Five years. That’s how long it had been since Julian Thorne and I broke up. Yet there he was,at our best friend’s wedding at the Plaza Hotel. Across the crowded room, under those chandeliers, our eyes locked for a split second. Then,as if burned,we both looked away. Later,my half-drunk bestie Chloe nudged me. “You know,Ella…”she whispered. “After you two broke up, every single woman he dated was basically a copy of you. We used to call them the’Ella Clones’.” She nodded at the petite blonde next to Julian. “Except Kenzie. Been with him a year,looks nothing like you. I think…he’s playing for keeps this time.” I knew what Chloe was doing. Seeing if I was drowning in regret. I just forced a tight smile. Playing for keeps or not,I didn’t care. Because I came back to New York for one reason only. To get married. …… As the reception ended, Chloe dragged everyone to an after-party, determined to get us wasted. I was about to say no when Julian was shoved next to me. “Hey,Julian!Ella flew all the way from Europe. For old times’sake,you better play host tonight.” Julian didn’t say anything. He took the suitcase from my hand. I glanced at my watch. I still had an hour to kill. So,I nodded and got into the car. I took the shotgun; Julian and Kenzie got in the back. As we turned onto Fifth Ave,a sickly sweet voice cut in. “Julian,you haven’t introduced me to this pretty lady yet.” “I thought you were strangers.Silly me.”

She was talking to Julian, but her eyes locked on mine in the rearview mirror. A blatant provocation. Julian’s gaze lingered on me for a beat. I didn’t wait for him to speak. “Hi.Ella Vance. Mr.Thorne and I went to college together.” “Miss Vance?” Kenzie covered her mouth and giggled. “College?Please.You’re Julian’s ex.Everyone knows that.” “But don’t worry.I’m not the petty type. I don’t get jealous over ancient history.” She clung to Julian’s arm. Planted a loud kiss right on his cheek. Staking her claim. Kenzie didn’t shut up the entire ride. And Julian?The guy famous for being ice-cold? He ate it up. Every single word. “Are we actually drinking later? You know I’m a total lightweight. If I get drunk,Julian,will you take me home?” “I’m not letting you get drunk.I’m taking you straight home.” “God,those vows today.I almost cried. I’m so jealous.It was a total fairytale.” “When we get married,I want Central Park covered in red roses. And thousands of colorful balloons.” “Done. It’s your wedding.You call the shots.”

I rolled the window all the way down. Let the cold Manhattan wind whip in. Anything to blast away the suffocating tension in that car. We finally pulled up. An exclusive penthouse club. I stepped out as Julian swept Kenzie into his arms. His eyes met mine. His arms went rigid for a second. Kenzie pressed into him,smiling sweetly. “I’m not used to heels this high. But Julian insists—he’s terrified I’ll hurt myself.” I gave a polite nod. Flashing my best fake smile. “How thoughtful of Mr.Thorne.” Inside the room,Chloe shoved a glass my way. “You’re late!Take three shots!” Before I could reach for a second glass, Julian knocked back the other two without batting an eye. “Kenzie doesn’t drink.I’m taking hers.” The crowd went wild. But I felt everyone’s eyes shift to me. I downed my shot. Acted like I felt nothing. But just as I reached for a refill, Kenzie stepped in front of me. “Guys,come on,don’t pick on Ella. You know she’s single now.” “If she gets blackout drunk,who’s taking her home? Whose couch is she crashing on?” I gave her a dead look. Reached right past her and grabbed my drink. “Save the concern.But I’m not a charity case.” “And I’m not single.” Shut down in public, Kenzie’s face dropped. The whole room froze. Every pair of eyes snapped from me to Julian. Under the dim lights, I watched his hand gripping the empty glass. Fingers tightening.Knuckles turning bone-white. One more squeeze,and that glass was going to shatter. A beat passed. Julian finally arched a brow,his voice pure ice. “Yeah?Then where is this boyfriend tonight?” “Picking me up at midnight.”

The air grew suffocating. Chloe jumped in to break the tension,waving a deck of cards. “Alright guys,we said we’re getting wasted!Let’s play Kings.” Kenzie tugged at Julian’s shirt,pouting. “But I’m such a lightweight! Playing this,I’ll be under the table in five minutes.” Julian stroked her hair. His voice was softer than I’d ever heard it. “Don’t worry.I’ll take your shots.” “I could never let you drink that much.” She shot me a sly look. “Ella,you’ve had so much and you aren’t even buzzed. Your tolerance is insane. How about…you take my shots for me?” Someone frowned,muttering low to Julian. “Reel your girl in,Julian.That’s out of line.” “She keeps me in line,”Julian answered flatly. Then,he actually slid a glass right across the table to me. “You do have a high tolerance. How about we split Kenzie’s drinks?” I stood there. My fingers went ice-cold,trembling.

When Julian and I first got together, he was a broke kid with a startup dream. We crammed into a leaky Brooklyn apartment, praying the rain wouldn’t flood our bed. Two years of that. We dumped every last cent into our company. At endless networking dinners, sleazy clients always tried to push drinks on me. “Ella looks like she can hold her liquor!Drink up!” Julian always took the glass before I even touched it. “Ella,we’re partners.We split everything.” He’d secretly swap my liquor for soda water,and drink himself into a blackout. Once,he even landed in the ER with a bleeding ulcer. He used to whisper that promise in my ear. “Ella,I’ll never let you touch another drop. I’m gonna give you the world.” I looked at the man standing in front of me now. Impeccable suit.Ice-cold eyes. I took a step back,putting distance between us. “Mr.Thorne,Kenzie is your girlfriend.Not mine.” “Five years later…and you still can’t protect your own girl?” An awkward silence settled over the room. Kenzie sniffled. Tears welled up in her eyes,playing the perfect victim. “Look,Ella,I know you’re still bitter that Julian dumped you… but you don’t have to take it out on us.” Everyone gasped.

Stepping in as peacemaker,Chloe shot Kenzie a warning look. “Alright,enough with the breakup talk. Let it go,guys.We’ve all got history,right?” I let out a scoff. “No baggage here.We were just close friends a long time ago. Why keep digging it up? If you care that much,Kenzie, maybe take it up with Mr.Thorne behind closed doors.” Kenzie didn’t know rule number one about me. I always hit back. Leave me alone,and we’re fine. Cross me?I make it hurt. Even over a few words. Kenzie bit her lip. The tears dropped on cue. But she caught Julian’s eye. He just sat there,watching in cold silence. She still stubbornly wiped her face. “Fine.No drinking. Let’s play Truth or Dare.I’m spinning.” The drama fizzled out. Nobody wanted to push it. Kenzie slammed an empty bottle on the table. “Whoever it lands on has to tell the truth!” The bottle spun…and came to a dead stop. Pointing right at me. A smug smile touched Kenzie’s lips. “Ella…did you really fly all this way just for a wedding? Or is there…another reason?” I felt Julian’s gaze burning into me. I picked up my glass and took a casual sip. “I came back to get married.”

Every eye in the room darted between the two of us. Kenzie tugged at Julian’s arm. “Aw,wait!If Ella’s getting married,she can’t be our bridesmaid,can she?” “It’s fine.” Julian brushed her off. His eyes still locked on me. I set my glass down. Fired off a quick text. Then,slowly looked up. “Even if I were single,I have no interest in being your bridesmaid.” Shot down again,Kenzie huffed and spun the bottle hard. “Since you guys are getting wasted, whoever it lands on next slams this entire pitcher!” Just as the words left her mouth, the bottle stopped right between Julian and me. “How does this count?” “Split it down the middle?”someone joked. Chloe leaned into my ear. “Seriously,Ella. I think you two still have a shot.You came back for him,admit it.” I’d been traveling all day.My temples were throbbing. I pinched the bridge of my nose. “No.I’m literally here to get married.” Chloe rolled her eyes. Not buying a word of it.

I was done explaining. So I reached out to split the pitcher with Julian. But Kenzie blocked my hand. “Don’t take this the wrong way,Ella… but I don’t do the whole’my boyfriend sharing a drink with his ex’thing. Let’s just spin again.” She made sure to emphasize the word’boyfriend’. Like a blatant warning. “What?It’s not like they’re sharing the same glass.” Chloe had finally had enough of the petty jabs. “If you’re that insecure, why don’t you put your Julian on a leash and drag him home?” Kenzie instantly played innocent, looking up at Julian with puppy-dog eyes. “I just wanted everyone to have a good time.” Julian frowned slightly,but caved. “Whatever you want.” The bottle spun again. This time,it stopped perfectly in front of me. Fair is fair. I didn’t hesitate. Grabbed the pitcher and chugged the whole thing.

The game dragged on. I don’t know if Kenzie rigged the bottle… But every single round after that, it miraculously landed on me. Jet lag mixed with way too much booze. A dizzying wave crashed over me. I reached for a glass again. Suddenly,Julian’s strong hand clamped down on my wrist. The chill jolted me half-awake. “That’s enough for tonight.” Kenzie shot me a hateful glare and muttered, “But this round isn’t over.” “How about…no drinks this time? Ella just answers one more Truth” I yanked my hand free. Glanced at my watch. Ten minutes to midnight. “Fine.” A nasty smirk crossed Kenzie’s face. She whipped out her phone. Tapped on a photo,and shoved the screen in my face. “So,the Wall Street sex scandal from five years ago… just how many guys were really in the pictures?”

Staring at that familiar photo,I couldn’t stop shaking. The nightmare I tried to bury came crashing back. It was the eve of our company’s IPO. At a cutthroat corporate dinner,Julian stepped out to take a call. And someone drugged me. When I realized something was wrong,I smashed my glass. Jabbed the shards into my palm. The blinding pain bought me a few seconds of clarity. I stumbled out of the hall,desperate to find Julian. But a burning heat took over my body. I collapsed in a corner of the hallway. With no other choice,I drove a shard of glass into my wrist. Using the sharp pain to stay conscious,I dragged myself to the restroom. The lock clicked. My heart finally settled. When I woke up,it was the next day. I rushed home. Julian had been going crazy looking for me all night. But before I could explain,the photos dropped. Splashed across every financial and tabloid site. Overnight,it was a media bloodbath. Julian held me tight,whispering in my ear. “Don’t be afraid,Ella.No matter what happens,I’m never leaving you.” I tried to explain that nothing happened that night. But wave after wave of twisted photos crucified me online. Anonymous”insiders”started crawling out of the woodwork. Claiming I was a slut. Saying our company’s bottom line was secured in bed. Some creeps even posed as the guys in the photos, swearing I was the one who threw myself at them. The company drowned in the scandal. Stock prices tanked.Investors pulled out. The IPO was dead in the water.

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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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When I broke with Kane Blackwood,his inner circle all laughed at me. “Let her go,”they laughed. “Elara Vance is nothing without the Alpha. The rogue wolves will tear her apart in days.” They were right. Every path was a dead end. I was starving,exhausted,dodging rogue wolves at every turn. So,I ended up crawling back to that man. Like the sacrificial offering I was,dressed in a sheer silk nightgown,standing before Kane’s estate. Kane stroked my neck. His fingers found my pulse—fragile,frantic—and he chuckled. “Learned your lesson?” I flashed a sweet smile. “I did.” I used to have it all wrong. I actually thought I would be the Luna of the Blackwood Pack. Not anymore. Now,I was just the Alpha’s pet. I craved his protection,his resources—but nothing more.I was done chasing his love. … My legs gave out from weakness. Kane swept me into his arms and carried me to the bath. Holding me close,he turned on the shower with his free hand. Hot water washed down my neck. I leaned against his chest.My eyelids were heavy. I murmured,my voice thick and soft. “Kane?” “Yeah.” “I want to enter the Blood Moon Crown trials.” He stopped washing me. His rough thumb brushed the fresh bite marks on my collarbone. A moment passed in silence.Then,flatly, “Alright.” A smile crept onto my lips. I leaned into his chest gently.”Thank you,my Alpha.”

