On the night of the Blood Moon Ritual,my older brother Kael and my fated mate Damian dressed me up like prey,all to amuse my stepsister Selena. Selena cackled as she tore my clothes to shreds. She daubed runes across my face with blood and paint,then kicked me straight down into the rot pit filled with decaying corpses. When I was hauled back out,clan members held up their phones,filming every humiliating detail of my state. Kael waved his hand in open disgust. Selena grinned.“Happy Blood Moon Ritual,Ilara.” Damian shrugged it off carelessly.“It was nothing but a game.” Overnight,the footage of me naked and ruined spread all across the werewolf clan. Kael blamed me for disgracing the Silvermoon Wolf Clan and drove me out of the cabin. Damian ripped up our fated mate bond contract without a second thought. I simply nodded once,not a single word of argument slipping past my lips. They had no idea the vengeance pact I’d sealed with my ancestral spirits only had three days left to run. … In the courtyard,my father,the pack’s Alpha—Alistair—whipped me with a silver-laced whip. “Shameless!Filthy trash!” I didn’t explain.I just bit my lip. In a wolf pack,arguing only leads to harsher“discipline.” Just a few days after being found and returned to the pack,Selena accused me of stealing her“Tear of the Moon God”necklace. My parents ordered a search of my den,and my brother Kyle tore my clothes off in front of everyone for a humiliating inspection. They found nothing. I thought I might get an apology. Instead,Kyle slapped me so hard one of my canines came loose. “You must have sold Selena’s necklace to another pack!Where are the goods you traded it for?” My den was tiny.I had nothing on me to trade. I tried to explain,but he just hit me harder,yelling that I was unrepentant. I cowered in the corner as he kicked me with his giant wolf paws until I spat up blood. Suddenly,Selena gasped,“I found it.” The gem necklace sparkled in her hand.The sight of it was blinding. I looked at Kyle.There was no guilt on his face.He just said flatly, “It was a small misunderstanding.Forget about it.” “I’m Selena’s brother.I trust her completely.”
Kyle remembered he was Selena’s brother,but he forgot that I was the one who shared his blood. In the courtyard,my father’s silver whip kept falling.My skin burned from the silver. Kyle stood nearby,watching coldly. He was the one who let Selena humiliate me,but now he blamed me for damaging the pack’s reputation and threw my few clothes out of my room. He told me to get out.I agreed. But my father roared,“You want to run away?Haven’t you caused enough shame?” He ordered the harshest pack discipline for me. After two hours of whipping,my mother,the Luna—Morgana—stopped him. “That’s enough.Make her kneel on the Repentance Stone and bow her head ninety-nine times,then carve a repentance rune with her blood.We’ll consider it done.” My father threw down the whip.“You’re too soft on her!” Soft?The idea was laughable. My mother’s“bowing”meant smashing my head on the rough Repentance Stone until it made a loud sound. The repentance rune had to be carved on a stone tablet with my own claws and blood. Less than ten thousand characters was not considered sincere,and I’d have to do it all over again. But I didn’t say a word.I slammed my head against the stone,passed out,was woken with ice water,and continued. My bloody claws carved twenty thousand characters,each one filled with humility. I thought that would be enough. But Selena covered her nose and stepped back. “Brother,it’s not that I don’t want Ilara in the house,it’s just…she smells awful.”
Kyle stroked her hair fondly and shot me a look.“You don’t deserve to live with the servants.Go live with Big Baby.” “Big Baby”was the basilisk Selena kept as a pet,and I have an extreme,natural fear of reptiles. I remembered the day the pack brought me back from the human world.Selena had the same look of disgust on her face. But back then,Kyle didn’t make me go to the basilisk’s den.He just threw me in an abandoned wolf cage. The cage was cold,but at least it wasn’t deadly.I could sleep there. The basilisk’s den?I would never go in there. I fell to my knees before my parents.“Alpha,Luna,if you think I’m dirty,I can leave the pack.I can live in the wolf cage.Please,don’t make me go to the basilisk’s den.” For a moment,my father’s face softened.But before he could speak,Kyle grabbed me by the collar. “Ilara,stop acting pathetic!” “If it weren’t for you,would the Silver Moon pack be the laughingstock of all the other packs?You should be grateful we’re giving you a place to stay at all!” He started dragging me toward the basilisk’s den.I looked back at my father. He looked away. The stench from the den almost made me pass out.The basilisk’s cold tongue flicked against my face. Just as I closed my eyes in despair,the cold voice of the Ancestral Spirit echoed in my mind: “Two days remain until the bloodline pact is complete.”
