I’m the daughter of the Alpha of the Embermoon Pack. As my post-transformation wolf form was tall, powerful, and strikingly beautiful, I had always been favored by my parents and cherished by the pack. Yet, during a journey with my brother, Gariel, I was betrayed, ambushed, and sold into an illegal mining camp on the frontier.

There, electric fences, raised gun barrels, and endless despair became my prison. To prevent escape, the overseer would select a group of so-called “lucky ones” at regular intervals. In front of all the miners, they would hack off their hands and feet.

Half a year slipped by in torment, and I wasted away until I was barely recognizable. My body was covered in scars, looking like a demon dragged out of hell. Even so, I clung to the belief that my brother would come for me.

Then, one day, by pure accident, I overheard a phone call between the overseer and my brother.

“You sure are ruthless to have the heart to sell your beautiful sister to us. Your parents must be losing their minds by now.”

Those words instantly extinguished the very last trace of hope I had left.

The butt of a rifle slammed hard into my lower back, sending me sprawling face-first into the mud.

“Run! Why aren’t you running now?”

A tall werewolf stomped on my back. His name was Butcher, the overseer of this mining camp.

He had once been a Gamma of Embermoon Pack, but after secretly selling the pack’s core intelligence, he had been exiled by my Alpha father. He had hated my father ever since, and now that I had fallen into his hands, the consequences were obvious.

My carefully planned escape had failed, and he dragged me back through a torn hole in the barbed-wire fence with his own hands.

“Bring the others over here!” Butcher roared.

Two other werewolves who had tried to escape were shoved forward by armed werewolf guards and forced to kneel beside me. They were shaking uncontrollably, gun barrels trained on their heads.

Butcher reached for his waist and pulled out a rusted machete. He weighed it in his hand, the metal dull and stained. Then, he walked up to one of the kneeling werewolves, a twisted look of pleasure spreading across his face.

“I hate your kind the most,” he sneered. “High-ranking werewolves think a bit of status means you can do whatever you want.”

His eyes were fixed on the kneeling man, but his words were clearly meant for me.

“This is my territory. And here, you learn to obey, or this is what happens.”

Before he finished his sentence, the blade flashed.

“Ah!”

A scream ripped through the silence of the mining camp as the werewolf’s right arm was severed cleanly at the shoulder. Blood sprayed everywhere, splattering across my face. My stomach churned, but there was nothing left inside me to throw up.

Butcher didn’t stop. He brought the blade down again and again. In moments, all four of the werewolf’s limbs were gone. He collapsed into a twitching, blood-soaked mass on the ground.

The other werewolf broke down, wetting himself as he crumpled to the dirt. Butcher rested the bloodied blade against the man’s neck and then slowly turned his gaze toward me.

“You,” he said. “Come here.”

I forced myself to crawl upright, every step feeling like I was walking on knife edges.

“Lick it clean,” Butcher ordered, pointing at his mud-caked boots.

I stared at him, my eyes bloodshot. In my mind, my brother’s face surfaced again.

My brother was a half-werewolf—the son of my Alpha father and his former mate. When my brother was very young, my father had dissolved the bond with his human mother. From then on, he was raised under my mother’s care. Although we were only half-siblings, he doted on me endlessly, always protecting me and staying by my side.

Half a year ago, he had taken me on a trip for a break. Before boarding the plane, I drank the water he handed me, and not long after takeoff, I fell asleep.

When I woke up, I was here in this mining camp. Somehow, they had suppressed the wolf inside me. I didn’t know how they did it, only that it had fallen into a deep slumber. I was left powerless, weak, and completely defenseless.

I had always believed my brother would come for me. However, so much time had passed, and there had been no word from him at all. I could no longer ignore the possibility that he might have met with danger himself. If so, I couldn’t die here. I had to live. I had to escape and look for him.

Slowly, I knelt down and extended my tongue, licking the mud from Butcher’s boots bit by bit. Laughter erupted from the surrounding werewolf guards.

Satisfied, Butcher kicked me away with one swift motion.

“I’ll spare you today,” he said coldly. “But if there’s a next time, you’ll end up just like him.”

He pointed at the body still twitching faintly on the ground.

I lay there, face down in the dirt, pretending to be obedient, while hatred grew wild in me.

I was thrown into a water cell, where a ring of silver bars surrounded the pit. The filthy water was ice-cold, rising all the way to my chest, with rats and snakes slithering and swimming around me.

Butcher stood at the edge of the pit, a sack of coarse salt in his hand.

“Take this time to reflect, little princess,” he said with a vicious grin.

Then, he dumped the entire bag into the water.

When the brine touched the whip wounds on my back, pain exploded through my body. I bit down hard until my lip split, forcing myself not to scream. I knew my suffering would only excite him more.

After Butcher finally left, I began thinking about how to save myself. I carefully reached out and touched one of the bars. The moment my palm made contact, it felt as if my flesh were burning. Cold sweat soaked my body, but I didn’t dare make a sound.

Using my feet, I slowly felt around beneath the water. Suddenly, my toes brushed against something solid. I picked it up and saw that it was a rusted piece of iron. I used it like a crude saw, scraping at the silver bars bit by bit. The gaps between the bars were wide. If I could cut through even one, I could escape.

After three days of effort, one bar finally began to loosen, and a fragile spark of hope ignited in my chest. That was when the door to the water cell suddenly opened.

Butcher’s face appeared in the doorway. His eyes flicked to the nearly severed bar, and a cruel smile curled across his lips.

“Still got plenty of spirit, huh?”

He ordered the werewolf guards to drag me out of the pit and throw me onto the ground. I was soaked through, shivering uncontrollably from the cold.

