While I was being brutally tortured, my mate was with his first love, a she-wolf named Lily who'd been poisoned with wolfsbane.

The wolves who had a personal vendetta against Louis blinded me and stuffed my mouth with stones, violating me one by one, then tried to call him using my phone.

The alpha only gave me a heartless command before hanging up, not listening to a word.

"Unless you donate your bone marrow fluid to Lily, I'll continue ignoring you!"

The enemy wolves stared at the blood trickling down my legs, and mocked, "Oh, were you pregnant? Well, seems like we got the wrong person, anyway! How could you and your baby not compare to a poisoned she-wolf?"

When my corpse was discovered, Louis immediately reminded Lily to be careful. When another wolf reminded him that he should check in on me since I was pregnant, he scoffed.

"Pregnant? Her? Is that the lie she's going with to justify not saving Lily?

"I never want to see such someone so venomous again!"

Little did he know that he already saw me.

The corpse, decaying and rotting in front of him, was me, his Luna.

They finally found my body.

I'd been soaking in the lake for many days by then, so I was already disfigured beyond recognition. The guards who found me were so disgusted by the view that they gagged and vomited as they reported to Louis.

Louis was an Alpha belonging to the Blood Moon Pack, and was also the most skilled forensic pathologist among all the wolves.

When he rushed over from Lily's side, he still froze at the sight of my mutilated body, despite having witnessed countless gruesome sights before.

I was in my birthday suit, my lower body clearly violated with brutal force, my intestines spilling out. My face had been smashed beyond recognition by rocks, leaving my features caved in and unidentifiable. My limbs were broken and my entire body was covered with wounds, blood oozing continuously and filling the air with the stench of death.

One of the guards handed Louis a mask. "Alpha Louis, we've identified this as a female corpse."

Looking at my body, Louis' usually cold eyes showed a rare trace of pity and sorrow. That was the first time he had ever shown me any care or pity.

"From the looks of it, she was tortured and violated before she was killed. We need to warn the female wolves in the Blood Moon Pack to be cautious."

Louis nodded grimly, then took out his phone, his expression softening. "Lily, listen to the doctors and take your medicine. It's not safe now, so don't go outside, alright? I'll come to you after I'm done."

After carefully doting on her, he finally hung up, and that's when a guard asked him if he wanted to check in on me, too. "Luna Rena is an orphan, and you're her only family, Alpha. Maybe you should go home and see her?"

Immediately, Louis' expression darkened.

What the guard Adrian didn't know was that he hadn't been home in days.

His first love, Lily, had been studying abroad, and only returned to the pack after being poisoned by wolfsbane. From that day on, Louis had spent every waking moment by her side.

When he found out that my bone marrow fluid could cure Lily's poisoning, he forced me to donate it.

What he didn't know, however, was that I was already pregnant. I couldn't possibly sacrifice my unborn twins to save his first love.

He scoffed at me. "It's just a little fluid, Rena. Why can't you agree to something so simple? It's a life we're talking about here! Aren't you being too heartless and selfish?

"How in the world did I end up with a mate as cruel as you?"

From that day on, he refused to meet me or even listen to my voice altogether.

Seeing the displeasure on Louis' face at the very mention of me made the guard hesitate. "I hear that Luna Rena got pregnant. Isn't it unsafe for her to be all alone at home?"

Louis froze, but then scoffed. "Pregnant? Her? I haven't even touched a hair on her head after Lily came back, so how could she be pregnant? Is that the lie she's going with to justify not saving Lily?

"I regret claiming such a venomous she-wolf as my Luna!"

At that moment, I found out that even souls could feel pain. I couldn't help but mourn for myself, and for my unborn twin children.

Adrian seemed to want to say more, but Louis, already engrossed in his work, shut him down quickly, leaving him no other choice but to keep quiet.

Putting on a pair of gloves, Louis crouched down and stared at my broken front limbs, lost in thought.

