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?

I was dragged back to the mining camp like a dead dog. Right in front of me, Butcher hauled Amina into the center of the square.

“This,” he said, “is the price of betraying me.”

He ripped Amina’s clothes apart and shouted to the werewolf guards behind him, “She’s yours.”

I could only watch as those beasts swarmed around her.

Amina’s desperate screams and their obscene laughter tore into my ears. I thrashed wildly, a beastlike roar ripping from my throat. I tried again and again to call out to the wolf inside me, but there was no response. All I could do was watch as the only person who had ever shown me warmth in this hell was tortured to death before my eyes.

Bloody tears slid down my face as hatred ignited inside me, burning away what little sanity I had left. However, Butcher still wasn’t satisfied. He walked up to me, crouched down, and pinched my chin between his fingers.

“Keeping you here is a waste,” he said with a grin. “I hear the Wakha Pack deep in the jungle loves tender, soft-skinned she-wolves like you. Selling you to them will earn me another fortune.”

I was stuffed into a burlap sack and transported for what felt like endless hours. When the sack was finally ripped open, I found myself surrounded by dark-skinned savages with oil-painted faces. The way they stared at me was the same way one looks at a lamb waiting to be slaughtered.

They tied me to a massive wooden frame, dry firewood piled beneath my feet. A man wearing a feathered headdress—clearly their leader—approached with a stone knife in his hand. He muttered something under his breath, as if conducting a ritual. Around him, the savages began to dance and howl with excitement.

I stared at the stone blade as it crept closer and closer to my heart, my mind still. In despair, I shut my eyes. I swore on my wolf that even in death, I would haunt Gariel and Butcher.

Just as the knife was about to plunge into my chest, the pack’s wooden gates exploded inward under a massive impact. In the next instant, countless silver bullets rained down like a storm. The savages who had been celebrating moments ago fell in droves.

Armed helicopters circled overhead, their overwhelming firepower sealing off the entire area. Fully equipped werewolf mercenaries descended from the sky, eradicating everything in their path with absolute force.

Through the smoke and chaos, a tall figure charged toward me like a madman. He sliced through the ropes binding me and wrapped me tightly in his blood-soaked coat. At last, I couldn’t hold on anymore.

Everything went black.

…

When I woke again, I found myself inside a white medical tent, surrounded by advanced medical equipment. I twitched my fingers slightly, and pain surged through my entire body.

“Veya!”

A familiar voice rang out. It was my mother, Hale.

She rushed to my bedside, her hair completely white, her face worn and hollow. Behind her stood my father, Lucius, leaning heavily on a cane, his body trembling.

“Father… Mother…” Tears flooded my eyes as I spoke, “How did you…”

“A mysterious person sent us a message. They told us you weren’t dead, that you were trapped in the frontier and in terrible condition. However, when I confronted Gariel, he poisoned your mother and me. He then placed us under house arrest and told the pack I was ill, claiming temporary control in my stead.”

My father clenched his fists, his face twisted with rage.

“I never imagined,” he continued, “that after all these years, I’d raised a beast, just like his greedy, heartless mother.”

“Father, you were poisoned? Are you okay?” I asked.

Seeing me anxious, my mother assured me, “Veya, don’t worry. Your father and I are fine now. That mysterious person helped us. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be here.”

She pulled me into her arms, her body trembling.

“Veya, I’m so sorry. We failed to raise Gariel. That’s why you went through all that suffering.”

At that moment, the tent flap was lifted. A silver-haired middle-aged male werewolf stepped inside. The powerful Alpha aura radiating from him made instinctive submission unavoidable. I recognized him instantly. He was the one who saved me.

Behind him stood an elegant female werewolf. The moment she saw me, tears spilled from her eyes, and she collapsed to the ground.

The male werewolf strode to my bedside, pushing my parents aside without hesitation. He dropped to one knee in front of me. His hands trembled as he reached out, wanting to touch my face, yet fearing he might hurt me.

Finally, his gaze fell to my right wrist. There, beneath the bandages, was a red birthmark shaped like a maple leaf. In that instant, his eyes turned red.