The next morning,my phone was overheating from all the messages. The internal rules for the Blood Moon Crown. A list of the wolf Elders. Each Elder’s preferences for assessing wolf strength.It was all organized clearly and thoroughly. Even their past combat footage was tagged and sorted. At the very bottom was an image of an antique bronze crest. An Elder’s Endorsement—a fast-pass straight to the finals. I stared at the screen for a long time. Then,almost out of habit,I opened the pack forum. Sure enough. Every single post trashing my bloodline or doubting my strength was wiped clean. Overnight.Even some Elder heirs who had been stirring up trouble were nowhere to be found. Instead,the feed was flooded with a completely new narrative. “Elara Vance is actually insanely gifted.” “Taking down that berserk bear shifter solo?Absolute flex.” “You just can’t hide a truly strong wolf.” I read the praise and almost laughed. When I was on my own,I couldn’t even beg my way into the lowest-tier trials. Now,Kane lifted a single finger,and the absolute best was handed to me on a silver platter. Why the hell was I playing the proud,independent card before? I put my phone down. I showered,changed into my tactical gear,and sat at my workbench. Already polishing my silver dagger,I finally texted him back. 【Thank you,my Alpha.I got the crest.You’re amazing.】 I paused,then added another text. 【Free for a hunt tonight?】 I deliberately softened my tone,adding a touch of sweetness. He didn’t reply. The old me probably would have stared blankly at the screen. I would have agonized over whether he was busy with pack business, or if he just couldn’t be bothered with me. But not anymore. I put my phone face down and went back to studying my tactics. Hours later,shoulders aching,I finally picked up my phone. Sent two hours ago.Just two words. 【Come downstairs.】

I blinked in surprise and quickly replied.【Sorry,I was deep into studying tactics.Didn’t look at my phone.】 His reply was instant. 【Yeah.】 【Come down.】 I walked over to the window. His black Ford Raptor was idling on the street below. The driver’s window was rolled halfway down,revealing his sharp,impassive profile. When he saw me approach,he grabbed a paper bag from the console and handed it through the window. “I was at the Elder council all afternoon. Couldn’t text you back right away.” Inside was a hot,fresh meat pie from my old favorite spot. Back in the day,whenever we got into a fight,Kane was never one for sweet talk or apologies. He would just do his border patrols,swing through town,and pick up a small peace offering. A hot pastry,some sweet candies,or a six-pack of my favorite craft beer. I paused briefly,then smiled slightly.”Well.I know you’re busy.” The cab fell silent for a few seconds. Kane just stared at me. His dark eyes were completely unreadable. Finally,he looked away. “Get in.There’s a pack gathering tonight.” “Okay.” I pulled open the passenger door. As I slid into the seat,I froze. The seat had been pushed way back.It definitely wasn’t in my usual spot. The glove compartment in front of me was cracked open. Resting inside was a silver bracelet. It wasn’t my style. I reached over and picked it up. Kane turned his head.Something shifted in his expression. “That’s—” I had already dropped the bracelet back inside and snapped the compartment shut. My tone was calm. “Probably just something one of your pack members left behind.” I fastened my seatbelt,tilted my head,and gave him a smile.”Let’s go.We shouldn’t keep everyone waiting.” Kane didn’t put the truck in drive. I turned back to look at him.”What is it?” He was staring at me. His eyes were pitch black,his expression steadily turning ice-cold. A few agonizing seconds passed before he finally shifted into gear. His voice came out low and dangerously raspy. “Elara.” “You’re understanding these days.” Dead silence filled the truck. The veins on the back of his hands bulged against the steering wheel. He didn’t say another word.

We reached the valley for the pack gathering. I followed Kane into the clearing. Around the bonfire,a circle of wolves was drinking and chatting.The moment they saw me,the air went silent for a split second. Then,someone let out a laugh. “What did I tell you guys?” Gideon,Kane’s Beta,leaned against a boulder,swirling the liquor in his cup. His tone was dripping with arrogance. “I said Elara would come crawling back the second she hit a wall out there in the real world.” A few others snickered along with him. I stood beside Kane.I just offered a faint smile and didn’t say a word. The old me probably would have thrown my dagger in his direction.I wouldn’t have given a damn about the Alpha’s presence or pack rules. But not anymore. Gideon looked genuinely surprised by my silence. He raised an eyebrow. “Well,look at that.Seems she finally learned how to behave this time.” The second the words left his mouth,Kane’s flat voice cut through the air. “That’s enough.” Gideon clicked his tongue and threw his hands up in mock surrender. “Alright,alright.The Alpha’s getting defensive.My lips are sealed.” Footsteps crunched on the trail leading into the valley. Seraphina Thorne strolled in,her knee-high boots clicking against the stones. Her gaze drifted between me and Kane. “What’s going on?”she asked,her voice silky. “I could hear you guys being loud from all the way down the trail.” Someone chuckled and filled her in. Seraphina listened,looking thoroughly amused.She turned her gaze to me. “Just a harmless joke between packmates.Miss Elara won’t mind,right?” Her tone was light and airy. Exactly the same tone she used the very first time we met. She was the Alpha’s daughter from the neighboring Thorne Pack. Pure-blooded and noble. When she came to visit the Blackwood Pack back then,Kane had personally gone to the border to escort her in. The news blew up across the neighboring packs that very day. The rumors of an”impending mating union between Blackwood and Thorne”were everywhere,felt like daggers to my eyes. I refused to believe it. I went straight to Kane,demanding an explanation. I ended up running right into them as they arrived together at the estate gates. I grabbed Kane’s arm and asked him what the hell was going on. Seraphina,standing right beside him,gave me a dismissive once-over and laughed. “The Alpha’s kept little pet is quite disobedient,isn’t she? Someone needs to teach her a lesson.” I looked up and told her,syllable by syllable, “I am his mate.Not a pet.” But she just treated it like a hilarious joke. She turned to Kane with a smirk. “She says she’s not a pet.” Kane grabbed my wrist. His brows furrowed into a hard frown. “Elara.Behave.Don’t make a scene.” He didn’t say a single word to defend me.Not one. Furious and broken,I told him I was leaving him. He just stared down at me,his face dark. “Don’t regret this,”he said.

Back then,I really did panic. I even second-guessed myself. But that night,I stood just outside the valley. I heard his inner circle laughing with my own ears. “So what if they split? Without the Alpha,what the hell is Elara Vance? Let her go rogue for a few days;she’ll learn how cruel the wilds really are.” Right then and there,any thought of turning back just died. So I packed my things,moved out of his estate,and left cleanly. And the result? It was laughably pathetic. When we were together,I never once used Kane’s power to my advantage. Yet after we split,the neighboring packs were so terrified of offending him that they completely cut off all my options. Hunting grounds were shut down to me. Werewolves at the trading markets deliberately lowballed my goods. Even a spot at a sanctuary I had already secured was ripped away at the last second. I found out later that someone had put the word out: I had offended the Blackwood Pack,and anyone who didn’t want trouble should steer clear of me. After all that struggling,I still ended up crawling back to his side like a beaten dog. Pulling myself out of the memory, I picked up my mug of ale and met Seraphina’s eyes. “I don’t mind.” “As long as everyone’s having a good time.” Seraphina paused. My unnatural calmness actually earned me a second glance from her. Gideon let out a low whistle,looking at Kane. “Alpha,you really tamed her this time.” I just sat there,taking a slow sip of my ale,pretending I didn’t hear a thing. But Kane’s expression was turning pitch black. A second later,he abruptly stood up,snatching his jacket off the boulder. “We’re leaving.” The whole crowd in the valley froze. Gideon blinked in confusion. “Leaving already?” Kane completely ignored him,his hand locking onto my wrist. He dragged me through the woods. My heeled boots stumbled over the thick layer of dead leaves. I couldn’t help but gasp,”Kane,slow down.” He didn’t miss a beat. He dragged me all the way back to the parking lot.Then he finally let go and whirled around to face me.”Elara,are you really tolerate everyone like this?”

I pretended not to understand. Kane stared at me,his eyes a terrifying,fathomless dark. The next second,his hand clamped around the nape of my neck and he crashed his lips onto mine. The kiss was urgent and bruising,dripping with sheer Alpha possessiveness. He forced me backward until my lower back slammed against the car door. A moment later,he pushed me into the backseat. The car door slammed shut with a heavy thud. In the cramped space,the only sound left was his ragged breathing. Like a provoked beast,he bit at my lips,his large hands gripping my waist with a punishing force. Through the relentless motion and close contact,his growl rumbled deep against my ear.”Elara,are you mine?” For a fleeting second,my mind drifted. As a half-blood,I watched my human mother slowly drain her soul over a doomed interracial romance.I knew better than anyone just how treacherous love could be. Back then,I was guarded,prickly,and absolutely refused to hand my heart over to anyone. But Kane stubbornly bulldozed his way into my life. During my years wandering the Southern Territories,I was gravely injured once. On the night of a full moon,I called him in a delirious haze. All I said was,”I miss you.” By the very next afternoon,he had actually flown a helicopter across countless pack borders,touching down in the dirt lot right outside my motel. The wind from the blades whipped my hair around. Standing amidst the deafening roar of the rotors,he lifted his gaze to me—looking like a fierce beast that would never,ever back down. The image of the old Kane gradually merged with the wild man pinning me down,demanding answers. Looking up at him,the corners of my lips suddenly curled. I lifted my arms,wrapping them around his neck,and gave him a sweet,seductive smile. “Of course I’m yours,my Alpha.”

He suddenly stopped moving.Then a wilder,more violent storm blew in. In the following days,my inbox blew up. Pack alliance invites and rare resource lists fell like snow. Ancient weapon blueprints. Reserved seating at the Moonstone Council. Combat journals of legendary Lycans. Things I could never touch before. Sorting through them,I scoffed. Being an Alpha’s pet was so easy. As long as you kept the Master happy,everything came to you. Kane didn’t visit me once. But news of him and Seraphina flooded the pack forums,as they attended the Elder Council together and patrolled the borders.Always side by side. Every pack whispered the same thing:their Mating Ceremony was coming. I played the perfect pet. I didn’t ask a single question. Until one midnight. I woke up groggy. The heavy stench of alcohol hit me. Kane was in my bed. He hugged me from behind,gripping me incredibly tight.His face was buried in my neck. His voice was terribly hoarse. “Elara,let’s have our Mating Ceremony.” I went completely rigid. Silent.Sensing my reaction,his arms tightened. So hard,he almost crushed me into his very bones.