I suddenly calmed down and slowed my breathing. Two days left.I couldn’t give up. Three years ago,at a banquet,Selena suddenly clutched her stomach in pain.Crying,she asked me why I had poisoned her food. Before I could even react,Kyle had pried my mouth open and forced a whole bottle of“Wolfsbane”down my throat,a poison deadly to werewolves. I writhed on the floor in agony and passed out. No one cared about me.The whole pack was gathered around Selena,comforting her. As I was dying,an ancient voice sounded in my head: “Contractor’s life force has reached zero.Forcibly binding the Ancestral Revenge Pact.” “Current mission:Survive in the pack for three years as an Omega.” “Mission success:All pain inflicted upon you will be returned to the abusers a hundredfold.You will be granted one chance at rebirth and will inherit the Ancestral Vault.” “Mission failure:Your soul will be scattered,never to be reincarnated.” At the time,I thought it was just a hallucination before death. But when I woke up,fully healed,I believed. The Ancestral Spirit had given me a chance for revenge. I was eighteen then.To survive,I became silent and obedient. Now,I recalled what I had read in old books about coexisting with dangerous creatures.I suppressed my fear and stood perfectly still. The giant basilisk slithered around me,its touch ice-cold. Outside the crystal wall,Selena held Damian’s hand,smiling sweetly. “Damian,your destined mate smells so bad she got thrown into the basilisk’s den.” “Do you feel sorry for her?”
Damian glanced at me.“Don’t be ridiculous.I don’t have a mate.That contract should have been torn up long ago.” Even now,my heart ached as if gripped by an icy claw. Damian was different from the others in the pack.He had been my companion when I was a stray in the human world. An enemy pack had broken his leg,and he was barely surviving in a human city as a lone wolf. I pretended to be human and took care of him. He couldn’t walk,so I stole food for him and fought off the bums who bullied him. One winter,a few thugs stole his only crutch to use as firewood. I shielded him with my body,and they hung me from a tree and threw rocks at me. My head was bleeding,and my blood was everywhere. Damian held my freezing body and cried all night. He said,“Ilara,when I get my strength back,I’ll become the strongest Alpha and protect you.” I smiled,half-conscious,and I believed him. Later,when my pack found me,the first thing I did was ask them to accept Damian. To let an outsider stay,I guaranteed it with my own pure bloodline and proposed we become destined mates. Kyle called me a slut for wanting a lone wolf right after returning. I knelt at the altar for seven days and nights without food or water,my knees bleeding on the sharp stones,just to get that mate contract. It wasn’t that my parents and brother disliked Damian.It was that they thought his bloodline was weak and unworthy of me,their“tool.”They wanted me to marry into a more powerful pack to be a stepping stone for Selena. The day I went to get Damian,his eyes were red.He held me tight and swore to the moon goddess: “Ilara,once I have a place in the Silver Moon pack,I will hold the grandest ceremony for you!” But he never did.
He personally tore up our contract and pushed me to Selena for her to humiliate. When did he change? Maybe it was the first time Selena called him“Lord Damian”in her sweet voice. She knew how to use a fragile appearance to charm males better than I did.She knew how to please people. She linked her arm with his and said,“Lord Damian,your contract with Ilara is just to repay a debt,right?” Damian didn’t deny it. Maybe it was during a pack hunt,when I took a fatal blow from a giant bear for him.My organs were damaged,and I lay on the ground,unable to move. Damian just frowned and said,“Ilara,you’re so pathetic.” I mentioned the ceremony,the tokens,the future. He got impatient and just picked a poisonous wolfsbane flower from the roadside,wrapping it around my finger. But then he went and bought the“Tears of the Stars”for Selena at the All-Races Auction and designed the setting for it himself. I asked him,“Damian,do you remember what you said in the human world?” He laughed,a mocking laugh I had never seen before. “Ilara,are you ever going to stop bringing up the past?It’s so annoying.” “Yes,you helped me.But you’ve also used that to tie me to you for years.Isn’t that enough?” I tied him down? I knelt until my knees were broken,I starved myself,I risked my status as a pure-blood descendant to secure his future. He said,“Ilara,stop pretending.You only wanted to bind with me because you’re the pack’s most unloved Omega,right?” “Nobody wants you,so you had to latch onto me?” “Are you that desperate for a mate?Are you crazy?” In that moment,something inside me shattered. Selena’s laugh pulled me back from my memories. “Lord Damian,don’t be so cruel.Ilara was your mate for years,after all.” Damian sneered.“Mate?A desperate Omega who threw herself at me?Is she worthy?” I took a deep breath and silently asked the Ancestral Spirit,“Will betrayal be punished too?”
