdirected impulse built on old resentment, and admits her methods were selfish and hurtful.

The sequel

Cassandra's story does not end with the banishment. From chapter 227 the same listing continues with Bound To My Unworthy Luna. She is living as a rogue at a border settlement, doing paperwork for meals and calling Liam every Sunday. Noah, now Alpha of Ironwood, is falling ill, and the blurb says the cause is rejecting his mate. Whether she can earn a second chance is the new book's question.

Our take

Cassandra is an obvious villain for much of the book, and readers will spot the paternity twist early. She is more interesting in hindsight: someone who refused a real bond to steal a fake one, and who now has to live with the consequences.

Read more: Recap Part 3: The Woolf Estate, Skye and the ending explained.