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The morning school resumed after winter break, my stepmother, Donna, pressed a dented case of off-brand protein shakes into my duffel bag. “Take these. Drink them at school.” They were the ones people brought as hostess gifts over the holidays — the kind nobody actually wanted. They’d been sitting in the pantry for weeks. Dad was leaning in the doorway, arms crossed. “I’m not sending you money this semester. You worked that winter job, didn’t you? Made two thousand, right? That’s five hundred a month — four months, perfect.” “You’re eighteen now. Time to learn what independence looks like.” My hands went still inside the duffel bag, hovering over nothing. Across the room, my half-sister Madison was glued to her phone. Suddenly she shrieked with excitement. “Yes! I got the floor seats! Dad, I need you to book the flights — and I want to stay at a five-star hotel!” Dad pulled her into a hug and agreed to everything before she’d even finished the sentence. Donna glanced at me from the corner of her eye. The diamond studs in her ears caught the light. The three of them huddled together, laughing, scrolling through hotel options on Dad’s phone. I had watched this kind of warmth directed at everyone else in this house for ten years. It still knocked the air out of me every time. My phone buzzed. A text from my bank. 【Chase Bank: Dear Ms. Rachel Holt, your Certificate of Deposit ending in 1234 has matured. Principal: $800,000. To renew, reply 1.】 A certificate of deposit? I counted the zeros twice. Eight hundred thousand dollars. I assumed it was a phishing scam. I didn’t reply. “Dad.” I kept my voice flat. “I earned that two thousand to finally get this mole removed.” I touched the corner of my mouth — a raised, dark mole, nearly the size of a pea, that had been drawing stares my whole life. Dad, Gary Holt, squinted at it with undisguised contempt. “College and suddenly you think you’re a socialite. Stop wasting money chasing vanity.” “Just like your mother. Born under a bad sign.” Donna — Linda Holt — wore a thick layer of foundation and batted her false lashes. “Oh, sweetheart, once you graduate, I’ll personally take you to get that taken care of.” That was the promise on rotation. After middle school. After high school. After you start college. Now: after you graduate. The mole had only gotten larger. The deadline kept moving. I’d already called a dermatologist before break. Two thousand dollars. Gone now. The entire winter holiday I hadn’t taken a single day off, working doubles at a fried chicken shack — on my feet from open to close, grease burns freckling my forearms. I looked at Madison humming to herself as she swiped through the concert seating chart. Something tightened in my chest. “Dad, you dropped two grand on her floor seats without blinking. You won’t give me five hundred a month for groceries. And I’m your biological daughter.” Dad’s face went red. “Watch your mouth with me.” “Fine. Your mother has been dead for ten years. You want the truth? Here it is.” “Madison is my daughter — mine and Linda’s.” Donna turned her face to the wall. Said nothing. Mom died ten years ago. I’m eighteen. Madison is fourteen. Dad started sleeping with Linda when I was four years old. Back then, Mom was still healthy. She was the top accountant at her firm — brilliant, always busy. She spent long days at the office, sometimes never making it home for dinner. I remember the look on her face during those years. A kind of grief she couldn’t quite wash off. But every time she saw me, she’d erase it. She’d pull me close and smile like I was the only good thing left. When I was seven, she got sick. She spent a year in the hospital. Near the end, Dad held her hand by the bedside. “Susan, are there any savings in your name? You’re leaving, but the rest of us still have to live.” Mom’s cheeks were hollowed out. She was colorless. She asked him to lean in closer. Then she spat in his face. Dad had carried a grudge against her ever since. I reached into my duffel bag and yanked out the protein shakes. Set them on the floor. Linda’s expression tightened, but she kept it hidden under a thin smile. Dad clamped his hand over mine. “Linda went out of her way to get those for you. Show some gratitude.” “She specifically asked us not to drink them — she saved every last one for you.” I pulled away. He grabbed my arm. A sharp, searing pain shot up to my shoulder. The burn blisters from the fryer were still healing, still weeping under the skin. Tears blurred my vision. “Saved them for me, or just didn’t want them for anyone else?” “If they’re such a gift — keep them for Madison.” The slap came fast. It wasn’t the first time. I pressed my fingers to my cheek and looked at him — forty-five years old, breathing hard, eyes burning. For ten years, I had waited for him to love me differently. He was my father. I was his blood. I waited ten years. Nothing changed. Now I understood why. I lowered my head and went back to packing. School started soon. I just had to leave. But I thought of the mole, and something in me went dull and aching again. I was so tired of watching people’s eyes catch on it. If only I had the money. If only.

I zipped the duffel bag and retreated to my room. First thing: turn on the light. My room had no window. Without the light, it was a cave. There were five bedrooms in this house. Dad and Linda had the master suite. Madison’s room was right next door — painted lilac, with a gallery wall of her favorite artists. The remaining three rooms: Dad’s tea and whiskey lounge, Linda’s walk-in closet, and a dedicated fan merchandise room for Madison’s celebrity obsession. I lived in the storage room under the stairs. I hadn’t even been worth a north-facing bedroom. Linda nudged the door open a crack. “Rachel, honey, I washed some grapes for you. Come have some.” The cluster she held out had dry, shriveled stems. The skin was puckering. I’d seen Madison pick one off earlier, chew it, and spit it into the trash. “Ugh. Sour. Disgusting.” What Madison wanted, I never got a taste of. What Madison rejected, Linda packaged up for me with a smile. Mom had been gone one month when Dad brought Linda into the house. He told me to call her Mom. I couldn’t make the word come out. Linda set the grapes on my nightstand, then dipped into her pocket and produced two hundred dollars. “Here, Rachel. I don’t have a lot on me right now, but take this — for when you get to campus.” Her nails were freshly done. A deep, aggressive red. I stared at her. “Drop the act.” Dad appeared behind her and snatched the money. “See what coddling her gets you? She’s completely insufferable.” “From this point on, she gets nothing from this house. Not one cent. Let’s see how that mouth of hers does without our support.” He threw the grapes on the floor and ground them under his shoe. “And she’s not eating tonight. One day without food. Maybe she’ll reflect on what she has.” “She needs to understand who runs this house.” In high school, my monthly allowance was three hundred dollars. When I started college, it went up to five hundred. My first month of freshman year, I spent nearly all of it on the cheapest train ticket I could find — a hard seat, eight hours each way. I arrived on campus with three hundred and eighty dollars left. By the last week of that month, I was surviving on discount bread and canned beans. When I called Dad to ask for next month’s money, he tore into me before I could finish the sentence. “Already? It’s been barely three weeks. Do you think I’m an ATM?” “I work myself half to death and you’re up there living it up at my expense.” “Keep spending like this and you can forget about school. Go find a factory job.” He wired the five hundred dollars two weeks later. I slid Mom’s photo out from under my mattress. Stared at it until my eyes blurred. If she were still here. The smell of dinner drifted under my door. Madison’s voice carried from the kitchen. “Oh my god, Mom, you made so much! This is amazing!” Nobody called me. My stomach felt like it was folding in on itself. I used to go hungry so often that my stomach had developed a Pavlovian response — any sign of an empty afternoon and the cramping would start. Madison’s voice again, bright and easy. “Mom, your ribs are literally my favorite thing in the entire world. You’re the best.” Linda’s voice, warm and unhurried: “Eat as much as you want.” I crouched on the floor and made myself as small as possible, trying to wait out the pain. My phone rang. The bank. “Hello, is this Rachel Holt? A Certificate of Deposit opened ten years ago in your name has matured. Would you like to roll it over or withdraw?” “I think you have the wrong person. I don’t have a savings account like that. Ten years ago I was eight.” “Ten years ago, a Ms. Susan Holt deposited $800,000 into an account registered in your name.” “Can I ask — what is your relationship to Susan Holt?” Susan Holt. My mother. I pressed the phone tight against my ear and lowered my voice to barely a whisper. “Can I take the money out?”

I tucked Mom’s photo inside my jacket, grabbed my ID, and walked out the door. Linda looked up and nudged Dad. “Don’t stay angry at the kid. She lost her mother young — it makes a person difficult. That’s all.” “Rachel, come eat with us. The food’s getting cold.” I looked at the picked-over dishes on the table — the scraps and bones that remained — and gave her a smile that said everything. “What exactly am I supposed to eat?” Dad was already at the sideboard, arranging his whiskey glasses, satisfied and full. “There’s plenty left. Ungrateful to your core. And when you’re done eating, wash the dishes and wipe down the table.” I turned and walked out. Behind me, Dad’s voice rose. “She’s completely out of control. If she’s got so much nerve, she can walk out that door and never come back.” Then Linda’s voice, measured and smooth. “Where do you think she’s going? Maybe follow her, just in case. Kids this age can be so fragile. If she does something rash — ” “Good riddance. She’s an adult. I don’t owe her a thing.” I walked faster until their voices fell away entirely. The bank branch was fifteen minutes on foot. The teller who received me was cheerful and professional. She laid it out clearly: the principal was eight hundred thousand dollars. Ten years of compounding interest added approximately one hundred and twenty-eight thousand. My account — the one ending in 1234 — currently held nine hundred and twenty-eight thousand dollars. I stood at the window and couldn’t speak. She slid a sealed envelope across the counter. “Ms. Susan Holt stored this with us ten years ago. She asked that it be given to you when the account matured.” My hands were shaking. Inside: a letter, a key, and a property deed. I unfolded the letter. The paper had gone soft and yellow at the edges. *To my Rachel at eighteen — are you doing okay?* *I’m so sorry I couldn’t be there to watch you grow up.* *Before I go, you are the only thing I cannot let go of.* *The money in this account, and the apartment that goes with this deed — these are your eighteenth birthday gifts from me.* *If life has been kind to you, then this is just something extra, a little more sunshine. If life has been hard — don’t be afraid. I’m still here, standing behind you.* *About your father — I think you already know. I won’t say more.* *Loving you always,* *Mom* *2016* Those few short lines. I read them again and again until the paper was wet. She knew. She had always known about Dad and Linda. Ten years later, standing in this bank, I finally understood the grief that never left her face. Why she refused to tell Dad what she had saved. Why, with the last strength she had, she spat at the man holding her hand. She had known everything. And she had spent the time she had left making sure I would be alright. I folded the letter and pressed it inside my jacket, next to her photo. I stared at the balance on the screen. Nine hundred and twenty-eight thousand dollars. I thought about Dad — the way he’d turned the house upside down after the funeral looking for anything she might have left. How he’d found nothing and decided she must have hidden it from him out of spite. How he’d convinced himself she was reckless with money, or worse. How he’d punished me for it for ten years. The healed-over burn blisters on my arm itched. I pressed my fingernails against them. Then I made a fist. This money was hers, and she gave it to me. No one was going to touch it.

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I was born cursed. Whatever terrible thing I spoke aloud—it came true. To protect Cole, I spent three years in silence, swallowing every word that climbed up my throat. But he always came to me in the dead of night, pressing me to speak—begging me to curse him. “Just say I’ll get hit by a car,” he’d whisper. “Say the company’s going under.” And when I finally broke—when I screamed every ugly curse I had—he kissed the tears off my face with something that looked so much like love. I thought he was holding space for the darkest part of me. Until the words appeared, floating in the air above his head like closed captions scrolling across a screen: [Cole’s performance is FLAWLESS. Using the law of conservation, he transfers Zoe’s curses onto himself—only for the disaster to rebound entirely onto Zoe, canceling out Iris’s death flag!] [Poor stand-in. She’s about to take the hit for the multi-car pileup that was meant for the female lead!] The love in my throat curdled into something iron and sweet. No wonder every curse I spoke landed on me instead of him. The system prompt appeared in my peripheral vision: Death flag countdown: 3 days. To survive: strike back. Now. Cole was watching me, expectant and soft-eyed. “Come on. One more. Tell me you wish I were dead.” I smiled. My eyes went cold. “Cole.” I said his name like a door clicking shut. “Since you want to hear it so badly.” “Then I wish you a long life. And the loneliness to match.” … He blinked. Then he laughed—fond and exasperated—and dragged his thumb across the tip of my nose. “Zoe. What kind of curse is that?” “Long life is a gift. And lonely?” He pulled me against his chest, his chin resting on my forehead. “As long as you’re here, how could I ever be lonely?” The gesture was so practiced it made my ribs ache. I almost believed him again—until the next line appeared, bold and blood-red: [LMAO, he thinks that was a joke. She meant every word. He’s reading sincerity as flirting!] [MOVE IT. The female lead’s death flag just spiked! We need a nastier curse—NOW!] [Hold steady, Cole! One more round. Get her to curse a car accident tonight, and Iris’s flight lands safe tomorrow!] I went rigid. My fingernails pressed crescents into my palms. So that’s what it was. Three years of silence—and to him, I was just a battery. Something to charge. Every late-night coaxing. Every “just say it, baby.” All of it was fuel he was feeding to another woman’s fire. “You’re shaking,” he said. His hand moved to my back, slow and warm. “Did I scare you?” “Don’t be scared, Zoe.” He kissed the top of my head. “Just say the words. The bad energy leaves with them. I stay safe. That’s all.” “Just one more sentence.” “Say I’ll get in a wreck. Say I won’t make it out.” He cupped my face. His eyes were full of something that should have been love. But underneath—urgency. A clock ticking. He was waiting for me to load Iris Langford’s death onto my own back. The iron taste in my throat got worse. The system’s countdown detonated somewhere behind my eyes: Death flag countdown: 2 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes. Host’s vitals in critical decline. Strike back immediately. Strike back? I looked at the face I had loved for five years. God, it was disgusting. I opened my mouth. My voice came out raw. “Cole.” He lit up. “Yeah?” “Since you want it so much—” I pulled my lips into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “I wish you a love that lives across an ocean. One that can never close the distance.” “I wish you betrayal. Ruin. A name no one respects.” “I wish you the permanent loss of everything you love.” Cole’s smile froze. The script overhead went berserk: [What the—why is she going off-script?] [That curse… something’s wrong with it.] [Whatever, bad words are bad words! Law of conservation: ACTIVATED!] The air thickened. Cole’s expression flickered—irritation, then the mask slipping back into place. He exhaled like someone tolerating a difficult child. “Zoe. Stop messing around.” “That kind of curse doesn’t work. It’s too vague.” “I need specifics.” He gripped my shoulders hard. “Say I’ll bleed. Say I’ll break a leg. Say it.” I wanted to. But I was already paying. The moment those curses left my mouth, the rebound hit—a fist closing around my heart, darkness crowding the edges of my vision. “Cole—” I folded into him, and a mouthful of blood bloomed red across his white shirt. Vivid. Impossible to look away from. Cole’s pupils blew wide. Not from grief. The script confirmed it: [YES! She’s bleeding! Rebound complete!] [Female lead’s flight hit turbulence—but she’s through it! The stand-in just bought her safe landing with a mouthful of blood!] Cole caught me, his voice tight with urgency. “Zoe! What happened—call an ambulance!” Panic written all over his face. But the arms holding me—steady as stone. Not a tremor. And his eyes kept drifting down to his watch. Calculating the minutes until Iris’s wheels touched ground.

