I had been dead for four days when the Great Elder, the most respected member of our pack, broke his seclusion, having sensed the alarming fade of the Luna's life force.

He came to the command center in person.

The moment I saw the venerable old man, my soul stirred with excitement.

After my parents died in the war, it was the Great Elder who took my hand and saw to it that I was cared for.

He told me himself that if I was ever wronged, I should come to him.

No matter what, he would have my back.

In front of Fenrir, the Great Elder reached a trembling hand toward his own forehead.

"Her spirit has left her body... The mate bond is so faint, it's nearly extinguished..."

The Great Elder's face turned ashen.

"Great Elder, what are you saying?" Fenrir's expression turned grim.

"The Luna is just throwing a tantrum, it's no big deal, she'll be back in a couple of days..." Tessa interjected hurriedly.

"Silence!" The Great Elder roared, raising his staff.

The staff struck Tessa hard.

"You lying outsider!"

"How dare you lie in front of me?"

Tessa stumbled back a few steps, her face deathly pale.

"Great Elder... I don't understand what you mean..."

"You don't understand?" The Elder's eyes blazed with fury.

"The Luna's soul has clearly left her body, yet you claim she's just playing games?"

"Great Elder, you have me wrong," she said, her eyes welling with tears.

The Great Elder was merciless.

"You ungrateful creature!"

"Selene's parents adopted you, loved you like their own daughter!"

"Yet you covet her position as Luna, your words and actions overstep your bounds!"

"An adopted Beta, and you dare dream of becoming the Luna?"

Tessa covered her face, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Great Elder... I didn't... I was just worried about my sister..."

"Worried?" the Elder sneered.

"Worried about when she'll finally die so you can take her place, is that it?"

Seeing Tessa's swollen cheek, Fenrir's face turned to ice as he moved to shield her.

"She is part of this family."

He looked at the Great Elder, his expression blank. "As long as I am here, I'd like to see anyone try to touch her!"

Fenrir's dominance erupted, and the temperature in the room plummeted.

The Great Elder, leaning on his staff, met his gaze without flinching.

"Fenrir, you've lost your mind!"

"This she-wolf is poison!"

"She is Selene's adopted sister!" Fenrir roared back.

"She grew up with us! On what grounds do you accuse her of meaning us harm?"

The Great Elder said, with his body trembling.

"Why do you think you haven't been able to find Selene?"

"This she-wolf has been lying the entire time!"

Tessa hid behind Fenrir, her eyes filled with tears.

Fenrir was thoroughly enraged.

He took a step forward, his Alpha presence overwhelming.

"Enough! I will not allow anyone to harm Tessa!"

"Not even you!"

The Great Elder stared at him in shock.

"Fenrir, do you know what you are saying?"

"I know perfectly well!" Fenrir's eyes burned with a manic fire.

Before he could finish, his flagrant disrespect for the sacred mate bond triggered a violent spiritual backlash.

Waves of the Moon Goddess's wrath pulsed through the air.

As the Moon Goddess's most devout follower, the Great Elder bore the brunt of this terrifying power.

He coughed up a spray of blood, the divine backlash shattering his strength as he collapsed.

My soul rushed over, trying to see how he was.

Fenrir was also struck by the backlash from the mate bond.

A searing pain shot through his chest, making it impossible for him to stand.

Healers rushed in and carried the Great Elder away for emergency treatment.

Hearing the news, members of the Pack Council rushed back from across the territory.

They already held the Great Elder's authority in high esteem, and now they were deeply concerned.

"We're gone for just a few days and this happens!"

"Alpha! If something happens to the Great Elder, can you bear that responsibility?"

The Council members bombarded Fenrir with accusations.

But their true anger was directed at me.

Tessa saw her chance and spoke up, her voice trembling with feigned sincerity.

"I think... maybe sister really is a bad omen..."

"She's turned the entire pack upside down..."

The Pack Council immediately agreed.

"Exactly! How can she cause so much trouble while she's just missing!"

"Does she really think her bloodline is so special? That she can do whatever she wants just because she holds the Luna title!"

Fenrir frowned at their words.

"Elders, don't say that..."

"After all, Selene's parents died to save the pack. She is one of our own..."

"Enough!"

An elder cut him off impatiently.

"Are we supposed to let the entire pack cater to her forever just because her parents were heroes?"

"She's such a curse. If you insist on completing the Luna coronation with her, what will become of the pack?"

"You'd be better off rejecting this walking disaster sooner rather than later!"

Another elder chimed in.

"That's right, let her get far away from here and stop plaguing our pack!"

Fenrir's first instinct was to refuse.

He just wanted me to come back; he had never considered actually severing the mate bond.

But Tessa stopped him, her eyes filled with tears as she spoke softly.

"Fenrir, if you keep insisting, won't that just make the elders even angrier with sister?"

"And..." she glanced in the direction the Great Elder had been carried off. "The Great Elder is in this state because of my sister..."

After a moment's thought, she offered a suggestion.

"To stabilize the pack, why don't we... just cancel the coronation for now?"

"No."

This time, Fenrir refused without a second thought.

Canceling the coronation was equivalent to stripping me of my Luna status, a mark of shame for any Alpha.

Given Fenrir's personality, he would never choose that path.

Besides, a compliant Luna like me wasn't easy to find.

"But if we let her go on like this..." Tessa's eyes held a flicker of resentment, which she quickly concealed. "It won't just hurt her, it will cause you pain as well, Alpha."

Fenrir considered for a moment, but still shook his head.

"The coronation is the will of the Moon Goddess. It cannot be lightly canceled."

