The pungent stench of medicine and rotting wood immediately greeted Aria the moment she stepped inside her hovel. On a thin, worn-out mattress, her mother lay pale. Her breathing was shallow, interrupted by the bloody coughs that grew more frequent by the day.

"Aria..." her mother’s voice was barely a whisper in the wind. "You don't have to... work this late, my child."

Aria forced a smile, squeezing her mother’s ice-cold hand. "I’m fine, Mother. Rest now. I just got paid from the market."

Aria was lying. Her wages from washing clothes and hauling wheat all day weren't even enough to buy a single painkiller. The town physician had made it clear yesterday: "Your mother has contracted a mysterious black lung disease. The remedy is only available in the upper district, and it costs a hundred gold coins. If you don't bring it within three days, prepare to dig her grave."

A hundred gold coins. To a lower-class human like Aria, living on the fringes of the Bloodmoon werewolf pack territory, that amount was as impossible as reaching for the moon.

Suddenly, the blare of a bronze horn echoing from the city center shattered the silence of the night. Aria jolted. It was the announcement horn from the Alpha's Palace.

Driven by curiosity and sheer desperation, Aria stepped out of her hovel. In the torchlit town square, hundreds of residents—both humans and low-ranking werewolves—had already gathered around a massive bulletin board. A burly palace guard shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Hear ye, citizens of Bloodmoon! His Majesty, Lord Alpha Xavier, is once again opening the registry for a new bride! Whichever maiden is chosen and steps forward, her family will instantly receive an initial allowance of five hundred gold coins!"

A horrified murmur instantly rippled through the crowd. Five hundred gold coins was immense wealth, but the price to pay was far too terrifying.

"Another new bride? This is the sixth time this year!" whispered a woman next to Aria, her face deathly pale.

"Don't anyone dare volunteer! You all know what happened to the previous five brides, right? Every single one of them died horribly in the bridal chamber on their very first night! Their bodies were torn to shreds!" another chimed in with a shudder.

"Alpha Xavier’s curse is real. He is a cold-blooded monster who devours his own mates!"

Aria froze in her tracks. Her heart hammered wildly against her ribs. Five hundred gold coins. That money would not only cure her mother but also guarantee a comfortable life forever. However, the price was her own life. Even most noble werewolf maidens refused and hid their daughters out of sheer terror.

‘But Mother will die in two days if I do nothing,’ Aria thought. Her hands clenched into tight fists, her knuckles turning white. Terror choked her throat, but the vision of her dying mother's face eclipsed everything else.

The next morning, the palace courtyard—grand yet suffocating with an eerie, magical aura—was packed with dozens of maidens who were either forced or driven by circumstance to register. Most were weeping, their bodies trembling violently inside their finest gowns. Aria stood at the very back of the line, wearing a clean but frayed dress, trying to hide the trembling in her knees.

Suddenly, the entire courtyard fell dead silent. The air pressure around them abruptly grew so heavy that several human girls dropped to their knees, unable to withstand the stifling, oppressive energy.

The grand doors opened. Lord Alpha Xavier stepped out.

Aria caught her breath. The man—no, the monster—was breathtakingly handsome yet exuded a suffocating aura of death. He was tall and built, his hair as black as the midnight sky, and his jawline sharp and expressionless. But the most terrifying part was his eyes. They weren't brown or black, but a glowing, fiery red, radiating the aura of an apex predator ready to tear its prey apart at any moment.

Xavier walked slowly, passing the lines of noble maidens who bowed their heads low. He didn't even deign to glance at them. To him, they were nothing more than the next casualties destined to die by his curse.

Until the steady click of his black leather boots slowed down, then stopped right in front of Aria.

Aria felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. A masculine scent mixed with tobacco and rain-drenched forest washed over her from the Alpha. Aria forced herself not to look down. She stared directly into those lethal, crimson eyes, laying bare all her terror, yet anchoring it with unyielding resolve.

Xavier looked down at the human girl in the worn-out dress. The corner of his lips tugged upward into a cold, cruel smirk. Reaching out with a rough, calloused hand, he gripped Aria’s chin with a force that made her wince, forcing her face higher.

Xavier leaned in close, whispering in a deep, gravelly voice that vibrated right through Aria’s chest.

"You dare look into my eyes, little human? You do know you will die a gruesome death in my hands tomorrow night, don't you?"

The atmosphere in the selection hall suddenly turned ice-cold. Dozens of pairs of eyes—especially those of the noble werewolf maidens who believed themselves far more worthy—stared at Aria with a mixture of shock, malice, and pity. They knew this frail human girl had just signed her own death warrant.

Xavier roughly released his grip on Aria’s chin. He turned around, not even waiting for an answer from her trembling lips.

"Take care of her," Xavier commanded coldly to the head palace butler standing behind him. Without another glance, the Alpha strode away, his black cloak billowing in the deadly wind.