I woke up alone in a hospital room. The only company was the system panel hovering at eye level: Strike back progress: 5%. Death flag countdown: 2 days, 20 hours. I stared at the ceiling and let myself remember how it started. Three years ago, I first understood what I was. I’d muttered “that project of Cole’s is going to tank”—and the next morning his firm was raided and shuttered. I’d said “that streetlight looks like it’s about to fall”—and a second later it collapsed on top of him, putting him in the ICU. So I went quiet. For him. Three years of swallowing every word. He held me and said, “It’s okay, Zoe. I don’t blame you.” I thought it was grace. It was grooming. He was fattening the lamb. The door opened. Cole walked in carrying a thermos, looking hollow-eyed and raw. “You’re up.” He crossed to the bed fast, shadows under his eyes, voice scraped thin. “You scared me. Doctor says it was acute stress—sudden hemorrhage.” “Why did you just start bleeding like that?” He filled a small bowl from the thermos and held it to my lips. “Here. Eat something.” I turned my head away. “Still upset with me?” He set the bowl down, patient as ever, and took my hand—the one without the IV. His voice turned careful, sincere. “Zoe. This was therapy. The doctor said the only way to break a psychological block is to face it—say the thing you’re afraid of saying.” “I was doing this for you.” Right. For me. If I hadn’t seen the script, I’d already be crying. [This man deserves an Oscar and a restraining order.] [“Therapy.” Sure. It’s called energy transfer, but okay!] [Something just went wrong on the female lead’s end—Cole’s here to refuel. Classic move.] His phone buzzed. One glance at the screen and something shifted in his face. His grip on my hand tightened. Eyes sharpening. “Zoe—can you do one more thing for me?” I said nothing. “The new development site. There might be an issue.” He frowned like a man carrying a great weight. “If something goes wrong, I’m finished. Everything gone.” “Just say the building’s going to collapse. Say it, and it won’t. Negative times negative.” He watched me hopefully. I almost laughed. When had I never noticed how full of holes his logic was? If negatives cancelled out, why did every curse I spoke land on me? “Cole.” I pulled my hand back. My voice came out flat and dry. “I’m tired.” “I’m done talking.” He went still. Like the version of me that had always said yes was a person he hadn’t prepared for losing. “Zoe.” The warmth drained from his tone. “Don’t be difficult.” “Think about the workers. Dozens of them. Their families.” “Could you really live with yourself if something happened to them?” There it was. The move he always fell back on. Old me would have caved—stammered a curse through the guilt, bled for it, called it love. But I had seen the script: [Iris just arrived at the construction site! CURSE IT NOW—a steel beam is about to go!] Right. Not workers. Not lives at stake. Iris Langford had decided to take a site visit. I leaned back against the pillow and closed my eyes. “If it’s going to fall, stop building it.” “You—” Cole shot to his feet. The chair scraped back like a slap. “You’ve changed, Zoe.” He looked down at me from above, and all the patience had gone out of his voice. “You used to be reasonable.” You used to be easy to manipulate, he meant. “My throat hurts,” I said. “I can’t talk.” Cole breathed in sharply, reining himself in. Then the script flashed red: [DANGER. Beam’s loose! Ten seconds!] [Male lead—FORCE IT. Now!] He lunged forward and grabbed my jaw. His fingers bit in hard enough to bruise. “Say it.” His eyes had gone somewhere far and wild. “Say the building falls! Say it right now!” “Zoe. Don’t make me hate you.”

My jaw felt like it was being crushed. I stared up at the stranger wearing Cole’s face. Five years. This is who I loved for five years. For another woman, he didn’t hesitate for a second. “…” A sound clawed its way out of me. Cole eased his grip slightly, a flicker of hope crossing his face. “Good. Say it. Once you do, it’s over. We’re both fine.” I looked at him. At the countdown flickering above his head. [5. 4. 3…] “Cole.” I exhaled. “I wish your building…” Cole held his breath. “…stands forever. Strong as bedrock. Never falls.” His face collapsed. The script erupted: [WHAT?! A reverse blessing?!] [Wait—she’s cursed, not blessed. Good words from her mouth mean NOTHING—] [Oh no. Oh no no no. The female lead has no buffer now. The beam is actually dropping!] Cole let go of me and scrambled for his phone. It was already ringing before he got it out. His hands shook as he answered. “Iris? You okay?! Are you hurt—” From the speaker: chaos. Shouting. A siren starting up somewhere. “Cole…” Her voice was small and trembling, the voice of someone who had just been grazed by something enormous. “I’m so scared… a beam just came down… it missed me by inches…” Cole’s knees nearly buckled. “You’re okay. You’re okay, you’re okay—” He kept repeating it, half prayer, half unraveling. I watched him from the bed with cold clarity. My reverse blessing hadn’t shielded her. But it had disrupted the equation. Without a genuine curse to feed the transfer, Iris’s plot armor couldn’t hold. She’d gotten lucky. Just lucky. Cole ended the call and turned to me. The look on his face was terrifying. “You did that on purpose.” He moved toward the bed slowly. “Do you have any idea how close she came? One centimeter, Zoe. One centimeter and her face—” “That was an accident,” I said. “Accident?” He laughed—a short, ugly sound—and reached out and ripped the IV from my arm. Blood welled at the needle site. I winced but kept my expression flat. “Since you won’t curse anything,” he said, pulling me off the bed by the wrist, “you’re coming to the site. You can look those workers in the eye.” “You can watch what your silence almost cost.” “Cole. I’m still a patient—” “You’ll live.” He cut me off, already dragging me toward the door. “Compared to what Iris went through, you’re fine.” The script drifted past in a stream: [Is he serious? She literally vomited blood an hour ago!] [Poor female lead, that must have been terrifying. The stand-in is so cruel, refusing to help.] [Excuse me?? No one OWES the female lead their body—] [The last one needs to sit down. The stand-in is literally a tool. Tools don’t get opinions.] I was shoved into the car. Cole put his foot down. The speedometer climbed. My stomach rolled. I pressed my hand to my mouth and held on. The system’s voice came through thin and fraying: Vitals at 30%. Host. If you don’t fight back, you will die in this car. I looked at Cole’s white-knuckled grip on the wheel. Then I looked out the window at the blur of traffic beside us. Fine. “Cole,” I said quietly. “Slow down.” “Or—” I caught his eyes in the rearview mirror. “We’re going to crash.”

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On Halloween’ Day, Callum slid a divorce agreement across the table to me. “Your two ex-husbands called to pick a fight with me yesterday,” he said. “They told me you’re too uptight. That you can’t take a Halloween’ joke. That you’d never have the guts to sign a divorce agreement.” I’d been married twice before. Before Callum and I got together, I’d explained it to him directly: “The first time I got married, it was to help my childhood friend Sebastian secure his inheritance rights.” “The second time was to help Dominic, someone I’d trust with my life, get out of an arranged marriage.” “Both times, I walked away clean. No love lost, no grudges held. If that’s something you can’t live with, then we—” He’d grabbed my hand, eyes red, and cut me off. “I believe you. All of it. We don’t need to talk about the past anymore. But from now on — I’m the only one who gets a place in your eyes.” After we registered our marriage, he and my two ex-husbands were at each other’s throats constantly — yet with me, he was always gentle and attentive. I thought I’d finally married the right man. Then came the day I returned early from a business trip. I heard him in the living room, talking easily with Sebastian and Dominic — three men who supposedly despised each other: “Divorce is old news to her. She’s done it twice already.” “Hand her the agreement right on Halloween’ Day!” “Afterwards, just come back and tell her it was a joke. Easy.” “Vivienne’s wedding is next week. We made that promise back in senior year — her bachelorette night, all of us had to be single.” I stood outside the door and heard every word. So when Callum came to me with the divorce agreement, I simply took the pen and signed without a word. By the time Callum came looking for me again, I was six months pregnant. “You were right,” I told him. “I’m too uptight.” “So I took your Halloween’ joke at face value.” … I’d sat in the café across from our building for a full hour. Only after they’d all left did I go back home. When I walked in, Callum put down his phone and came to take my bags. “Why didn’t you let me know you were coming back? I would have picked you up.” He took my suitcase with one hand, and the other naturally settled around my waist. Warm. Attentive. Exactly the same as always. “Have you eaten?” “Yes.” He nodded, then seemed to remember something. “Actually, there’s something I need to talk to you about.” I set down my things and turned to look at him. He sighed and pushed the document across to me. “The company’s hit a snag. The lawyers recommended we do a formal asset separation. That means going through divorce proceedings — just on paper.” I looked down. A divorce agreement. He’d had it ready and waiting. “Once things blow over, we’ll remarry.” He held my hand, his voice sincere. “A few months at most.” I was quiet for a moment. “I know this is sudden,” he said, squeezing my palm, lowering his voice with a trace of indignation. “But Sebastian and Dominic called earlier. They were making digs at me — saying you used to do anything for them without question, but apparently I don’t get the same treatment.” “They also said a woman who’s been divorced twice wouldn’t dare go through a third one. That you couldn’t handle it.” “I’ve already figured it out — tomorrow is Halloween’ Day. We’ll go then. Then we wave the certificate in their faces, scare them half to death, show them they’ll never look down on you again.” “It’s Halloween’, after all. Anything can be written off as a joke. Once the company situation settles down, we’ll re-register properly. No one will say a word.” He looked at me, something between wounded pride and quiet hope in his eyes. “You’re not going to let them look down on me, are you?” I looked at those eyes for a long time. Those eyes that looked so sincere, so devoted — eyes that had just been clinking glasses with those two men, saying “she won’t make a scene.” “Of course not.” I gave him what he wanted. He visibly exhaled — then quickly masked it with a look of pleasant surprise. “Get some rest. Tomorrow’s the end of the month — after we sign, we’ll go—” I took the pen, turned to the last page, and signed. “Call them,” I said, setting down the pen with a smile. “Tell them to stop talking.” Callum blinked. He clearly hadn’t expected me to be so easy about it. He smiled, tucked away the agreement, leaned over and kissed me. “Best wife in the world.” I let him. My heart was as still as standing water. He took the agreement to the study to make his call. His voice was low, but with only a door between us, I still heard it. “She signed.” Sebastian’s voice came through faintly from the other end: “Told you. Jo’s so easy to handle.” “Good. Keep Vivienne happy on your end. I’ll wrap up here and be over soon.” I sat in the room for a long time. My phone buzzed. A message from Dominic: [Haven’t seen you in ages. Want to get together?] I stared at it for a long time. Once, I would have replied “sure.” Would have thought carefully about what to wear, how to do my makeup. Would have thought about how to protect Callum’s dignity in front of them, to show them my marriage was a good one. To make sure they wouldn’t pick fights with him. After all — one side was the friend I’d grown up with my whole life, the other was the husband I loved. Both were people who mattered deeply to me. I’d never wanted them to be enemies for the rest of their lives. But now, I couldn’t even be bothered to reply. I flipped my phone face-down on the coffee table and went to the balcony to take in the laundry. As I passed the study, Callum was still on the phone. His voice was low, but carrying a kind of ease I had never heard from him before. The ease of a man who no longer had to perform. No longer had to pretend. I suddenly realized — in all the time we’d been together, he’d never spoken like that with me. The wind on the balcony was strong. I took the clothes down from the rack one by one, folded them, placed them in the basket. When I took down the last piece, my phone lit up again. This time it was Sebastian: [Heard you’re getting a divorce again?] [Callum’s a piece of work. He never deserved you. Don’t be sad.] [Grandpa Quinn’s eightieth birthday banquet is in a few days. Dominic and I will be there to celebrate — let’s catch up properly!] I let out a quiet laugh. How touching. As if he hadn’t been the one in the living room helping to plot the whole thing. I pressed the power button and dropped my phone into my pocket. I suddenly wanted to know what kind of person Vivienne was. That she was worth all three of them going to such lengths to keep a promise. That she was worth all three of them treating me — so casually — as a means to an end. But then I thought again. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter anymore. I picked up the laundry basket and turned back toward the house. I didn’t pause as I passed the study. Warm amber light spilled through the crack in the door. This light. This home. This man. Starting tomorrow, none of it had anything to do with me.