“Of course.Any suffering the contractor endures will be returned manifold in the curse.” “Assuming you survive the last day.” Selena stood on her toes,peering at me through the crystal wall,looking displeased. “This is no fun.She’s not moving.She’s like a corpse.” “My Big Baby doesn’t like dead things.” She shook Damian’s arm.“Lord Damian,get her out of there.I want to see her cry.” Damian hesitated for a second,but then agreed. He dragged me out roughly.The sunlight was blinding. “Selena wants you to cry.” His voice came from above,devoid of any warmth. I didn’t move. Selena picked up a sharp piece of obsidian and scraped it across my face,smiling her innocent smile. “Will you cry if it hurts,sister?” My face was bleeding,but my tears had long since dried up.I couldn’t produce a single drop. Damian lost his patience and kicked me in the shoulder. I fell backward,my head hitting a rock hard.Everything went black for a moment. “Cry!”he commanded,looking down at me. When I didn’t react,he kicked me again,harder. The force of it made me want to vomit. I didn’t want to die,but I couldn’t cry. I slowly got up and knelt properly. Then,I touched my forehead to the ground in the most subservient bow. “I’m sorry.”
Selena blinked,then laughed.“What is she pretending for?What is she apologizing for?” “That’s just Ilara.”A voice came from the side.It was my brother,Kyle. He had appeared at some point,standing a few feet away,his face wearing that familiar look of disgust. “This is how she survives in the pack.” “She kneels when you hit her,and she bows when you scold her.Like a spineless dog.” Selena tilted her head and sneered.“Really?Then let’s hear her howl like a wolf.” Kyle looked at me,his expression blank.“Did you hear that?Selena wants you to howl.” I knelt on the ground.In the sunlight,the three of them seemed to glow,while I was a stinking mess in the shadows. I opened my mouth,but no sound came out. Seeing Selena’s smile fade,Kyle’s face darkened. He grabbed my hair and yanked me to my feet.“Howl!” My scalp screamed in pain.I had to stand on my toes to lessen it. I looked at him.My own brother. Years ago,when the Shadow Wolf pack attacked,I had shielded him.I wrapped my body around the enemy’s legs and told him to run. The enemy,furious,threw me high into the air and slammed me back down. I lay in the bushes for two months,nearly dead. “Awoo…” My voice was small,like a pup’s whimper. Selena wasn’t satisfied.“That doesn’t sound like a wolf at all.She’s not getting into character.” She had Damian bring her a chain. Kyle understood.He fastened one end around my neck and gave the other to Selena. “Crawl!You crawl wherever Selena leads you.”
I didn’t move. He kicked me in the knee,and the pain sent me sprawling to the ground. I pushed myself up and began to crawl across the gravel-strewn yard. The sharp stones dug into my knees,and sweat beaded on my forehead. “Slow down,”Damian said from behind.“Don’t let Selena fall.” Selena smiled sweetly,pulling me through mud puddles and up stone steps. Cold sweat ran down my face.My knees wouldn’t stop shaking. When we were some distance from Damian and Kyle,Selena suddenly leaned in and whispered in my ear: “Ilara,I hate you.I wish you were dead.” “Years ago,you escaped from my family and reported us to the Wolf Council.You got my father judged and exiled to the Frozen Lands,never to return.” My world stopped. That trafficker…Selena’s father was a traitor from the Shadow Wolf pack.He captured and sold cubs from all packs. I saw him murder a cub who resisted,just for crying at night. Afterward,he smiled at the rest of us and said,“Anyone else cries,you’ll go join him.” The day I escaped,he found me and chased me across two mountain ranges. I jumped into a frozen river,and he stood on the bank throwing giant rocks at me until I was bleeding and half-dead. And my parents adopted his daughter. My brother cherished her.My fiancébetrayed our vows for her. Selena was still talking.“I’m not afraid of you telling anyone.No one will believe you.I’m just telling you this to make you sick.” She laughed wildly. I snapped.I lunged up,grabbed the chain from her hand,and wrapped it around her neck. “Your father murdered cubs!” My eyes burned.“That cub was only a month old!”
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