“What are you trying to get me to sign, Wendy?”

My grip on the phone tightened instantly, the elder’s words — “must be signed within six days” — still reverberating in my ears.

“It’s nothing,” I said quickly, shoving the phone into my clothes. “Just a follow-up confirmation from the doctor.”

“You’re lying.”

Miranda’s voice slithered through my mind like ice over a frozen lake, sharp and merciless.

“You really think you can hide it from him? What does he even see you as? Less than a dog.”

He suddenly seized my wrist, the pressure nearly enough to shatter bone.

“Unlock it.”

“The password’s my birthday.”

He typed in 0617. The screen stayed black.

On the second attempt, a vein on his temple began to pulse.

“You told me your birthday was June 17!”

Miranda cackled. “Five years of marriage and the only date he remembers belongs to a dog.”

“That’s the birthday of the Pomeranian you gave Penny.”

“Five years of marriage, and you remember a dog’s birth, not mine.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Wendy, I...”

“Enough!” I wrenched my arm from his grasp, my nails raking a red line across his wrist.

“You remember the day she fled her wedding vow for word, but last year, when I was burning with fever ironing your moon-crest embroidered suit, you took Penny out to her favorite restaurant.”

“Enough!” Alpha John snapped coldly. Behind him, his wolf shadow flared, baring its fangs.

“Penny already swore before the Moon Goddess. It’s you who refuses to move on.”

I didn’t respond. I walked past him and headed upstairs.

Just as I reached the top, Penny’s saccharine voice chased after me.

“John, look at the gift I picked for Wendy…”

She swung the shopping bag into my room.

She saw me in the room, holding my late brother Ronald’s backpack, grieving in silence.

“You’re still keeping Ronald’s stuff? So morbid. Dead people’s things bring bad luck.”

My hand froze on the drawer handle.

Inside lay Ronald’s heart transplant consent form — the signature line still blank.

“Don’t touch that.”

“I’ll be gone soon,” I said softly. “Then you’ll finally have everything you’ve always wanted.”

“Oh no,” she stepped closer, her voice venomous, “I haven’t taken everything yet.”

Then, she screamed and fell to the ground, red marks “appearing” on her wrist.

“Wendy, I just wanted to look at your dad’s ring…”

The ring wasn’t worth much — but it was the last thing I had of him.

The only thing that hadn’t yet been stolen.

She held up her bare hand, nails secretly digging into her flesh.

“Why did you hit me?”

Alpha John stormed in as Penny pointed at me, trembling.

“She said… said she hated me for stealing Ronald’s heart!”

“You’re insane!” He gripped my jaw, his fingers biting into my skin.

“Ronald died of heart failure!”

I stared at Penny’s hidden hand.

On her middle finger was Ronald’s graduation ring — the one I had left by his urn.

“One week ago,” my voice turned eerily calm.

“The hospital found a matching heart. The day before surgery, we were told the donor backed out.”

Penny’s smile faltered for a second before she burst into tears.

“John, she’s lying again…”

Miranda observed coldly: “Her left eyelid twitched twice — classic sign of a lie.”

Then, “accidentally,” Penny knocked over the urn on the nightstand.

Ronald’s ashes spilled across the floor, mixing with his beloved dried sunflowers.

“She couldn’t even spare the dead,” Miranda whispered. “And you still want to forgive her? She’s the real stray dog here.”

Miranda’s ethereal claws sliced the air, forming a shimmering ward.

“She deliberately struck the moonstone seal with her elbow. That dust she scattered with the sunflower petals — that’s silver poison powder. It’ll keep a wolf’s soul from ever reincarnating.”

“You spilled his ashes!” I lunged forward —

—but Alpha John’s slap landed first. The edge of his ring tore my lip.

Then came my mother’s wolfbone staff, slamming into my back.

“Throwing a fit over some ashes? You’re just like your wretched father — pathetic!”

“You finally understand,” Miranda’s voice was gentle, too gentle.

“It wasn’t a misunderstanding. They’ve been killing your brother together — from the very beginning.”

Penny crouched beside the ashes, dabbing a bit on her fingertip and smearing it at the corner of her eye.