On my front limb was a bloodstained ring—it was the matching couple's ring I'd bought when we first formed our mate bond.

Once he found out that I wasn't willing to donate my bone marrow fluid, Louis had thrown away his ring in a fit of rage, flinging it to the floor. "Rena, I won't wear the same stupid ring as someone who's as heartless as you! Lily's already suffered enough because I bonded with you, so I don't want her to be hurt again because of you in her final days!"

He put so much strength into it that the poor ring was smashed out of shape, rolling pitifully on the stairs before disappearing into the gaps.

Back then, I held my stomach and searched for it for a long time, but I never found it.

What about now?

Would he be able to notice that the ring on the corpse belonged to me?

"From the looks of it, she had a mate." Louis sighed and shook his head as he observed my body. "Go and check if there have been any cases of missing she-wolves. Her mate would be devastated, seeing her like this."

No, he wouldn't.

Not my mate.

When I was still alive, he had forced me to donate bone marrow fluid to his first love even when I was pregnant.

As I was being tortured to death, he abandoned me and his unborn children to accompany his first love at the hospital, not willing to accept a single phone call.

Even after I died, he still wasn't able to recognize me.

After all, he didn't love me at all.

Adrian who'd left for the Blood Moon Pack came back with bad news.

"Alpha Louis, there aren't any she-wolves reported missing. This one died in our territory, but how can we find the killer if we can't identify her?"

Louis furrowed his brow.

The Blood Moon Pack had the strongest wolves around, and was thus the safest pack for one to be in. A puzzling case without any leads such as mine naturally frustrated Louis, the Alpha and forensics expert of the pack.

He stood up and told Adrian to continue checking on my corpse while he went to observe the surroundings.

Suddenly, Adrian seemed to notice something, and turned to shout at Louis, "Alpha Louis, this she-wolf was pregnant! With twins, at that!!"

Louis paused, turning to look at my slightly round stomach, and he suddenly had a bad feeling.

That was when Adrian spoke again, "Dang it! My mate told me that Luna Rena was pregnant with twins too!"

"Shut up! That's impossible! She wasn't pregnant!"

Louis flared in anger, shouting at the guard, only reining himself in once he realized he lost his composure. With a cold glare, he asked, "Didn't you say that no she-wolves were missing in the pack? Wasn't Rena there when you went back?"

How could anyone have realized I had gone missing?

After Louis had berated me because of Lily, he ordered everyone in the Blood Moon Pack to ignore me unless I chose to donate my bone marrow fluid to Lily.

The other wolves thought that he'd break his mate bond with me because of her, and no one dared to come near me as a show of obedience.

During that time, I lived all by myself in that cold and lonely room, nursing my stomach.

If it weren't because I was resting by the fence because of nausea that day, I wouldn't have met the neighbor guard's mate, and no one would have even known that I was pregnant.

That night, Louis' enemies found me all alone and tortured me to death, throwing me by the cold and filthy lake.

Adrian naturally didn't have the full picture, so he replied, "D-Didn't you order us not to go near Luna Rena unless she was willing to save Lily? My mate did tell me that she hasn't seen Luna Rena for days now… Should I ask her?"

Louis froze in place as he frowned, and that's when Lily called.

"Louis, aren't you coming back? Are you with Rena? I know Rena doesn't want to save me because she dislikes me… She's throwing a tantrum because you were looking after me, right?

"I'm alright, even if she doesn't want to save me! I just want to see you again before I die!"

As she spoke, she even broke down crying.

Upon hearing this, Louis' expression became heartbroken, and he reassured Lily that he really was on important business and not with me.

He only hung up after Lily stopped crying.

Adrian tried to remind him again to check on my wellbeing, but Louis, who saw the phone call I made to him before I died, scoffed.

"Have you ever seen a dead person make a phone call? Rena knew that I was still angry at her and wanted me to be worried about her, so she wanted to use this murder as a chance to play missing!"

