He ended the call. Cold. Without a pause.

Seconds later, another image flashed across my message stone.

A scanned copy of an investment pact. A binding trade agreement signed between my mother and Sarah.

Large runic letters carved across the center read:

All trades carry risk. Any loss caused by personal misjudgment is the client’s own responsibility.

My mother’s name and blood-mark sat cleanly at the bottom.

Evan had been preparing for this. His legal advisors, a ruthless pack of seasoned elders, were ready to crush me like dust underfoot.

Still, I went to the Stoneclaw Council Hall.

Inside the lift platform leading up the tower, I ran into Sarah.

She wore a rare moon-silk gown tailored by the clan’s finest artisans, a jeweled pouch on her arm worth more than most warriors would earn in a lifetime, and around her wrist, the ancient queen’s moonstone bracelet glimmered.

She looked like royalty. Like someone born adored.

Her lips curled when she saw me.

“Oh dear, Annelise, you look dreadful,” she said in a syrupy voice. “I guess it’s true. When a she-wolf ages, the bloom fades. No wonder Evan lost interest.”

Then, feigning concern, she added, “Still haven’t buried your mother? Want me to help plan the rites? We are family, after all.”

My hands curled into fists. Rage burned so hot it felt like fire under my skin.

“You knew it was a scam,” I hissed. “You knew those wandering traders were frauds. You tricked my mother into giving away everything she had.”

She widened her eyes, pretending to be hurt, though a smirk tugged at her lips.

“How could you accuse me like that? I was only trying to help,” she crooned. “Your mother wanted more coin for your bonding dowry. How could I refuse?”

My chest tightened. Blood roared in my ears.

“That old woman adored you,” she went on, voice slipping into a sneer. “Loved you more than her own life.”

Then she leaned close, whispering, her breath brushing my ear.

“One day, I stepped on Head Alpha Marks’s prized moon-peonies. On purpose. The steward said he’d cut your mother’s pay for three moons. She begged on her knees. Right in front of me.”

“She hadn’t taken a single rest day in months,” Sarah giggled. “All to save money for your perfect wedding. And when I told her to crawl across the garden like a dog? She did. Instantly.”

My world shattered. All those times my mother smiled through exhaustion, telling me not to worry… I never knew what she had endured for my sake.

As the lift platform doors opened, something inside me broke.

I raised my hand, vision blazing.

“Sarah, you’re a monster.”

Before I even touched her, she flung herself out of the lift, shrieking as she held her face.

“Annelise, I apologized,” she sobbed. “I even knelt to you, but you keep tormenting me. Do you want me dead? Fine, then. I will die for your mother!”

She stumbled toward the stone wall, pretending she meant to smash her head against it.

“Sarah!”

A figure rushed past me. Arms wrapped around her protectively.

Evan.

He hauled her into his embrace and rammed his shoulder into me. I wasn’t prepared. My head snapped back, slamming into the stone wall behind me with a sickening crack.

The world tilted. Warm blood trickled down my neck.

Evan turned on me, eyes wild with fury.

“Holly, how dare you? Apologize to Sarah. Now.”

It looked like she was his mate. And me? Just some deranged outsider.

Sarah trembled against him, sobbing.

“I know she’s grieving,” she whimpered, clinging to him as if he were her last breath, “and I offered to pay it all back. I said I’d take any job, even the dangerous ones. But she still struck me. She cursed me too. Said I should drop dead.”

Evan pulled her closer, jaw tight, gaze burning with anger.

“Have I not given you enough?” he snapped at me. “Look at yourself. Just like your mother. Petty. Greedy. Always playing the victim. You deserved the punishment.”

My breath hitched. The hall spun, yet I stayed rooted, stunned into stillness.

“Petty and greedy?” I whispered. “That’s what you think of me? That wanting justice for my mother makes me a grasping lunatic?”

Tears blurred my vision, but I refused to let them fall.

For a moment, something in Evan flickered. But the instant Sarah whimpered in his arms, his expression hardened.

“I saw you attempt to strike her,” he said. “I don’t care why.”

He stepped toward me.

“This is the last time I will repeat myself. Apologize.”

My heart clenched like claws were crushing it.

“And if I refuse?” I answered, voice cold.

“She is not only the daughter of a mistress. She is the reason my mother is dead. And you expect me to apologize?” I shouted.

Sarah didn’t even speak. Evan’s eyes went cold as a winter storm.