“Wendy, I’m sorry… The truth is, John begged the doctor to give the heart to me. He said he couldn’t live without me.”

She leaned into my ear.

“Did you know? The night before Ronald’s surgery, I unplugged his monitor.”

I stared at the faint needle scar on her ring finger — the one she gave herself while faking heart failure.

Alpha John was cradling her now, checking her “wounds.”

My mother delicately wiped the ashes from Penny’s shoes.

No one saw the blood trailing down my palm as I picked up the shards of Ronald’s urn.

I closed my eyes.

Six more days.

And I’ll be free — forever.

I opened my eyes to the stark white ceiling of the hospital.

I sat up, and the pain made me cry out.

The door opened. A nurse walked in, smiling gently.

“Wendy, back again. You’re practically a regular now.”

She held a clipboard with a thick stack of my medical records from the past six months.

Knife wounds, burns, fractured bones—the ink piled high like a mountain on the paper.

“What happened this time?” I groaned.

“An Omega brought you in,” she explained.

How long had I been lying here?

Long enough for the Omega sweepers to come and go, long enough that even a wolf’s natural healing couldn’t mend my cracked ribs in time.

“Wendy… are you…” The nurse’s voice softened, “Are you being abused?”

“I’m fine,” I cut her off quickly. “I’m just clumsy. It was an accident.”

“An accident?” she looked up, and the corridor’s moonstone lights shimmered in her eyes.

“But this time, it’s three fractured ribs, and…”

She hesitated, then added in a whisper, “Wendy, you’re pregnant.”

Tears welled up in my eyes as I placed my hand over my belly.

“That’s his spawn,” Miranda growled in my mind, voice laced with contempt. “He put fate inside you while crying out another woman’s name. You really want to keep that humiliation?”

I trembled as I answered, “I don’t know… but it’s still a life.”

“You want to raise it? Just so John can control you again?” she scoffed.

I still remembered clearly how it happened.

Three months ago—right when Penny sent those sex tapes.

That night, Alpha John staggered into my room, drunk, mistaking me for Penny.

He kept murmuring, “Penny, don’t leave me…” over and over.

I let him hold me. I let him leave chaotic Alpha marks all over me—

Just so I could pretend, for a few hours, that I was wanted.

The next morning, he woke up cold and accused me of seducing him.

“The child is strong,” the nurse said, her voice floating faintly. “But you lost a lot of blood. If you’d arrived thirty minutes later…”

I stopped listening.

All I could see were the videos Penny had sent.

I knew I no longer had the strength to raise this child.

How could I bring a baby into such misery?

“Wendy?”

“I’ve decided to have an abortion,” I told her.

The clipboard fell to the floor with a loud smack.

“Wendy! You’re four months in. Abortions at this stage are extremely risky for werewolves, and—”

“I don’t have a husband,” I stared at the cracks on the ceiling.

“The father… his heart belongs to his fated mate.”

I shrugged. “My mind’s made up. Please give me the necessary forms.”

As I signed, a drop of blood from my fingertip soaked into the rune on the paper, vanishing instantly—

A binding magic. Once signed, there was no turning back.

“You’re finally making decisions for yourself. Finally listening to me—and to yourself.”

I closed my eyes, and for the first time, my heartbeat felt steady.

“Thank you, Miranda.”

“Don’t thank me,” she replied. “We’re symbiotic. As long as you live, I can roar.”

“Tomorrow morning at eight,”

The nurse tucked away the forms, her eyes full of worry.

“May the Moon Goddess protect you.”

My phone buzzed. A string of missed calls lit up the screen.

The last message was sent half an hour ago:

“I’m at the border of Blackthorn. This time, I’ll get you out, Wendy.”

I smiled faintly and sent a short reply.

Then I checked the phone again—

No messages from my mother.

None from Alpha John.

Not even Penny.

As I walked out of the ward, I heard Penny’s laugh echoing down the hallway.

“John, the pup kicked today!”

Turning the corner, I saw Alpha John kneeling, resting his head against Penny’s belly.

The Alpha token on his wrist was pressed gently to her rounded stomach.

“I’m so happy you have a supportive husband through your pregnancy, Penny,” said the pack doctor.