I’d barely set the laundry basket down when the doorbell rang. I went to answer it, but Callum got there first. The person standing outside had a flush across her face — she’d clearly had a lot to drink. She saw Callum and smiled. “I knew you’d still be up.” Callum instinctively glanced back at me, then dropped his voice. “What are you doing here?” She didn’t answer. She swayed her way inside. Not until she spotted me standing in the living room did she stop, a flicker of surprise crossing her face. “Oh — you’re home too, Jo.” Sebastian caught her from behind and shot me an apologetic look. “Jo, she’s had too much. We were walking her home and she insisted on stopping by here.” Dominic stood in the doorway, his expression a little stiff. He glanced at me once, then his gaze moved to Callum, his voice turning sharp: “Callum, your wife is standing right there. Don’t you have any sense of decency?” Callum stiffened, then frowned. “You get her this drunk and dump her at my door, and I’m the one who needs to watch my behavior?” “I got her drunk? You’re the one who posted that you were ‘back on the market’ on your social media!” Dominic gave a cold laugh and stepped aside. “Fine — you’re above it all. She’s here. She’s your problem.” The two of them stood on opposite sides of the entryway. The air between them had frozen solid. Sebastian was caught in the middle, clearing his throat awkwardly. “Alright, alright, let’s not fight — Vivienne just wanted to drop by on the way—” I stood in the center of the living room and watched the whole performance from start to finish. They were far too coordinated for enemies. If I hadn’t heard the sound of their glasses clinking with my own ears, I might have believed their supposed hatred for each other. For so long, I’d thought what I had with Sebastian and Dominic was the kind of bond nothing could crack. At my most loyal, I’d even married both of them. My parents had died young. Grandpa was busy. It was the two of them who had filled every corner of my childhood and teenage years. Every hard moment — Sebastian was always there. Dominic once stepped between me and a trafficker’s knife. To me, they were closer than family. But when had our iron triangle become this? Probably when we started senior year. When Vivienne appeared. A new circle formed outside mine. Slowly, I became the leftover piece — only thought of when someone needed a favor. I pulled my gaze away from them. Some cracks didn’t start today. I’d just chosen, today, to finally see them. “You’ve all come at just the right time,” I said. “There’s something I’d like you to witness in person.”

I walked to the coffee table and picked up the divorce agreement. “Two copies — I’ve already signed both. Since everyone’s here, let’s make it official.” Callum’s expression shifted slightly, but he recovered quickly. I was the one bringing up the divorce, in front of Sebastian and Dominic. In his mind, I was proving how far I’d go for him. A trace of smugness crossed his eyes. “Jo,” he said, stepping toward me, his tone soothing. “We can handle this privately, no need to—” “Since the agreement’s already out,” Vivienne said suddenly, “can I ask — when are you moving out?” The living room went quiet for a beat. Callum frowned. Vivienne ignored him, looking only at me, her expression perfectly innocent: “This apartment is in my name. You can’t exactly stay here forever, can you?” I went still. The apartment. In her name. I looked instinctively at Callum. He avoided my gaze, his throat moving once. He said nothing. In that moment, image after image crashed through my mind. The day we moved in, him holding my hand, saying “this is our home.” When he bought the place, saying “I’ll handle all the paperwork, don’t worry about it.” Me, happily choosing curtains and sofas and the dining table… Every piece of furniture in this apartment — I’d made trip after trip to the home goods store to pick it out. Every corner of this place, decorated to his taste… I’d never cared whose name was on the deed. But I had never imagined that the home I shared with my husband would be registered under another woman’s name. I looked down at the agreement in my hands. I let out a quiet breath of laughter. “I’ll go now.” “Jo…” Callum stepped forward. “Civil registry office. Nine o’clock tomorrow morning.” I didn’t look back. I grabbed my suitcase, walked to the door, changed my shoes, pulled it open — one clean motion. The hallway lights blinked on and off. Waiting for the elevator, I could still hear the sounds drifting through the door: “She’s even more cooperative than when I had to beg her to marry me!” Laughter mixed with chatter, muffled behind the door like something from a stranger’s life. I stood at the elevator, listening to this story I no longer recognized. The person in the mirror looked calmer than I expected. It wasn’t until I was in the cab that my phone buzzed. A message from Callum: [About the apartment — I’ll explain…] [Be good. Find somewhere to stay for now. I’ll come get you in a few days.] I stared at the screen for a few seconds, then turned it face-down on my lap. Outside the window, streetlamps retreated one by one. Come get me in a few days. As if I’d just stepped out to buy groceries and would be back in a moment. I leaned back against the seat and closed my eyes. Don’t bother, Callum. You don’t need to come.

The next morning at nine. Civil registry office. When I arrived, Callum was already waiting outside. He was leaning against the car door. When he saw me get out of the cab, he stubbed out his cigarette and walked over. “Where did you go last night?” “Grandpa’s.” He nodded. His eyes rested on my face for a moment. He reached out to touch my hair — I turned my head away. His hand stopped mid-air, held there for one second, then fell back to his side. “Jo,” he said, lowering his voice with a measured kind of certainty. “I know you saved face for me in front of Sebastian and Dominic last night. I appreciate that.” “As for the apartment…” He paused. “Vivienne needed to establish residency in the city, and she needed a property registered in her name. I figured it was just a technicality. You’ve never been the type to worry about those things — that’s why I didn’t mention it.” I looked at him and said nothing. I’m not the type to worry about those things? He gave our marital home to another woman. And dismissed it with “you have money, you wouldn’t care”? He didn’t think I wouldn’t care. He simply didn’t care whether I cared. “In any case — you still have the right to live there!” “After the divorce, stay somewhere else for a while,” he continued, already arranging things. “Once I’ve sorted everything out on my end, I’ll bring you back.” I almost laughed. Even now, he thought this was all still part of the performance. That I was playing along. “Let’s go,” I said, not taking his words. I turned and walked toward the building. “Time to process the paperwork.” He followed, his steps quick. The procedure was faster than I expected. Signatures. Fingerprints. Photographs. The officer brought down the stamp with a clean, final sound. The divorce certificate sat in my hands — a thin little booklet, not much different from the marriage certificate. Just a different color. Callum glanced down at his phone, a small frown crossing his face. “I need to take a call,” he said. “Wait here — I’ll walk you back after.” He stepped a short distance away and answered. His voice was low, but two words still drifted across: “Vivienne…” I stood where I was and watched his back. He hung up and came back quickly, looking hurried. “Something’s come up. Head back on your own — I’ll reach out later.” After he walked out the main doors, I turned slowly and headed toward the other end of the hall — the window for marriage registration. … By the time Callum walked out of the civil registry office, the sun had already climbed high in the sky. He looked at the divorce certificate in his hand, then checked his phone — Oct 31st. Halloween’ Day. Right. Today. The tension he’d been carrying loosened just a little. His phone rang — a client call. They talked for almost ten minutes. When he hung up, he glanced back at the registry office entrance. Why wasn’t Jo out yet? He hesitated, then turned to walk back. He wanted to say a few more words to her — at least lock in a timeline for remarrying, so she wouldn’t spiral into overthinking. He hadn’t taken two steps before he walked straight into a man pushing through the doors. The other man dropped everything he was holding. Callum’s divorce certificate slipped from his hand too. “Sorry.” He spoke first, bending down to collect them. Two certificates lay side by side on the ground — his divorce certificate, and the other man’s marriage certificate. A gust of wind caught the cover of the marriage certificate, flipping it open halfway, exposing the corner of a photograph. Callum’s hand went still. “It’s fine.” The other man picked up the marriage certificate before he could, his voice even. Callum looked up. The man was wearing a dark gray overcoat. Tall, composed, expression perfectly neutral. “Congratulations,” Callum said, a casual pleasantry. “Getting married today.” The man glanced at the divorce certificate in Callum’s hand. His tone was equally even: “Congratulations to you as well.” Callum blinked, not quite catching the meaning. The man had already tucked the marriage certificate into his inner pocket. His gaze passed over Callum’s face without lingering, and he turned and walked away. Callum stared after him, the thought growing heavier in his mind — today was Halloween’ Day. Who gets married on Halloween’ Day? And this man’s voice, this man’s build — he was certain he’d seen him somewhere before. “Wait—!”

