Chapter 1: The Day I Was Already Dead

While my fiancé was presiding over Vivian’s Luna ceremony, my body lay in an abandoned warehouse less than five hundred meters from the Moon Oath Hall.

By then, I had been dead for ten days.

The rogue wolves who kidnapped me gave me three chances to call for help.

The first time, I called my parents.

When the Harts, the Alpha couple of the Ironwood Pack, heard I had been kidnapped, they paused for only a few seconds.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Evelyn.”

“Today is an important day for your sister, Vivian, and the new Alpha of the Storm Ridge Pack.”

“You will not jeopardize the alliance between the two strongest packs in Gray Harbor simply because you lost the Luna position.”

They hung up.

The second time, I called my fiancé, Lucien Ashford.

For ten years, I had been his promised mate.

He had sworn that once he inherited the Alpha position, he would place his mark on me before the elders.

But that day, his arm was wrapped around Vivian, who was radiant in her ceremonial gown.

When he heard my plea for help, all I saw in his eyes was disgust.

“How long are you going to keep this up?”

“If you’re so determined to die, then do it, but stop bothering us with these games.”

The third time, the rogue leader forced more wolfsbane into my veins and cut off all ten of my fingers.

The poison smothered my healing ability and suppressed my instinct to shift.

They said if they didn’t receive the ransom by nightfall, they would throw me into the warehouse’s silver crusher.

But I already knew no one was coming for me.

I smashed a window and slit my own throat with a shard of glass.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day my parents had told me to stop making trouble.

They stood before me, frowning, as if I were just another problem they had to solve.

“Vivian’s ceremony with Lucien is about to begin.”

“All the elders will be there. Stop clinging to him.”

“After the ceremony, we’re sending you away from the Ironwood Pack.”

“Once you’ve truly let go of Lucien and learned to respect pack order, we will consider allowing you to return.”

They didn’t know the person standing before them was already dead.

The Moon Goddess grants wolf souls who die with unfinished vows a brief return to the mortal world.

She had given me a vessel that would last no more than three nights.

It was only long enough to sever the ties that bound my soul to this world.

With each bond I broke, my form would fade a little more.

This time, I didn’t argue.

“All right. I understand.”

They didn’t have to banish me.

In three days, we would never see each other again anyway.

...

My quick agreement only made my parents watch me more closely.

“Evelyn, are you really going to leave?”

My mother asked, “You’re not planning to sabotage the ceremony and ruin Vivian and Lucien’s alliance, are you?”

Ruin it?

Ten years ago, at the Gray Harbor Wolf Academy, Lucien was the one who took my hand and registered me as his promised mate.

Now, my parents had withdrawn the Hart family’s support, handing the right of alliance to Vivian instead.

Twenty-eight years ago, Vivian and I were born in the same wolf healing center.

Her birth mother deliberately switched us.

From that moment on, she became the daughter listed in the Hart family’s official bloodline, receiving all the training required of an heir.

I was thrown into a poor foster family on the outskirts of Gray Harbor, where I often went hungry and lived without steady pack protection.

When the Harts found me and brought me back to the Ironwood Pack, I thought my bloodline would finally give me a home.

I only understood later that they saw me as a mistake that needed to be managed.

Their real daughter was, and had always been, Vivian—the girl they had raised themselves.

“I won’t ruin the ceremony,” I said.

Without a backward glance at their suspicious expressions, I turned and went upstairs.

The moment I reached my bedroom door, I smelled it:

Vivian’s cloying rose perfume tangled with Lucien’s cedarwood scent.

The two scents were knotted together in my room.

A trail of discarded clothes led from the doorway to the bed.

Lucien and Vivian were lying there, making no attempt to hide.

My wolf recognized his familiar cedar scent, but for the first time, she didn't urge me closer.

“Are you finished?” I asked from the doorway. “I need to get my things.”

Vivian lifted her head from Lucien’s shoulder and gave me a victor’s smile.

“Not yet.”

“This is your room. The bed is yours, too.”

“But Lucien chose me. Isn’t that funny?”

Lucien didn’t even bother to look at me.

“Don’t make it sound like I belong to her.”

“I never marked her. I never made a formal mate vow.”

He was right.

For ten years, he’d kept me by his side as his promised mate, always insisting the official mark had to wait until he inherited his Alpha title.

He had given me promises, a registration, and so-called tokens of his vow—but never a bond that couldn't be easily broken.

Back then, he’d claimed it was because he cherished me, that a rushed mark would be an insult.

Only now did I understand. An unfinished promise made it easy for him to replace me whenever he chose.

“If you hated me so much,” I asked, “why were you with me for ten years?”

Lucien finally raised his eyes to meet mine.

“Because when you first returned to the Hart family, everyone said you carried the stench of the strays from the city outskirts.”

“That you would never truly belong in the upper ranks of a real pack.”

“I wanted to see if I could train you into a worthy mate.”

His tone was calm, but his words were colder than the kidnappers’ knives.

“Then I discovered that pushing someone who thought she’d been saved back into the gutter was far more interesting than saving her in the first place.”

Vivian laughed.

“Did you really think you could ever compare to me?”

She picked up her phone, pulled up a shopping page, and shoved it in my face.

On the screen was a string of imitation moonstone bracelets. Price: one dollar.

Vivian raised her wrist. An identical bracelet dangled from it.

“Still don’t get it? This is the vow token Lucien gave you.”

I stared at the bracelet on my own wrist.

When Lucien gave it to me, he’d said he climbed to the old watchtower on Storm Ridge alone on a winter night and had a vow keeper bless each stone with moonlight.

He’d said it would protect me, that it was a promise he would one day leave his official mark on my neck.

For all these years, I had never taken it off.

It turned out the stones weren't moonstones.

There was no blessing, no power of a vow.

It was just a cheap trinket anyone could buy.

The real one was on Vivian’s wrist.

The relationship I had treasured for a decade was just as fake.

I slid the bracelet from my wrist and placed it on the cabinet by the door.

“I hope the ceremony goes smoothly for you both.”

Lucien sneered.

“Don’t pretend to be so calm. You’re just waiting for us to let our guard down.”

I didn’t explain. I just closed the door and walked away.

He thought I was still trying to stir up trouble with my silence.

But this time, it was real.

I don’t love you anymore, Lucien.