And right before my eyes, Alpha John kissed Penny.

“It’s my honor, Penny. You complete me.”

“My Luna,” he rose and kissed her forehead with a tenderness I had never known.

“When our baby is born, I’ll hold the grandest celebration for you at the Moon Goddess’s altar.”

“Do you still believe that Alpha ever loved you?”

A sharp pain struck my heart.

But I couldn’t help asking: “Then what was I?”

Nausea surged. I rushed into the restroom and gripped the sink, retching.

“Well, if it isn’t Wendy.”

Penny’s voice rang from the doorway.

“Enjoying your little peep show at my checkup?”

“Get out.”

“Still not dead?” She stepped closer.

“When I left you lying in Ronald’s ashes, I thought you’d finally go keep him company.”

“Kill her,” Miranda whispered. “She doesn’t deserve to breathe your brother’s name.”

“You threw away Ronald’s ashes?”

I looked up sharply, catching the blue ceramic shards stuck to her heels—

The remains of his urn.

Penny smirked.

“Not just tossed them—I had an Omega bury them with dog shit.

That useless heart of his should’ve gone to a mutt anyway.”

I yanked her hair backward.

“You venomous bitch! Killing him wasn’t enough, you had to desecrate his ashes?!”

“Help! Wendy’s gone insane!”

Penny screamed, suddenly curling up on the floor, clutching her stomach and writhing.

“My baby… it hurts…”

The bathroom door slammed open.

Alpha John burst in.

“What did you do to her?!”

“She killed Ronald! She destroyed his ashes!—”

SMACK.

The slap was sharp and brutal.

My vision blurred from the sting.

His voice was ice.

“Ronald’s life was always meant to save Penny’s.”

Penny scrambled into his arms,

And behind his back, she pinched his waist.

In a whisper only a bonded Alpha could hear, she said:

“Kill her, John.”

Alpha John’s gaze darkened.

He stepped forward, boot stomping down on the hem of my skirt, pinning me to the cold tile.

Penny stood behind him, smiling cruelly, mouthing the words:

“Die already.”

“Alpha John…” I looked up into his eyes, hoping to see even a flicker of the light I had chased for ten years.

But all I saw was hatred—cold, final.

“She—” I began, desperate—

“Shut up.” he cut me off, raising his hand toward my abdomen.

Behind him, Penny stealthily stabbed his arm with her hairpin,

Making it appear as though I had attacked her.

In that instant, John’s rage exploded.

He didn’t slap me again—

He shoved me.

Hard.

My stomach slammed into the marble sink.

I looked down at the pool of blood,

And heard my own heartbeat slow… fading…

Inside me, the faint flutter of the baby’s movement…

disappeared.

“Help… me…”

I reached out, trying to grab the hem of his trousers—

But caught only air.

“Now do you believe me?” Miranda’s voice roared through me like a midnight storm through a forest.

“He’ll kill you—for her. They all hate you… because you’re still breathing.”

He didn’t look back.

He just walked away, arm wrapped around Penny’s waist.

His voice was full of unfiltered disgust:

“Just die here, you worthless trash.”

I crawled toward the bathroom doorframe, struggling to escape.

Warm liquid soaked through my jeans. "Help... me..."

My throat was choked with blood.

The moonstone lights in the hallway twisted into blinding streaks in my blurred vision, until a pair of nurse’s shoes stopped in front of me.

“Oh my God! Call the doctor!”

The nurse’s long hair brushed my cheek as she pressed down on my abdomen, making me arch in pain.

“Wendy, look at me! Don’t sleep—”

As my consciousness began to fade, I heard the snap of surgical clamps.

Someone whispered in my ear, “Moon Goddess… protect her…”

The beeping of the monitor pierced the silence, and I opened my eyes to a sea of blinding white.

The nurse was gently wiping my lips with a cotton swab.

“You’re awake?”

Her eyes darted away, her fingers twisting the bedsheet into folds.

“The surgery was successful, but… we couldn’t save the baby.”

Somewhere in my chest, a hole opened, but I felt no ripple.

I had planned to sign the abortion papers this morning.