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I had just completed the mate-bonding ceremony with Caden Voss, the future Alpha, the most coveted male in the pack, when my adopted sister Rena drove her car straight into me. The impact shattered my ovaries. The pack’s finest healer, my own mother, Dr. Elena Ashton, said both were beyond saving. They had to be fully removed. Caden’s howl of anguish shook the hospital walls. “It doesn’t matter! I just need my mate alive!” Mom and my brother Eli stood red-eyed, gripping my hands. “Easy now. Close your eyes. We have the best healers, the strongest herbs. Sleep, and the pain will pass.” In my most broken moment, I was grateful that everyone I loved was by my side. Then the anesthesia began to pull me under, and through the gap in the door, I heard them talking in the hall. Mom’s voice carried a thin edge of excitement. “Mara is healthy. Compatible blood type, right age. While we have her under, we take her heart and transplant it into Rena.” Dad, the pack’s Beta, agreed without a pause. “I’ve already had the security footage of Rena’s car deleted. Mara won’t ever know.” Eli’s voice, smooth and clinical. “I’ll synthesize a compound. Even with a damaged heart, Mara won’t suffer visibly.” A moment of silence. Then Caden’s voice — and the relief in it turned my blood to ice. “Rena loves to run, loves to travel. She needs a strong heart. As for Mara… we’ll make it up to her someday. I’ll go sign the surgical consent forms now.” I felt myself falling — not into sleep, but into a void with no floor. My heart ached as though the blade had already found it. 【System Alert: Host — your Cannon Fodder task has been completed. Heartbreak index has reached 100%. Do you wish to return to your original world immediately?】 I laughed. And then I wept. Their love — every tender look, every careful touch — I didn’t want any of it anymore. … I fought to roll off the surgical table. A nurse shoved a breathing tube down my throat and flooded my veins with sedative. As consciousness collapsed, I glimpsed Rena being wheeled in through the doors. Mom raised her scalpel and murmured to the nurses with calm precision. “Don’t bother stabilizing Mara’s ovaries damage. Extract the heart first. Rena’s transplant takes priority.” I felt the blade part my chest layer by layer, and in the last seconds before the dark swallowed me whole, Mom’s voice drifted in, soft and tender. “Hold on a little longer, baby girl. When you wake up, you’ll be able to run again. Run as far as you want.” She was talking to Rena. … When awareness flickered back, I confirmed everything with the system at once. 【Only if the host body dies: automatic return to the original world. Your congenital heart defect will be fully healed. One hundred million in bounty will be deposited to your linked account. Confirmed.】 How laughable. I had been so relieved that even after years lost to a rival pack’s captivity, I hadn’t lost my family’s love. That Caden had searched for me, proposed the moment I returned. And all along, they only kept me breathing because they needed my heart. I pulled the oxygen tube from my throat without a second’s hesitation. Breathing became agony. My face darkened to violet. The monitors screamed red. But I was smiling. Better to die than stay and look at them. Mom burst through the door with a team behind her, howling my name. She performed CPR with her bare hands and forced the tube back in. When I was stable, she glared at me with bloodshot eyes. “Mara! Why would you — it’s only your ovaries. You can still live a full life. You can’t—” I pressed a hand to the wound in my chest and rasped: “Is it really only my ovaries?” Caden fell to his knees, slapping his own face over and over. “Honey — blame me. When the car came, I didn’t shield you. I let you get hurt. The driver’s already in custody, I swear I’ll—” “You found a heart donor for Rena already, didn’t you?” he added, turning to Mom. “She’s going to be all right?” Dad’s voice was hollow. “We’ve contacted every pack healer in the country. We’ll find you a new heart soon, Mara. I promise.” Eli touched my shoulder gently. “I’m going back to the lab right now. I’ll engineer something custom. You’ll breathe just like anyone else.” How laughable. Three sentences to smooth over Rena running me down, destroying my body, and stealing my heart. I curved my lips into something that was almost a smile. “Where’s Rena? I want to speak with her myself. I saw her face when they brought her in.” Mom’s brow knotted. “How dare you accuse your sister. She was with me in the healer’s ward when you were hit — she nearly had a heart episode just from the shock of hearing you’d been injured. We found her a donor just in time.” “You found a donor at the exact same moment my heart failed,” I said. “What a coincidence.” The room went very still. “Mara…” Mom started. I was too tired. I pulled the blanket over my head. When I surfaced, only Caden remained, watching me with an expression I used to believe was love. I smiled at him. “Go check on Rena. Come back and tell me how she’s doing.” He left without hesitating. Alone at last, I exhaled slowly and reached for my phone with trembling hands. The system had promised to grant me one wish in exchange for completing its KPIs. Before they’d wheeled me into the OR, I’d spent that wish on two recordings. I watched them now, rigid, replaying every second of how they’d planned to hollow me out. Every word my mother had spoken while cutting into my chest. Every degree of warmth drained from my body. I was suddenly very glad I hadn’t died. Because leaving this easily would be far too generous to them.

During my recovery, they took turns sitting with me — one at a time, never long, always finding an excuse to rush away. I assumed they were simply busy. Pack Betas and Alpha heirs didn’t have idle hours. Then came the afternoon I needed the bathroom and no one was there. I dragged my IV stand down the hall alone. Through the glass of the VIP recovery suite, I stopped. Caden, who had just claimed an urgent pack council session, was feeding Rena a prawn dumpling with his fingers, laughing at something she’d said. My parents and Eli were all there, watching her with the soft, helpless adoration I used to think was reserved for me. Mom’s voice filtered through the glass, warmly scolding. “Rena, you can’t gorge yourself the moment you’re healed. Dumplings are too rich.” Rena tipped her head back like a contented cub. “I can’t help it. Dad makes them too well.” She pouted. “And all of you hovering around me is suffocating. How am I supposed to sneak snacks with four sets of eyes on me?” For three days, I’d been eating takeout congee I ordered myself. Rena had them there every hour, with Dad cooking her meals from scratch. I turned away stiffly and nearly walked into the nurses’ station. Through the partition, two nurses were whispering. “You know the patient in 302? The one everyone calls the real daughter? Dr. Ashton specifically told me to keep her on extra nutrition supplements — building her up like a reserve. If Rena has a serious rejection episode, they’ll need a full blood exchange from her.” I stood in the corridor for a long time, not moving. My heart — the damaged, borrowed thing still beating in my chest — felt like it was cracking open again. Why had it come to this? There was a time when Mom would panic if I so much as scraped my knee. She had driven herself into advanced healer certification just to take better care of me. Dad had built the Ashton name from nothing, so I’d never go without treatment. Eli had chosen pharmacology so my medicine wouldn’t taste bitter. They had even sheltered Caden’s family from a rival pack’s ambush — and that act of loyalty was how he and I first became entangled. All of Northveil Pack had known it: the Ashton heir was cherished beyond reason. And Caden Voss had loved me since we were young. Then I was stolen — held by a rival pack for seven years. When I came home, they held my hands and said, “Rena being here means nothing. We took her in to build good karma for you. You are still our only heart.” I believed them. I opened myself to Rena as a sister. But the warmth shifted slowly, then all at once. If Rena stumbled near me, Mom’s first question was whether I had pushed her. When Dad cooked, every dish was Rena’s favourite. Eli redirected his entire research toward a cure for Rena’s heart condition. And Caden, in arguments, once snapped at me to be more like Rena — gentler, sweeter, less difficult. Now they had carved my heart out to give it to her. And they planned to keep me alive as a walking blood reserve. The grief hit like claws raking through the chest. I wasn’t careful. I slipped. The fall cracked my surgical wounds open. I curled on the floor, gasping, and in a moment of pure instinct whimpered a single word into the tile. “Mom…” They came running — all four of them, the sound of their footsteps filling the hallway. Mom reached me first. She hauled me upright and fixed me with a furious stare. “Mara. I am so disappointed in you. You saw us with Rena, and now you’re throwing yourself on the floor for attention? You’re a grown wolf.”

Back at the Ashton estate, I was confined to a wheelchair under close watch. The pack healers had strict orders: I was not to harm myself again. Rena, meanwhile, was sprinting laps around the back courtyard in a pair of joggers, laughing as she went. Dad was out there too, passing her the ball, grinning the way I hadn’t seen him grin in years. Caden filmed her on his phone. Mom watched from the edge of the terrace with the look she used to reserve for me. I turned my wheelchair toward the garden path. “Ow!” Rena went down — a stumble, a sharp cry, grass-stained knees. All four of them surged to her side. Rena twisted and pointed at something on the ground near my chair. A small metal locking pin — fallen from the wheel assembly long before this moment. Her eyes filled. “Mara… I know you resent me for getting the transplant. I know you’re still in pain.” Her voice broke. “But I finally get to run. I finally get to feel what other wolves feel. How could you try to take that from me?” Mom crouched and examined Rena’s reddened shin with gentle hands. Dad looked at me with an expression like he’d bitten into something rotten. The vein at his temple pulsed. “Mara. We did not raise you to be this. What happened to you?” They looked at me the way wolves look at a rogue. Like I was something that needed to be dealt with. “I didn’t,” I said, my voice hollow. “That pin has been loose for days—” “Don’t make excuses.” Dad raised his hand. It swung toward my face. Caden caught his wrist. “Mara’s been through too much. Give her time.” Eli’s gaze cooled as it landed on me. “Fine. Rena’s been wanting to try that new private dining room downtown. We’ll celebrate her recovery.” He glanced back, expressionless. “You stay here and think about what you’ve done.” Caden hesitated. He looked at me, then at Rena — who grabbed his hand and swung it like a child, tilting her face up at him. “Come with us? You promised.” Caden patted my head. “Be good. I’ll bring back the seafood chowder you like.” I woke at 3 a.m. The bed beside mine was untouched. Caden had not come home. The whole estate was dark, except for one room — Rena’s. The door was slightly ajar. As I wheeled closer, a woman’s muffled, breathless voice bled through the gap. Caden’s voice came next, low and cracked with want. “You got the transplant. So when are you going to leave her? When?” “You’re the one I love. But Mara saved my life once — I can’t abandon her. And besides,” Rena’s voice softened, “if you have a rejection episode, we still need her blood.” “She can’t carry pups now. She can’t be a real mate. What does an Alpha heir need with a barren wolf?” I leaned against the cold wall outside that room for the rest of the night. Inside, they laughed. They whispered. They were tender with each other in a way I had believed was mine. When morning light came and the estate began to stir, I waited. I waited until all four of them passed through the hallway at the same moment. Then I threw open Rena’s door. In front of every witness, I ripped the sheets back and raised my phone.

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My husband Ethan Voss, Beta of the Voss Pack, brought his female assistant into our bed. When I caught them, he barely flinched. “Selene is gentle and unassuming. And she’s my Gamma-ranked aide. Why can’t you just accept her?” Ten years together. I swallowed my inner wolf’s howl and paid him off to disappear. Then my phone buzzed. My mother’s surgery had been forcibly halted. Every asset I owned had been frozen. I rushed to the hospital with an emergency specialist I’d managed to reach — only to find the parking garage sealed off by dozens of Ethan’s supercars. “Rowan.” His voice was lazy, almost amused. “You always loved throwing money at problems. Why not hire someone to move the cars?” I stared at him, fury clawing up my throat. “My mother handed you her research patents. That’s the only reason the Voss family empire ever rose to what it is. And this is how you repay her?” Ethan tilted his head and leaned back into Selene’s arms. She laughed, soft and sweet. “A hundred thousand per car, sweetheart. Better start dialing. Oh — and hurry. Dad’s running out of time on that operating table.” I sent the message I had hoped never to send. 【Dr. Ashford is under deliberate threat. Requesting immediate Pack Command support. Sending location now.】 I kept my eyes locked on Ethan as I hit send. “Is this because I paid for Selene’s relocation years ago?” He smiled and pulled her closer, his expression perfectly innocent. “Baby, I already told you. You can pay to move the cars.” The hospital was at least thirty minutes away. Every second here was another second bleeding from my mother’s life. Her heart condition was rare. In the entire pack, only two surgeons could perform this procedure. Ethan had already neutralized the first one. Now he had trapped the last along with me in this garage, playing games for his new lover’s entertainment. I tightened my fist. “You froze everything I own. You know I have no money. You’re not stalling me, Ethan. You’re killing her.” Laughter rippled through the crowd surrounding us. “She can’t even scrape together pocket change now.” “Mess with Selene, mess with everything Ethan holds dear.” In the middle of it all, Selene looked at me with quiet triumph, her fingers laced through Ethan’s. She raised their joined hands slowly, a wordless declaration of ownership. Watching them, I felt something hollow open in my chest. Once, he had held my hands with that same reverence when he made his vows to me. I never imagined that one day, the man I loved would drive my mother toward death just to shield the person he was sleeping with. I bit down until I tasted blood. The specialist beside me reached for his card — and was immediately shoved against a car and pinned down by Ethan’s men. Then my phone rang. “Ms. Ashford, is the surgeon still not here? Your mother is fading. We need her on the table now.” I stared at the garage exit. The specialist was being held against a car. Supercars sealed every lane. Without moving them, I wasn’t going anywhere. The call had barely ended when Ethan’s voice drifted behind me, soft as a caress. “Baby. A hundred thousand per car. I already said so.” My whole body shook. I squeezed my phone, knuckles white. But there were too many of them. Force would only make this worse. The taste of blood spread across my tongue. I reached up and unclipped my cufflinks. The first year of our startup, we’d been crammed into a tiny apartment. He had pressed them into my hands with red-rimmed eyes, whispering that once he inherited the Voss family empire he’d give me everything the world had to offer. He had. And then he’d become someone else entirely. Next, I unclasped my watch. The Voss family empire had built its legacy on horology. On our bonding day, Ethan had knelt through the night in the Pack Hall to receive this heirloom. It was because of that gesture — that proof of devotion — that his friends and Pack elders had never once looked down on me. Finally, I pulled the bonding ring from my finger and threw it at his feet. “Is this enough?!” Ethan glanced down. Something shifted in his eyes, and he opened his mouth — But before he could speak, Selene let out a small, perfectly timed laugh. She looked at me with just the right degree of mock-surprise. “Rowan,” she said, “these pieces… they’re replicas, aren’t they? Did someone con you?”