“I warned you,” he said, voice sharp as steel dragged against ice. “Do not test me.”

Then he turned to his guards.

“Retrieve her mother’s body from the burial cavern. Drag it out.”

The words struck like poisoned blades.

“She will not learn until she is broken,” he said with a sneer. “Did you truly believe someone like you deserved to stand as Lady of the Stoneclaw Alpha line?”

He raised his chin in command.

“Feed the corpse to the wolves.”

He meant it.

His guards moved instantly, their boots thudding like a death march.

“No. No, please!” I lunged forward in blind panic, but another guard seized my arm. His grip was so strong I heard a sickening crack.

Pain tore through me, bright and blinding.

Tears clouded my vision. I sobbed until I could barely breathe.

“Evan, please. Don’t do this to my mother. She is already gone. Isn’t that enough?”

Sarah tilted her head, masking a smirk beneath feigned innocence.

“Evan… the dead deserve peace. Maybe we should spare her this time?” she whispered sweetly.

“You are too soft,” he replied with a sigh. “That softness is why she walks over you.”

Then he looked back at his guards.

“Well? Why are you standing there? Do I need to guide you to the cavern myself?” His voice cracked like shattered glass.

With each word, the last pieces of the love I’d held for a decade fell apart.

He knew. He knew my mother was my only weakness. And he crushed it without hesitation.

I broke.

My spine bent. My knees hit the ground. My pride spilled at Sarah’s feet like blood.

“Please,” I whispered, tears falling so hard I could barely speak. “Please leave my mother. Let her rest. I was wrong.”

Wrong for believing in fairness.

Wrong for hoping he might choose me over her.

Wrong for loving him at all.

As I bowed, the blood-soaked back of my collar spilled into view.

Evan’s gaze flickered. For a moment, he looked almost stunned.

“Is this enough for you?” I straightened slowly, digging up the last fragments of strength, staring at him with disgust I could barely contain.

His jaw tightened. He signaled to his advisor.

“Bring the pact.”

Only after I pressed my bloody fingerprint onto the scroll did his expression finally ease.

“You are bleeding,” he said quietly. “I will summon a healer.”

Releasing Sarah, he stepped toward me.

I slapped his hand away.

“Save it. Go tend to your precious girl instead. If you wait too long, her fake bruises might fade.”

I turned to leave, but Sarah slid her foot in front of me.

I tripped hard, crashing to the ground.

Evan’s instincts sparked. He reached out—then stopped, hand suspended in the air.

He hesitated. Then dropped his arm and stepped back.

“Find a healer yourself,” he said stiffly. “If your injury worsens, that is your problem.”

I forced myself upright despite the pain stabbing up my spine.

As he and Sarah stepped into the lift platform, he glanced back.

“I will accompany you to the bridal weaver’s hall tomorrow,” he said just before the doors slid shut.

The room spun. My knees buckled. Blood loss pulled the world into a haze.

In the blur, a memory flashed.

Evan at nineteen, newly burdened with responsibilities after taking over the clan’s trade routes. Exhausted, sleepless for days. One evening, I burned my hand a little while preparing stew for him.

A tiny blister.

But Evan found out. He stormed out of a crucial council meeting and raced home on horseback without waiting for permission.

He grabbed my hand, cradling it as though it were fragile crystal.

“I am sorry, my love,” he whispered, guilt heavy in his voice. “I should have protected you. As long as I breathe, I will never let anything harm you.”

He pulled me close, warm, trembling, his promise etched into me like a brand.

But that boy was gone.

He had grown into a cold, distant Alpha heir who looked at me as though I were nothing. As though I were disposable.

And now, he was the one hurting me the most.

I staggered toward the tower’s exit. The edges of my vision darkened.

Then everything went black.

But before I hit the ground… someone caught me.

Strong arms. Heartbeat unfamiliar. Scent foreign.

Just before darkness swallowed me, I heard a whisper at my ear. Quiet. Dangerous.

“Do you want revenge?”

A pause. Warm breath against my skin.

“In exchange for those shares… I can help you uncover the truth behind your mother’s death.”

Tears slid down my cheeks as I clung, half-conscious, to the stranger’s tunic.

“Re… venge…” I whispered, the word barely formed.

When my eyes opened again, all I saw was white. Too bright. Too quiet.

A healer’s cavern.

