Chapter One

In my fifth year as the Wolf King's Omega secretary, I killed my own wolf.

I used to believe that silver ring engraved with the clan crest was an eternal covenant bestowed by moonlight.

Until I was left limping, my gland necrosed, and my body covered in scars—because he chose his widowed sister-in-law.

And yet, under the moon, he whispered to the widow, “Marrying her was just so I could watch you get jealous over me.”

That was the moment I decided I would hide my escape beneath the mask of loyalty.

Later, he would scour the world for me to confess and repent, and I would only say softly:

“Sir, you've got the wrong person. The wolf you keep talking about has been dead for a long time.”

…

…

When I slid the patrol route map to Lucian, he was standing by the floor-to-ceiling window in his study, moonlight tracing the taut line of his profile.

“All right,” he said without looking at me. I could hear it clearly through the link I felt—he never used a gentle tone with me.

“I'll be there on time. Don't worry.”

On the other end of the link came the distinctly Omega kind of mental ripple—sweet, clinging, dependent—like soft spider silk, able to tug all of his attention with ease.

I stood opposite him, my face holding none of the questioning or grief a fated mate ought to show.

It was Selene. His younger brother's widow.

Lucian didn't spare me even a glance. As he soothed Selene's anxiety through the mental link, he reached for the feather pen on the desk. The nib touched down at the end of the document, and he signed in one clean stroke—bold, sweeping, unmistakably his.

“I'll come right over,” he told the voice on the other end, in a tenderness I had never heard from him, carrying the quiet force of reassurance. “Of course. I'll have dinner with you.”

The instant the link cut off, the softened air around him vanished. His gaze finally landed on my face—cold as winter night frost.

“Anything else?”

“No.” I withdrew the file, my movements steady enough that not even my fingertips shook.

For five years I had passed him countless documents, every one tied to the clan's survival and glory. But today, what he decided was my fate. Pressed beneath the standard patrol roster was an application: “Voluntary Renunciation of Wolf Soul.”

He gave a flat “Mm,” already turning to take the coat hanging on the rack. “I'm going to the old estate.”

“Okay.”

I understood the subtext: don't bother me unless it matters.

He left the study quickly. His footsteps echoed down the empty corridor, fading farther and farther away. Only when his back disappeared completely into the shadows beyond the reach of moonlight did I turn and head in the opposite direction of the old estate.

When I pushed open the heavy doors of the Punishment Hall, the Grand Elder Cedric stood in the center of the chamber. Under the dim candlelight, his eyes—old, but sharp as a hawk's—measured me.

His gaze swept over Lucian's signature at the end of the document. His grizzled brows twitched.

“Are you certain you want to renounce your wolf soul, Agatha?” His voice was calm, but it carried the penetrating weight of someone who saw through everything. “Once it begins, there's no turning back. You will no longer be one of the wolves. You won't even be able to run beneath moonlight in a wolf's form again.”

I knew what it meant. Renouncing a wolf soul meant leaving the wolves forever. And before you could leave, you had to let the wolf's spirit die completely in agony—severing the Alpha link along with it.

Many went mad from the pain during the rite, or broke down and died.

But I didn't hesitate. I nodded.

“Yes.”

Cedric narrowed his eyes, his gaze burning as though he meant to look straight through the resolve lodged in my soul. In the end he said nothing, only lifted a hand.

Two guards in black robes brought forward a silver basin burning with an eerie blue flame. Three oddly shaped silver daggers lay soaking inside.

“Begin,” Cedric's low voice echoed through the hollow hall.

They pinned me from both sides, forcing me to my knees on the ice-cold stone, my back to the altar. I could feel the deadly energy that silver radiated for a werewolf.

Very soon, that soul-shuddering chill drew close to my spine.

“First cut—sever the connection to moonlight.”

The next second, the cold silver blade pierced flesh, and the pain detonated into a whiteout.

It was silver's curse against a wolf's very source.

The agony of my soul being torn apart made me clamp my teeth down, swallowing every whimper rising from the depths of my throat.

Before I could even recover from that crushing pain, the second cut came—then the third, one after another.

I could even smell my own blood evaporating under silver's burn, and deep within my spine, something was cracking, dying, collapsing into nothing.

Just like that bloody full-moon night five years ago.

I had stumbled into a battlefield between wolves and vampires. Claws tore the air. I thought I was going to die. Lucian was the one who dragged me out of that mountain of corpses and sea of blood—his burning hand clamping the back of my neck with an irresistible force.

“Don't look back,” he said.

But I did look back. I saw his blood-smeared profile, and those amber-gold eyes burning under moonlight.

From that day on, I followed him. I learned how to rein in claws and fangs, how to maneuver between humans and my own kind. I was clumsy. I fell. I was even publicly scolded and driven off by him.