Selene unhurriedly removed her own cufflinks and watch. Identical in design to what I’d just thrown on the ground. But the quality — the weight, the finish — was incomparable. She met my gaze and smiled, her tone perfectly light. “Ethan gave them to me. Said they were one-of-a-kind.” My breath stopped. I turned to look at my husband. He didn’t meet my eyes. His gaze dropped to the floor. My heart seized. I pulled in a slow breath, forced my voice low and flat. “Ethan. Everything I’ve been wearing — all of it was fake?” He finally looked up. His expression was soft, almost coaxing. “Selene is young. She loves pretty things. Is it so hard to just let her have them?” Let her have them. Four words. Weightless. Like soothing a child throwing a tantrum. Selene tilted her head toward him, obedient and sweet. “Ethan, Rowan did mean well… let’s just say those were real and move three cars. Okay?” Three supercars at the outer perimeter rolled aside. But the gap they left wasn’t wide enough for a single person to squeeze through. Ethan looked at me. His eyes settled on my face, and he frowned slightly — like he was weighing something. Then, in the same gentle tone he used to reserve only for me: “Rowan. If you kneel down and give Selene a proper apology… we’ll call it even.” I looked into his eyes, and for a moment, I almost laughed. On our bonding day, he had refused to let me kneel even before his own parents. Now he was asking me to kneel before the woman he was sleeping with. In front of a crowd. He seemed to sense something. His gaze lingered on my eyes — just for a second — and his lips parted. Then my phone went off. A message. A photo attached. My mother, on the operating table. Tubes everywhere. Blood-soaked sheets. 【Ms. Ashford — you have ten minutes. Dr. Ashford is going into shock.】 The ground fell out from under me. I almost said yes. I almost opened my mouth — Then Selene reached out and tugged lightly at Ethan’s sleeve. Her eyes dropped to the pendant at my throat. She smiled, gentle as ever. “Rowan doesn’t want to kneel — that’s fine. We can keep moving cars… that pendant looks lovely, though. Maybe start with that?” My hand flew up instinctively, closing around the fang pendant. My father had left it to me. During the wildfire that swept through our territory, I had been trapped in the Pack shelter. He had run back into the smoke to find me. The fire took him before he got out. In his last moment, he had pressed the pendant into my palm. His lips moved. Three words. Stay alive, Rowan. My knuckles went white. I thought of my mother bleeding out on that table, and something in my chest cracked open. I raised my head and fixed my gaze on Ethan. Word by word: “And you, Ethan, do you think I should give this up too?”

Ethan’s eyes fell on the fang pendant. Something flickered across his face. He knew what it meant to me. Selene glanced at it and said nothing. Instead, she rose onto her toes and pressed her lips to his ear, whispering something only he could hear. Whatever hesitation had lived in Ethan’s eyes vanished. He stopped looking at me. Without a word, he reached out and seized the pendant and yanked. The chain bit into my skin. A sharp sting at my throat. The pendant came away with a smear of my blood. He passed it to Selene without looking back. She turned it over in her palm. The corner of her mouth lifted. She dropped it into her pocket, then looked up at me — and her eyes were full of it. Ethan finally turned. His voice was soft, cold as midwinter. “Rowan. Your father refused to bring Selene away from the mountains. Because of him, she spent years being abused. Your family owes her this.” My father had done aid work in the outer Pack territories. He had mentioned a boy named Selene once — said the child had latched onto him. I stared at Ethan’s face, and the pieces snapped into place. Selene. The girl from the mountains. That was her. But I remembered what my father had told me — he’d wanted to bring the child home. It was Selene who had said she couldn’t leave her parents. I almost laughed at the lie. I didn’t get the chance. Selene leaned close, and her voice dropped to something only I could hear. “Rowan. Aren’t you curious how Ethan knows all of this?” A small smile. “I told him. In bed, piece by piece. And you should have seen how much he pitied me. It was so satisfying.” I turned slowly and stared at her. She let the look land, then softened her eyes just slightly, as if genuinely concerned. “By the way — I should thank you. The one who locked you in that shelter during the fire?” She paused. “That was me.” “Your father was begging me to open the door. Down on his knees. Like a wounded animal.” The nightmares I’d carried for ten years. My father’s death had never stopped haunting me. And every time over the years I’d tried to investigate the details of that fire — every time I’d gotten close — something had intervened. Now I understood why. They had been together since before I even knew her name. The last thread holding me together snapped. I swung without thinking. My fist connected with her jaw. She went sideways and struck the side of a car with a dull, heavy sound. She straightened slowly, touched the blood at the corner of her mouth, and said nothing. Ethan shoved between us, eyes blazing as he turned on me. Before he could speak, my phone shattered the silence. “Ms. Ashford!” The surgeon’s voice was breaking. “Your mother has gone into shock. If you are not here in three minutes, we will lose her. Where are you?!”

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The night I died in the basement, my skin was falling off in sheets. My husband was upstairs in bed with the woman who put me there. In my last life, the orphan my husband took in gave me a necklace. After I put it on, I couldn’t stay awake. My body broke down in ways no doctor could explain, and by the end I was rotting from the inside out. I didn’t learn the truth until after I died. She was a corporate spy planted by a rival conglomerate. After her side lost, she used her face and her body to get Julian to bring her home. Once she was inside the estate, she used that necklace to destroy me. The pendant contained a trace amount of radium, enough to poison anyone who wore it against their skin day after day. Slow, invisible, impossible to diagnose until it was too late. Julian spent every night in her bed. He let me die in a locked room in the basement, alone, on a bare mattress that smelled like bleach and mold. After I was gone, they rolled me into a body bag and dumped me at a county crematorium. No service. No marker. Nothing. The only person who came for me was Seth, a housekeeper from Beatrice Sterling’s household. He pulled strings to get my remains out of that crematorium and buried me himself. All because I’d smiled at him once at a company gala. That was all it took. When I opened my eyes again, I was back at the moment she handed me the necklace. She wanted what I had. I’d make sure she got it. —– “Julian really pulled it off. The board’s going to hand him the CEO seat after this.” “A full acquisition in three months. The Thornes don’t play around.” Guests raised their glasses and turned toward the head of the table where Julian sat beside me. Crystal and candlelight everywhere. The grand hall of the Thorne Estate packed with every name that mattered. Seraphina didn’t have a title or a ring, but she moved through the room like she already owned it. She walked over to me with a glass of champagne in one hand and a small velvet box in the other, all grace, all warmth. “I know how much you worried while Julian was away. I went to St. Catherine’s and had this blessed for you. For good luck.” She opened the box. A simple chain with a small pendant, nothing flashy. The last time, I was so happy Julian had come home victorious, so touched by her gesture, that I let her clasp it around my neck right there at the table. I had no idea what it really was. The pendant was laced with radium. Sealed under a thin coating that wore away with daily use, leaching radiation into the skin at the back of my neck. A little every day. Not enough to set off alarms. Just enough to kill, slowly. First came the fatigue. Then the aches I couldn’t explain. Then the sores. And Seraphina? She glowed brighter every day. The sicker I looked, the more radiant she appeared, and the more Julian turned to her. By the time I woke up from a week-long haze, my body was falling apart. Open sores, the smell of decay. Seraphina stood at the foot of my bed, fanned her nose, and draped herself over Julian like a silk scarf. “Oh my. She looks awful. What happened to her?” Julian’s face went cold. “Get this woman out of my sight. Lock her downstairs. Anyone who brings her food or water gets fired on the spot.” I tried to speak. My mouth opened and nothing came out. All I could do was watch him walk away. Up until the moment I choked on my own breath in that basement, I never understood how the man who once loved me could turn into that. It wasn’t until my mind was floating above my own corpse that I pieced it together. She’d been a spy all along. Embedded by a rival firm, using her looks to hook Julian and using that necklace to put me in the ground. She didn’t need to be sick herself. She just needed me to wear it. I wanted to scream. I wanted to tear her apart. But I was nothing. Just a thought with no hands. The clink of glasses brought me back. I was standing in the grand hall again. The gala. The same faces, the same laughter, the same chandelier light bouncing off Julian’s cufflinks. Seraphina’s eyes flashed with something sharp and hungry, and then she smiled, soft as cashmere, and held the necklace out to me. “Here, let me put it on for you.”

I stepped aside before she could reach me. She froze. Then the tears came, instant and perfect. “You don’t want it?” “I spent weeks going to St. Catherine’s for this. I prayed for you and Julian every single day.” “I get it though. I’m just the girl Julian took in off the street. Why would you want anything from me.” The women at the table were already whispering. “Wow. She goes to all that effort and can’t even get a thank you.” “That poor girl has nothing and she’s still thinking about everyone else. Honestly, it’s a little embarrassing for the actual wife.” I forced a smile and said I loved the thought, and I’d absolutely keep the necklace. But I was already wearing one tonight and it would look odd to switch mid-dinner. Seraphina wiped her eyes and looked at me like a kicked puppy. “I know mine’s nothing compared to yours. But I knelt on that chapel floor so long my knees were raw.” “Just try it on? For me? I promise it’ll look so pretty.” She wasn’t going to let this go. Right then, a young man stepped into the hall and approached Julian with a polite nod. “Mr. Thorne, sorry to interrupt. Mrs. Sterling asked me to come get Mrs. Thorne. She’s expecting her for tea.” My heart slammed against my ribs. Seth. The one who pulled my remains from a county crematorium and buried me with his own hands. He glanced at me, just for a second. Something careful in his eyes. I was about to use this as my exit when Seraphina latched onto my arm. “Oh, put the necklace on before you go. You don’t want to show up at Mrs. Sterling’s wearing something nicer than hers, do you?” She was already reaching for my neck with the chain. Seth spoke up. “Hang on. I feel like I’ve seen you before. Were you at the Harrington Group event last fall? I swear you were with their team.” Seraphina went still. Then she laughed, light and easy. “Oh no, you’ve got the wrong person. Julian rescued me. I don’t exactly run in those circles.” Seth let it go. I jumped in. “Mrs. Sterling’s waiting, I shouldn’t keep her. Seraphina, I’ll wear it tonight, I promise. It’s not going anywhere.” I turned to leave and Seraphina grabbed my wrist. “It takes two seconds. Why are you making this so hard? Unless you’re just trying to get away from me.” Then she stumbled sideways and crashed right into Seth. “Get off me! He just grabbed me!” She clutched her side and the tears poured down. The women at the table went off. “Did he seriously just put his hands on her?” “God, that’s vile. Someone get him out of here.” Seraphina was shaking, tears streaming, the whole performance pitch-perfect. “I don’t care where I come from, no one gets to touch me like that. I swear to God I’ll call the police.” She lurched toward the edge of the marble bar counter and Julian was on his feet in a second, pulling her into his chest. Seth backed up with both hands raised, palms out. “I didn’t touch her. She stumbled into me. My hands were up the whole time. I never made contact.” Seraphina buried her face in Julian’s shirt and sobbed louder. Julian’s jaw was locked. “Get him out. Now. Call security.” I stepped forward. “Julian, Beatrice Sterling sent him. This is going to get back to her.” He didn’t even look at me. Seraphina lifted her head from Julian’s chest, eyes red and wet. “Why are you taking his side? Unless you liked it when he touched you. Is that what this is?” Pure poison. She was putting the image in Julian’s head that Seth and I had something going on. Julian looked at me and his eyes went cold. Whatever I’d said about Beatrice didn’t matter anymore. I opened my mouth but Seth cut in, hands still raised. “Mr. Thorne, do whatever you want to me. But Mrs. Sterling is still waiting for an answer. Let me do my job and I’ll be out of your house.” Something inside me cracked. If I said one more word in his defense, it would look exactly the way Seraphina wanted it to look. Seth knew that. He was taking the hit so I wouldn’t have to. I was shaking. My eyes landed on the necklace in Seraphina’s hand and something clicked into place. She wanted to poison me and take my place. Fine. I’d give her a taste of her own medicine. I looked at Seth and wondered what he would choose.