I turned my head slowly, wincing at the ache across my body, and reached for the message stone beside my bed. A rune-lit message from Evan waited, sent during the night.

I’ve matters to attend tomorrow. Go fit your bridal gown on your own. The bonding ceremony is near, so stop throwing tantrums. Enter the Stoneclaw line with some dignity.

I stared at the glowing runes, emotionless, then brushed my thumb across them, erasing the message.

But just beneath it, another glow caught my eye. A post on the clan’s spirit board.

Evan had taken Sarah on a private skybeast flight to watch the northern lights near the ice fields.

In the green glow of the aurora, their silhouettes leaned close together. Matching moon-forged rings gleamed on their fingers.

The caption carved beneath it pierced like ice.

He told me I am the only one for him. He promised to protect me from every cruelty in this world. How could I ever let go?

Below it, a cutesy avatar with a cartoon wolf couple commented:

And no matter how far you run, I’ll find you. I’ll bind you to my side forever. Don’t even try to escape, silly girl.

I didn’t need to check who wrote it. I knew the tone. That possessive style of speech.

It was Evan.

I remembered the day I once asked him to carve matching avatars with me on the clan board.

He rolled his eyes and snapped, “Are you twelve? I’m busy. Leave.”

And yet I had once dreamed of stargazing with him on the northern cliffs. I’d planned every detail. He said he was too busy.

Too busy, always too busy.

Now I understood. He wasn’t incapable of romance. He simply chose not to be romantic with me.

My throat tightened as I set the stone aside.

That was when I noticed the envelope lying quietly on the bedside table.

Inside was a travel parchleaf. Departure in two days.

And a small note:

You’re welcome. Hope the gift suits you. For your wedding. —V.

I knew then. The man who carried me to the healer’s cavern last night was Victor Keane, sworn enemy of Evan Marks.

I sent him a quiet thank-you rune and checked myself out soon after.

Then came a call from the bridal weaver. The gown my mother had ordered had been tailored, ready for pick-up.

The last gift she left me.

I had to retrieve it.

But when I entered the weaving hall, I froze.

Sarah stood there, twirling in my gown.

“Annalise… you came,” she said with a sugary smile, spinning in front of the polished silver mirror. “I had to make sure it fits. Trying to help you out.”

She tugged the neckline lower, revealing fresh red bite marks across her collarbone, her tone mockingly bashful.

“Oh dear, Evan is just so… passionate. I told him to be gentle.”

I stared at her performance, cold and silent.

“You really did inherit your mother’s talent for stealing other wolves’ mates.”

Her smile twitched, then sharpened.

“Oh? Didn’t you hear? I’m carrying Evan’s pup.”

“And your bonding license?” She laughed. “It’s fake.”

She held up her spirit stone. A recording flickered: a dim feasting den, Sarah on Evan’s lap. He was tipsy, kissing her lazily.

“Bear the child safely,” he murmured. “When he is born, I’ll gift him the Stoneclaw holdings.”

Sarah’s voice purred, “But… what about my sister?”

Evan chuckled. “I never married her. I’ve been slipping herbs into her morning milk to keep her barren. I’ll just say we adopted.”

It was like lightning struck me. My vision spun.

So that was it.

Love had died long ago. I was just the last fool who didn’t notice.

I dragged in a breath, straightened, and forced out a calm smile.

“Well, congratulations. Becoming the next Luna of Stoneclaw is within reach.”

“But that gown is mine. Take it off,” I said coldly.

I lunged for the skirt, but before I could touch her, one of her guards—appointed by Evan—kicked me hard.

The force sent me sprawling. Pain tore through my abdomen, twisting like something had been shoved out of place.

Sarah lifted a pair of shears from a nearby table. Her voice grew gleeful as she traced the blade along the silk.

“Evan said no matter what I do, he will clean up my mess.”

The shears sliced through delicate lace. Through the soft gleam of moon-woven silk. With each cut, she destroyed the last gift my mother ever gave me.

I lay there watching the pieces fall like dying snowflakes.

Even my rage felt numb under the crushing weight of everything.

Sarah strutted away, leaving shredded ruin behind her.

I dragged myself back to what used to be my den.

Once inside, I tore open every chest and shelf, pulling out every gift Evan had ever given—jewels, fine hides, carved keepsakes.

One by one, I tossed them into the refuse bin.

Behind me, I heard footsteps.

Familiar ones.

Human. Heavy. And unmistakably his.