Later, I took a fatal blow meant for him—from a vampire elder. In my coma, I heard him calling my name, rage suppressed to the edge of breaking. When I woke, he was bent at my bedside, and in those golden eyes churned something deep I couldn't read.

I asked him, “Lucian… are you okay?”

He answered by sealing my question with a kiss.

And I was naïve enough to believe that was the answer.

Until he brought me back to the old estate and, at the full-moon ceremony, slid that silver ring onto my ring finger—while his eyes never stopped following Selene in front of him.

Selene—his brother Finn's widow.

I thought it was respect. I thought he was trying to earn the family's approval.

But at the banquet after the ceremony, I went looking for him down the corridor. I pushed open the garden door, passed the blooming moonlight flowers—

and saw him pinning Selene against an ice-cold stone wall.

The air was thick with the sweet, seductive scent unique to an Omega's heat. Selene's lips were swollen; her collar was slightly askew.

It was obvious she had just come out of a fierce, lingering kiss.

“Before, you wanted to break up, said Finn suited you better,” Lucian's voice was hoarse, packed with restrained fury and unwillingness. “I endured it.”

“But now…” His tone tightened. “Selene, you can only be mine.”

Selene glanced toward the doorway in panic. “Agatha is still—”

Lucian gave a cold laugh, and in his voice was a cruel pronouncement:

“I only married Agatha to provoke you,” he said. “I didn't believe you could stay indifferent after that.”

The next second, he kissed her again—rough, possessive, and yet threaded through with a tenderness he couldn't hide.

That was when I finally understood—

a fated mate was nothing more than a tool he used to test another woman's heart.

When I tore myself out of the memory, my back was already soaked with cold sweat. Wounds left by silver couldn't heal quickly like ordinary cuts. Warm blood was sliding slowly along the curve of my spine.

When the guards released me, I could barely stand.

Cedric's voice stayed flat. “By the rules, no herbal treatment is permitted. When the wounds stop bleeding, return to complete the final step—removal of the gland.”

I trembled with pain, but I forced myself upright, pulled on my cloak, and pressed the tearing burn across my back beneath rough fabric.

As I stepped out of the Punishment Hall, a familiar ripple struck through the mental link.

Lucian.

“Come to the master bedroom. Immediately.” His voice, as always, was command without room for refusal. “Now.”

By the time I returned to the main estate, the night had deepened.

The sitting room was brightly lit. Lucian sat at the head seat. Selene leaned close at his side—dressed exquisitely, looking fragile, and yet the corners of her eyes and brows held a faint, hard-to-catch satisfaction.

I had barely come near when he spoke, his tone indifferent.

“Starting tomorrow, Selene will gradually take over your duties.” He didn't even look at me. “You'll take her along and familiarize her with the patrol routes first.”

The silver cuts across my back burned hot. Blood was seeping, little by little, into my clothing.

I still nodded. “All right.”

Like a proper assistant about to be replaced.

But Selene couldn't even manage the most basic organization of patrol gear.

I went to the armory to prepare the silver dagger Lucian would take on tomorrow's patrol. I'd just picked up the maintenance oil when Selene came in with a cup of hot tea, wearing a gentle, harmless smile.

“Let me learn,” she said. “These things should be my responsibility from now on.”

I watched her reach for the heavy silver longbow on the rack and reminded her, “The bowstring is sharp. Be careful not to cut yourself.”

She hummed in acknowledgment—then her hand “slipped”—

the bow slammed into the adjacent rack, and several razor-sharp silver knives toppled toward me in an instant.

I moved back on instinct, but the rough cloth scraped viciously over the fresh silver cuts on my back. I was half a beat too slow. A cold blade grazed my knee, and blood immediately welled up, running down my calf.

“Ah—!” Selene let out a horrified scream, as if she were the one being hurt.

Almost at the same moment, the door flew open.

Lucian stood there. His eyes swept over the mess on the floor, and his face darkened at once.

“What happened?” His voice was holding fury on a tight leash.

“I'm sorry…” Selene clutched her wrist right away. Her eyes reddened instantly, her voice thick with tears. “I—I thought Agatha would remind me…”

“It was her—” I tried to explain.

“Agatha!” He cut me off coldly without even looking at me. “What were you thinking? You're my assistant.”

“Letting her handle weapons this dangerous—and you still think you've got an excuse?”

“If you can't do it properly, then you won't be responsible for any of it anymore.”

He said it, clipped and final.

Then he lifted Selene into his arms.

“Does it hurt?” he asked her, lowering his head. His voice was soft in a way I had never heard. “I'll take care of it first.”

In the end, he didn't even glance back. He carried Selene toward the master bedroom in long strides.

And in his arms, Selene tucked herself in and looked at me over his shoulder—there was nothing in her gaze now but feather-light triumph.

I suddenly felt like laughing.

Just like that—one sentence, and my duties were stripped away, along with my right to defend myself.

But my last remaining right was to use it to leave him for good.