I could hear them downstairs. Muffled voices, something heavy hitting something soft. Last life he carried my body out of a crematorium. This life he was getting beaten for me. What could I do for him? Get him out. Get him free. Give him the life he actually wanted. One of the housekeepers rushed in. “They’re still going at it. Seth passed out and nobody told them to stop.” My chest tightened. “What did Julian say?” “He’s with Seraphina. He hasn’t said anything.” Hasn’t said stop. Which meant they’d keep going until Seth couldn’t get up again. Seraphina wanted him silenced. He’d recognized her face and she couldn’t risk him remembering where from. I turned toward the stairs and Seraphina’s voice hit me from the end of the hallway. She was standing there with two of the older housekeepers flanking her like bodyguards. “If you go down there right now, you’re proving everything I said at dinner.” I almost laughed. “You’re right. Why would I care what happens to the help.” I glanced at the necklace still in her hand. “You still want me to wear that?” Her eyes lit up. She held it out like an offering. “You’ll actually put it on?” I took it from her and sighed. “Tomorrow’s the anniversary of my mother’s death. I’m going to St. Catherine’s to light a candle.” “If you really mean all this, come with me. Put it on me there, in the chapel. In front of God.” Something flickered in her eyes. Suspicion. But it was gone in a second, swallowed by the thrill of winning. She probably thought I was caving to save face after the scene at dinner. “Of course. I’ll go with you tomorrow.” She smiled. The same smile she had in my last life when she got what she wanted. I nodded and turned to walk away. “You’re not going downstairs?” “No.” Seth was already unconscious. Going down there wouldn’t save him. Begging for him would only hand Seraphina exactly what she wanted. But I had another way. Back in my room, I typed out a message and had someone deliver it to Beatrice Sterling’s office. Beatrice might not care about one housekeeper. But she cared about her reputation. Someone roughing up her staff at a party? She’d want a word about that.

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I spent ten years at Hades’s side helping him, for love. Ten years, from the moment he was nothing — a fallen son of a forgotten bloodline, wandering the mortal roads with cracked sandals and an empty stomach — to the day he ascended Mount Olympus and claimed his seat among the gods. And through all of it, he called me Sister. Then came the day he led his chosen bride through the golden gates. And I fell ill. On the night I lay dying, he knelt at my side and gathered my cold, wasting hands in his. His eyes were rimmed red, and his voice, for all his divine power, cracked like a mortal man’s. “If the Fates grant us another life,” he swore, “I will give you your proper name. I will make you mine — before all of Olympus.” The Fates heard him. They gave me another life. I came back in the bloom of my sixteenth year, born once more into the House of Selen — a family of ancient and noble blood, revered across the divine realm. My father had decreed a sacred rite: I would stand upon the high balcony of our temple-house and cast the Golden Apple into the crowd below. Whoever caught it would become my husband. The courtyard was full. Demigods, heroes, young gods in their finest robes — all of them jostling and laughing and craning their necks toward me. And then I saw him. He was standing near the center of the crowd, just as I had known he would be. My fingers released the apple. It arced through the air — golden, gleaming, falling precisely where I had aimed it. Directly into his arms. But he stepped aside. A single, casual sidestep. And the apple tumbled past him and landed in the lap of a filthy, hollow-cheeked vagrant crouched in the shadows behind. The cheering stopped. Silence swallowed the courtyard whole. Every eye moved between me on the balcony, Hades standing still as marble in the crowd, and the stunned vagrant clutching the sacred apple with shaking hands. Hades lifted his face and looked up at me from across the distance. And in that moment, the memory struck me like lightning. I had lived this before. In our first life, we had grown up together — two children of neighboring divine houses, running through the same sunlit gardens. When his family’s power crumbled and he was cast out, left to wander without resources or patrons, I had quietly bled the treasuries of the House of Selen to fund his studies. I had fed him, sheltered him, believed in him. And something had grown between us. Something that felt, then, like love. He had promised me. He had said: I want to spend eternity with you. So when my father announced the apple-casting rite, I pulled Hades aside and asked him — begged him — to stand in the center of the crowd and catch what I threw. And I threw it perfectly. I calculated every breath of wind, every inch of distance. But he stepped aside. And the apple went to the vagrant. Just as now. In our first life, I had stood on that same balcony, burning with shame as the crowd murmured and stared. I had refused to honor the rite. I had rejected the vagrant — humiliated him, humiliated myself — and faced my father’s fury for it. Father made me kneel on the cold stone steps of the ancestor shrine for three days and three nights as punishment. And for what? For Hades’s sake. For his soft, practiced excuses. He had come to me afterward with red-rimmed eyes, clasping my hands, and told me the story of the woman named Minthe — daughter of the noble House of Su, who had saved his life on the road to his trials. She had asked for nothing except that he honor her with marriage. He had given his word. So he could not marry me. He was bound. Honorable. Sorry. And then he became everything I had helped him become. He won the Three Sacred Trials — the highest honor in the divine realm. He rose. He shone. And the woman he brought home in her gleaming white robes and golden crown was Minthe. I stood in the crowd and watched the man I had given everything to lead another woman beneath the laurel garland. Before I even had time to grieve, disaster found my own house. My father, facing political ruin, arranged a hasty marriage for me — a man older than my father, but stable, safe. And Hades appeared at my chamber door. He extended his hand and told me I deserved better than a rushed union. He told me he would protect me. He told me the House of Selen — that I — had been too good to him for him to allow this. So he brought me into his house. Not as a wife. Not as even a consort. Only as his Sister.

His new bride, Minthe, was less than pleased. Even under the pretense that I was merely Hades’s benefactress — his honored Sister, his childhood guardian — she looked at me as though I were a splinter lodged in her divine flesh. At first, I could not fully understand it. After all, it was Hades who had insisted on bringing me in. Hades who had defied gossip and whispers to install me in the east wing of his divine palace. By rights, her fury should have been aimed at him. But that is the way of things, even among the immortals. When a woman cannot reach the god who wronged her, she turns to the only other target within range. I will say this for Minthe: her methods were not subtle. She cut my allowances. She reduced my household to near nothing — jewels, fine cloth, even the most basic provisions. She left me stripped of comfort in what was, by all appearances, a palace of abundance. I might have endured it in silence. But the winter came, and she withheld the sacred fire. The eternal flame that warms an immortal’s wing was simply… not refilled. My handmaiden fell gravely ill with the cold. I had no choice but to go and ask. I found Minthe seated beside a roaring hearth, wrapped in furs, cracking open the roasted chestnuts that Hades had prepared for her with his own hands. She did not look up when I entered. “Oh — Sister has come to call,” she said, her voice airy and pleasant. “Have the servants been neglecting you?” I kept my tone even. “The eternal flame in the east wing has gone dark. My handmaiden has taken ill.” She laughed softly, tossing a shell into the fire. “Do forgive us, Sister. My lord has only recently secured his throne. There are so many offerings to make, so many alliances to maintain — the household has simply run short.” She looked up then, and her eyes were full of challenge. “I thought surely you, of all people, would understand. You were so generous with the House of Selen’s resources for so many years. Surely you don’t mind extending that generosity a little longer?” Her smile curved. “After all — Sister is a guest here. One ought to be grateful, ought one not?” Every word was a blade dressed in silk. I opened my mouth to answer. “My lord has returned.” Hades stepped through the door, still wearing his traveling cloak, snow-dusted and wind-cold from the outer reaches of Olympus. He saw me. He paused. Minthe rose immediately and folded herself into his arms. “My lord,” she said, her voice gone soft and wounded. “Sister has come to scold me for the household accounts. I have tried so hard to manage wisely, but there simply isn’t enough —” Hades frowned. He looked at me. “Sister,” he said, with the careful patience of someone managing a delicate situation, “Minthe bears a great many burdens. Please be patient a little longer. I will see to it that your needs are met.” I stared at him. He had the power to rearrange the very stars. And this was his answer. I said nothing. I said only: “Of course.” And I walked back to the dark and frozen east wing alone.

From that day, Minthe and I were at war. Not over Hades. I want to be clear about that. It was about dignity. Whatever I had once felt for that man, whatever foolish love had bound me to him in our first life — I did not come to his house for him. I came because I had nowhere else to go. And having come, I found I was owed at least the basic respect due to someone who had built the ground he stood upon. I had sustained him when he was nothing. The House of Selen had funded his rise. I would not be treated as a beggar in the halls I had helped to fill with light. So when she docked my provisions, I went to the treasury steward and argued my case. When she spread whispers about me among the serving nymphs, I confronted her directly. Every time, I was overruled. Hades’s law was simple: Minthe’s word was final. Once, she accused me of stealing her golden hairpin — made a scene that rattled the entire palace. I uncovered the truth within an afternoon: one of her own handmaidens had mislaid it. I brought the evidence before Hades and laid it out, clear and incontrovertible. He was silent for a long time. Then he said, “Sister, she is young. She does not always think before she speaks. Please — do not hold it against her.” I looked at him for a long moment. I felt something shift in me. When he had been a forgotten and powerless wanderer, I had shielded him from every slight. I had stood in front of him when others mocked him, and refused to let anyone diminish what I believed he could become. And now, enthroned and magnificent, he asked me to absorb every wound his wife inflicted and repay her with patience and grace. I began to understand that the world runs not on love, but on what is convenient. On what men are willing to protect when it costs them something. The worst came when Minthe poisoned me. It was not meant to kill. Only to humiliate — to leave me doubled over, weak and gasping, during a gathering of divine households. A small cruelty, carelessly deployed. When I discovered the source, something in me finally broke. I crossed the palace in three strides and struck her across the face. She screamed. She ran to Hades. That evening, Hades came to the east wing. He told me I must kneel before her and beg her forgiveness. I am Persephone of the House of Selen. My knees bend for the sky, for the earth, for my parents. For no one else. I refused. So Hades gave the order. His attendants surrounded me. They took up the iron-banded staves kept by the door. Once. Twice. Three times. The blows came down across my legs, and the pain finally drove me to my knees. Through blurring vision, I saw Minthe standing over me, and the corner of her mouth was curved into a smile. That night, Hades came alone to the east wing. He looked at my legs, which had lost all feeling. He sighed and reached for my hand. I pulled it away. He sat in silence for a moment. Then he spoke. “Sister. I am sorry for today. Truly.” “But Minthe — she saved my life, once. I swore an oath to her. I swore I would never allow her to suffer.” I looked at him. Saved your life. That is the coin she holds. And who carried you home through the winter storm when you collapsed, starving, in the road? Who sat with you through three nights of fever? Who poured the last of the family’s tungsten steel into the raging fire to forge the most resilient weapon for you? What coin do I hold? I did not say it. I was too tired. The cold and the injury worked together, and I sickened. Each day I grew weaker. The finest healers of Olympus came, and none of them could turn it back. The day I died, snow fell beyond the window like a blessing I no longer wanted. Hades knelt beside my bed, gripping my hand as though he could hold me to this world through sheer will. “Sister,” he said. “Forgive me. This life — I failed you completely.” “If the Fates grant another — I swear I will bring you home properly. With ceremony, with honor. I will give you your name.” I looked at him. My heart was perfectly still. What had I answered? I remembered. I used the last of my strength to pull my hand free, finger by finger. “Hades,” I whispered. “In the next life — let us never meet at all.” I closed my eyes. I heard him cry out behind me — a raw, torn sound, the voice of a god stripped to something human and helpless. And then I woke up. Back at the beginning. Standing on the temple-house balcony, the Golden Apple warm in my palm.

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