"That's final. I've made my decision."

Back at his villa, Fenrir replayed the Great Elder's words in his mind.

He felt that the most respected elder in the pack had no reason to lie about this.

Moreover, the complete lack of any sensation from me for days was truly abnormal.

"Selene, you're always making your presence known, but now there's just... silence. It's really as if..."

He murmured to himself, trailing off.

I floated beside him, wanting to tell him that even in death, I was still by his side.

But it was no use. I could scream my lungs out and no one would hear.

When I was alive, I was always bogged down with trivial matters.

Now that I was dead, I finally had time to really look at the bedroom Fenrir and I shared.

The nightstand was empty, save for one thing: our only photo together.

It was taken after the Moon Goddess had declared us mates.

In the picture, we were holding each other tightly, our faces beaming with happiness.

The light of the Moon Goddess shone down on us, a witness to our sacred union.

Back then, I believed with all my heart that we would be happy forever, just like in that photo.

I reached out a spectral hand, wanting to touch it.

My fingers passed right through the glass, brushing over the innocent, smiling face that was once mine.

That girl believed in love, in fate, in an Alpha who would protect her forever.

My soul gazed at the faded photograph and smiled bitterly.

Then I slowly passed through it, a silent farewell to the girl I used to be.

On the vanity was a small wooden carving, now covered in a thick layer of dust.

I had given it to Fenrir for his coming-of-age ceremony.

My parents had just died, and the Great Elder had taken me in.

Everything felt so new and strange.

When the Elder was busy with pack affairs, Fenrir would keep me company, training with me, helping me get used to pack life.

That wolf-shaped carving had taken me a full month to make.

My own wolf was unstable even then, but to be worthy of a powerful Alpha like him, I trained relentlessly.

I would wake up at four every morning to practice combat skills.

I wouldn't stop even when I had a high fever.

"Selene, you don't have to push yourself so hard," he used to say, back when he still cared.

"Your body is naturally weak. Just do what you can."

But I wouldn't listen.

I saw the way the stronger she-warriors looked at him.

I knew what they were thinking.

They were questioning why such an outstanding Alpha had been fated to a weak Luna like me.

So I worked twice as hard.

Until one day, I collapsed during training and woke up three days later in the medical bay.

My body was never the same after that.

And in the end, all it earned me was his disdainful glare.

"With a body like that, how can you protect the pack?"

"You can't even manage a basic shift. What kind of Luna are you?"

Those words were like silver daggers, cutting into my heart one by one.

It's all so laughable now.

I watched Fenrir toss and turn, unable to sleep all night.

Early the next morning, Tessa came over to prepare his breakfast.

"I'm not in the mood to eat," Fenrir waved her away. "I'm going to the cliffs myself today."

"But Fenrir, the search parties have been there for days. Sister is definitely not there..."

"Since when do you have the right to question my decisions?"

The force of his Alpha command silenced Tessa. She didn't know what had gone wrong.

When Fenrir finally reached the bottom of the ravine, carrion birds were already circling overhead. My body had started to rot.

I watched him press a hand to his chest again and again. The closer he got to my corpse, the deeper his brow furrowed.

My own soul throbbed with a tearing pain.

This damned mate bond. It wouldn't let me go, even in death.

Finally, at the edge of Moonridge Cliffs, Fenrir caught a familiar scent.

And... and the smell of blood.

He carefully peered over the edge, looking behind the massive stone monument.

My corpse was slumped against the rock wall, eyes shut, with barely any skin left intact.

The wolfsbane toxin had left gruesome marks all over me, and my blood had long since clotted into dark red patches.

On the fifth day, he finally found me. And I knew it was time to go.

My soul began to glow, transforming into a soft light.

As my soul began to dissipate, I heard the final thought from my own heart:

"Goodbye, Fenrir."

"The Selene who loved you is gone forever."

The light grew brighter.

I felt my consciousness being gently pulled away.

The very instant my soul vanished, every breeze in the pack fell still.

An eerie silence descended upon the air.

Fenrir's heart suddenly felt hollow, as if a piece of his soul had been violently ripped away.

The next second, an agonizing, soul-tearing pain exploded from the depths of his being!

The wolf tattoo on his arm, the symbol of our mate bond, shattered in an instant, turning to black ash.

The once-shimmering silver crescent mark vanished completely.

The agony of the severed mate bond struck him like lightning, a sharp blade piercing his chest, a pain beyond endurance.

Even more terrifying, all the pain I had ever endured—the despair of being pushed from the cliff, the torment of the wolfsbane's poison, the anguish of being misunderstood, the loneliness of being ignored.

All of it flooded his senses in that one moment.

"Selene... Selene..." His eyes were bloodshot. He trembled, trying to feel for our bond, but all he found was a dead, empty void.

His wolf took over completely, and under the psychic shock, he collapsed into unconsciousness.

Fenrir didn't know how long he was out.

In his dreams, I was standing on the cliff's edge, telling him over and over, "Goodbye, Fenrir."

Then I would leap into the abyss.

"Selene!" He shot up in bed.

He was drenched in a cold sweat, the searing pain still echoing from the depths of his soul.

"You're awake," Tessa said, sitting by his bed while holding a bowl of medicinal broth.

"Drink this. It will help."

But Fenrir didn't hear a word she said.

He threw back the covers and staggered out of bed.

"Where is Selene? I have to see Selene!"

Seeing she couldn't stop him, Tessa bit her lip, her voice thick with false sympathy as she said,

"Calm down!"

"Selene... she's dead!"

Fenrir looked up, his face a mask of disbelief. "What did you say?"