Alpha John and Penny had taken away my right to choose, using the cruelest means possible.

“Do you need to contact any family?”

I tugged at my cracked lips. “I don’t have family.”

“No family? Do you really believe that?”

Miranda’s tone suddenly sharpened.

“You’ve been making excuses for yourself, Wendy. Your family never loved you. The only person you can rely on is yourself.”

My heart seemed to be pierced by something.

“I always wanted to find a place to settle, but…”

“You’re always running away.” Miranda’s cold laughter rang in my mind.

“Running from your past, running from your future. The only thing left for you to do is face everything in front of you.”

The elder had notified me to pick up the papers from the council.

Alpha John was sunk into the sofa, not even bothering to lift an eyelash.

“Why didn’t you die at the hospital?”

“I was surprised too.” I placed the papers on the coffee table.

His amber eyes narrowed into slits as he glanced at the title.

Penny walked in from the kitchen, holding a fruit platter, her hair adorned with the moonstone hairpin my father had given me.

It was the raw star-gem my father had exchanged three months' worth of hunting for on my eighteenth birthday.

“John, don’t say it like that. Wendy, I made you some soup…”

“Why aren’t you drinking it?”

Penny tilted her head, dipped her finger in the soup, and smeared it on her lips.

“This is made with Ronald’s favorite sunflower petals.”

Alpha John suddenly spoke from the sofa, his eyes glued to the holographic TV.

“Don’t be ungrateful. Penny spent three hours making it for you.”

Penny quickly added, “John, don’t scare her. Wendy, I know you’re still mad at me,”

I interrupted, “No need.”

“I heard there’s a moonlight gathering tonight?”

Penny’s smile froze for a moment, then turned sickly sweet.

“You know about it? I picked out a dress for you. Let’s go together?”

She handed me a shopping bag containing a ridiculously short skirt—only worn by low-tier wolves for sacrificial rites.

Alpha John sneered.

My mother, tapping her wolfbone staff on the floor, added, “Don’t bring this bad omen to embarrass us.”

An apple rolled to my feet. As I bent down to pick it up, she struck my hand with the staff.

“What are you picking up for?”

Her voice was sharp as a knife.

“Your brother died because of you! Now you want to kill John and Penny’s baby too?”

Penny immediately helped her up.

“Mom, calm down, Wendy hasn’t done anything wrong…”

“Mom,” Penny pouted, shaking Alpha John’s arm.

“Wendy just needs to relax.”

Late at night, I stumbled across a partially open door to the study.

“If we don’t get rid of her, the elders will start to suspect.”

“Why rush?”

Alpha John’s voice reeked of alcohol.

“The miner we sent last time failed. This gathering’s full of opportunities.”

I gripped the railing tighter, my knuckles turning white.

The “accidental” mining disaster three months ago—it was their doing.

“I’ve arranged everything,”

Penny chuckled softly.

“Once she’s drunk, we’ll drag her to the back of the altar. Once the video’s out, she’ll never show her face in the pack again.”

“You’re ruthless.” Miranda’s voice turned icy, her words laced with an undeniable threat.

“You’re the one who’s ruthless.”

Alpha John’s voice was laced with affection.

“Once she’s ruined, I’ll bond with you openly…”

I walked downstairs with the papers in hand.

Alpha John was at the bar, mixing whiskey.

“The hospital needs a family member’s signature.”

I pushed the papers in front of him, my fingers whitening from the force.

He didn’t even glance at it, grabbing a pen and stabbing it onto the paper.

“Your worthless life means nothing to me—” He didn’t finish his sentence, but the pen had already signed.

“Do you think his words matter to you?” Miranda’s voice was soft but carried an unmistakable coldness.

“You’ve been seeking his approval all along, but he never cared about you.”

I bit my lip, the pain slicing through me.

“I know… I’ve always known.”

“You’ve never truly seen him,” Miranda’s tone softened, her words filled with bitter truth.

“He only harms you, and you’ve been changing yourself for him all this time.”

My mother sneered. Penny snickered behind her hand.

I took back the papers.

My phone buzzed in my palm. I opened it to the only contact and typed:

“See you at the altar. Proceed as planned.”