“It looks like the water cell wasn’t enough for you.”

Butcher reached into a brazier and pulled out a branding iron, glowing red-hot. Etched into the metal was a string of numbers: A734. It was the mine’s identification number.

“Don’t move,” he said. “It’s time to mark you. From now on, you’re my pet dog.”

Two werewolf guards pinned me down. I could only watch as the branding iron drew closer and closer to my lower abdomen.

“Hiss!”

The stench of burning flesh filled the air. I let out a scream, and then everything went black. When I woke up again, I was lying on a filthy pile of straw. The pain in my abdomen made my entire body spasm.

A thin female werewolf walked in carrying a bowl of water. She was Amina, one of the female workers responsible for delivering food at the mine. Seeing the brand on my stomach, a trace of pity flickered through her eyes. She held the bowl out to me, and instead of taking it, I stared at her without blinking.

She looked a little frightened under my gaze, but she didn’t leave.

“Drink,” she said. “It’s clean.”

I searched her clear eyes for a long moment before finally taking the bowl.

After that, Amina began secretly giving me extra food and clean water. Once, while the werewolf guards weren’t paying attention, she slipped me an anti-inflammatory pill.

I grabbed her hand, my eyes filled with desperation.

“Please help me,” I begged. “I can’t die here. My brother came with me, but he’s disappeared. I have to get out and find him. I’m begging you.”

“I… I can’t help you escape. You won’t make it out of here. But I can tell you this: Butcher isn’t the one who planned all of this.” She leaned in and said it quickly by my ear before hurrying away.

Her words exploded in my mind. Was someone behind Butcher? Who? The person who sold me? And was my brother being controlled by them, too?

Questions flooded my mind one after another. I had to find the truth.

Later, I pleaded with Amina again and again. In the end, her heart softened. She agreed to help create an opportunity—one that would allow me to get close to Butcher’s office.

Three days later, Amina deliberately set the kitchen on fire while cooking. The flames spread fast, and chaos erupted across the mining camp. Most of the werewolf guards were drawn away by the blaze.

Grabbing my chance, I slipped through the shadows and crept beneath the window of Butcher’s office. Voices drifted out from inside. Butcher was on a call, and he had it on speaker.

“Your sister sure is something,” Butcher said. “After everything she’s been through, she’s still alive.”

My heart shot straight into my throat.

A cold laugh came from the other end of the line.

“Die? No. She can’t die that easily. My Alpha father and that she-wolf mother of mine are still drowning in the pain of losing their beloved daughter. Before I fully take control of Embermoon Pack, she can’t die.

“Watch her closely on your end. She’s smart. Don’t let her escape, and don’t make things too easy for her. Take more photos and send them to me. Watching her suffer helps me vent.”

The moment I heard that voice—one I knew very well—my mind went blank. That was because it belonged to my brother, Gariel.

No… It was impossible. I had to be hearing things. It couldn’t be my brother.

A chill ran up my spine, and even my teeth began to chatter uncontrollably. I was so stunned that I lost my balance and knocked over a flowerpot on the windowsill.

“Who’s out there?” Butcher roared.

I turned and ran. There was nothing left in my mind but pure instinct screaming at me to escape.

“Catch her! Don’t let her get away!”

The werewolf guards closed in from behind.

Amina was waiting for me at the edge of the forest. She grabbed my hand, dragging me forward as we ran with everything we had.

“Hurry! Once we get over that mountain, we’ll be safe!”

However, no matter how fast we ran, we were still slower than silver bullets.

The moment a gunshot rang out, a sharp numbness exploded through my left leg, and I crashed to the ground. Fighting against the pain, I forced myself to get back up and keep running.

Butcher caught up quickly with his men, gun in hand, his face twisted in a cruel grin. He didn’t rush to capture me. Instead, he fired again, and the silver bullet grazed past my ear. A burning pain tore through it, yet I still staggered forward, refusing to stop.

Only after he had enjoyed my misery enough did Butcher fire once more. This time, the bullet slammed into my right leg. I collapsed, unable to get back up.

Butcher walked over and pressed the scorching barrel of his gun against my forehead.

“Run,” he mocked. “Go on. Keep running, Princess.”

He stomped down hard on the wound in my leg. The pain nearly knocked me unconscious, but I stared at him without blinking, carving his face into my memory.

Suddenly, Butcher laughed.

“You heard that call just now, didn’t you?” he said. “Aren’t you curious who was on the other end?”

That familiar voice echoed in my mind, and my face drained of all color.

Seeing my reaction, Butcher laughed even harder. “You guessed right. That was your brother, Gariel. Hahahaha–”

“Impossible,” I snapped back in fury. “My brother would never do this to me. I’m the one he loves most. You’re just saying this to torture me. I don’t believe a single word you say.”

“Oh? You don’t believe me?” he sneered. “He paid me five hundred thousand dollars to take good care of you. I’ve got the transfer records right here. Do you want to see it?”

He pulled out his phone, opened the transaction history, and shoved it in front of my eyes. My world collapsed. The very last fragment of illusion was crushed beyond repair. So, it had been him all along. The brother I trusted most and depended on was the one who had personally pushed me into hell, and I couldn’t understand why.

People in the pack had always whispered that my brother’s wolf form was too slender, that he wasn’t fit to become the next Alpha, and that my father intended to groom me instead. However, I had made it clear to him that I would never compete with him for the Alpha position.

I longed for freedom. I preferred traveling and wandering the world, and more than that, only I knew that the wolf inside me was different from everyone else’s. I could never become the next Alpha of Embermoon Pack.

If so, why did Gariel hate me so much?