Louis let out an exhale and put down his phone. "As a Luna, how could she be petty against someone who's sick? How could she lie and play such petty tricks to delay me from finding out the truth?

"She doesn't deserve to be my Luna!"

I was so sad that I could feel my soul trembling.

Perhap Lily was the only one who he thought deserved to be his Luna.

Meanwhile, I was just someone who was occupying the position that he deemed hers.

Hence, everything I did was wrong, and everything I said were excuses.

I was worried, before, that Louis would be sad if he found out that the corpse was mine, and that I died because of him.

But now, nothing really mattered anymore.

As I felt my soul become lighter and lighter, as if I was going to drift away, Adrian suddenly pointed towards something by the lake. "Alpha Louis, look! It's brown wolf fur!"

Louis' expression darkened instantly.

Ah, was he finally going to find out?

The ones who had killed me were wolves from the Brown Wolf Pack, who had a personal vendetta against Louis.

Half a year ago, Louis had bitten their pack's Luna to death. Before the Brown Wolf Pack's Alpha retreated, he swore that he'd make Louis lose the love of his life!

Louis picked up the brown fur and looked at it closely, before he hurriedly dug his phone out of his pocket, dialing my number anxiously.

When his call didn't go through, he pushed Adrian aside in a fit of rage, crouching down to check my corpse as he shook his head, his eyebrows knit tightly. "It can't be Rena! It can't!"

He didn't seem to find anything, so he could only turn towards Adrian and growl, "I'm going back home! Summon all our male wolves and carry out tests between them and the pups! I want to find out who this corpse belongs to before dawn!"

Adrian nodded, slightly stunned, and Louis morphed into his wolf form, making a mad dash for our house.

Arriving at our house just as dawn broke, he breathed a heavy sigh of relief when he saw that the lights in our house were turned on. The moment he turned back into his human form, he got another call from Lily.

"Louis, I'm feeling terrible… It's been a whole night! Are you done? Can you come back and keep me company? The guards told me that you left the lake, so where are you? Are you on your way to see me?"

Louis paused, looking at the house before him hesitantly, but he only thought about it for a second before turning around and heading towards the hospital.

"Rena's the one in the wrong here, so I'll wait for her to come apologize to me! If she saw me looking for her in such a hurry, she'd laugh at me for sure!"

One step.

One more step was all it took for him to arrive at our door, and if he pushed it open, he'd see the blood splattered all over our house.

That's right, I was killed in my very own home.

The brown wolves had barged into my house while I was alone, torturing me excitedly. According to them, violating me and killing me in the house that represented my and Louis' love was the only way to make him feel the pain of heartbreak many times greater, and the only way to have revenge for killing their Alpha's wife.

What they didn't know, of course, was that Louis didn't love me.

Whether it was before I died or after, the one he chose was always Lily.

Seeing him turn to leave so resolutely, I felt like I was going to disappear.

Before he could leave, however, Adrian the guard from earlier rushed to the scene, stopping him.

Louis looked down at his watch irritatedly. "How did the testing go? Be quick about it, Lily's feeling unwell so I have to go to the hospital."

"Alpha Louis, we've tested the DNA of all the wolves in the Blood Moon Pack, and none of them were compatible…" The guard hesitated, before continuing, "You're the only one who hasn't done testing…"

Louis blinked, hearing this, before he burst into laughter. "There's no need for that! The twins who died definitely weren't mine!

"Don't worry, that body was probably a Rogue that got on the bad side of the Brown Wolf Pack, then. Rena's at home, see?"

Louis patted Adrian's shoulder, made the final step towards our house…

And pushed the door open.

An overwhelming stench of blood came rushing out, filling the air. Sprays of crimson stained the walls, and chaotic claw marks littered the floor.

Every single detail seemed to tell a story of the agonizing and horrific slaughter that had taken place in this very house.

"Rena!"