Aria would have collapsed to the floor if an elderly maid hadn't quickly caught her by the arm. In that exact second, Aria's life changed in a flash. Two armored guards escorted her toward a closed carriage. Before the carriage door slammed shut, Aria managed to toss a heavy leather pouch to a hired courier who was already waiting for her outside the gates.

Five hundred gold coins. The advance payment had cleared.

"Take this to the hovel on the western outskirts! Give it to the physician and make sure my mother takes her medicine this very day!" Aria cried out, half-shouting through the gap in the carriage window.

The courier nodded quickly before the carriage bolted away, carrying Aria up the mountain toward the Bloodmoon Palace that stood tall atop a rocky cliff.

The palace was magnificent, yet every corner exuded a dark aura. There were no bright decorations typical of a wedding celebration. No fresh flowers or cheerful music echoed through the halls. There was only a suffocating silence and the cold stares of the guards, who looked at Aria as if she were a lamb being led to the slaughterhouse.

Aria was escorted into a spacious chamber with a large canopy bed in the center. Laid out upon the bed was a gown.

Aria’s heart hammered against her ribs. The gown was not white at all.

"Is this... the wedding dress?" Aria asked, her voice trembling as her fingers brushed the silk fabric, which felt smooth yet as cold as snow.

"Yes, Future Luna," replied the elderly maid who had brought her in, her eyes blankly masking a hidden terror. "This is the tradition for Lord Alpha Xavier's brides. A gown of pure black silk. The palace no longer provides white gowns... because we do not wish to stain white fabric with blood that is difficult to wash away."

Those words hit Aria's chest like a physical blow. They were not welcoming a bride; they were dressing a corpse.

Before Aria could even calm the terror in her chest, night had fallen. Inside the vast bridal chamber, dimly lit by flickering candlelight, Aria stood alone in her black wedding gown, staring at her own reflection in a large mirror.

Her face was deathly pale, but her eyes burned with an unyielding resolve. ‘Mother has her medicine. She will live. If I must die tonight... at least my sacrifice was not in vain.’

The heavy clanking of iron chains startled Aria. The massive oak door at the far end of the room swung open, and a towering figure stepped inside.

Xavier.

The Alpha had shed his ceremonial cloak and now wore only a loose black shirt with the top buttons undone, revealing his broad chest. His crimson eyes glowed intensely in the darkness of the room.

The moment Xavier entered, two guards outside immediately slammed the heavy wooden door shut. A deafening sound echoed once more—the chamber door was being locked from the outside with thick iron chains.

Aria took a sharp step back until her spine hit the bedpost. Her breath hitched, her hands gripping the edges of her black gown with a death grip. She could hear her own heart racing wildly, synchronizing with the heavy thuds of Xavier’s approaching footsteps.

Xavier stopped exactly three paces away from Aria. His predatory aura rolled off him in powerful waves, completely locking the human girl in place. Beneath the dim candlelight, Aria could see the glint of sharp fangs beginning to peek from behind the Alpha's thin lips. The grand grandfather clock in the corner of the room began to chime.

Signaling that the night had grown deep.

Xavier stared at Aria with a lethal intensity, his large, calloused hand slowly rising. "Our first night is about to begin, Human."

Teng... Teng...

The tolling of the giant grandfather clock felt like a death knell echoing deep within Aria’s chest. Every single strike made all the muscles in her body seize up. The air inside the room suddenly plummeted, turning so freezing cold that her breath formed a thin mist as it left her mouth.

Xavier took a step forward. His fangs elongated, and black veins began to bulge around his sharp, chiseled jawline. His crimson eyes no longer held cold arrogance; instead, they flared with a wild, uncontrollable bloodlust.

Aria squeezed her eyes shut, tightly gripping her black wedding gown, bracing herself for the excruciating pain that was about to tear through her neck. ‘Mother... I’m sorry,’ she thought in utter resignation.

However, the agonizing seconds ticked past without any pain.

Instead, what she heard was the sound of a heavy crash accompanied by a choked, intensely painful groan. CRASH!

Aria opened her eyes in shock. Xavier was not pouncing on her. The Alpha was on his knees on the marble floor, clutching his own head as if his skull were being struck by a sledgehammer. His well-built frame trembled violently, and cold sweat poured down, drenching his black shirt.

"Go..." Xavier growled, his voice hoarse, warping into a low, primal canine rumble. "Hide... under the table... now!"

Aria froze. "W-What?"

"I SAID GO, HUMAN!" Xavier roared.

Groaning in agonizing pain, Xavier crawled with great effort toward a bedpost made of pure wrought iron. With trembling hands, he reached for a bundle of pure silver chains that had been deliberately placed there. Without a moment's hesitation, Xavier wrapped the wolf-weakening chains around both his wrists, locking himself securely to the bedpost.

Aria jolted backward. Her mind raced. He... he is purposely chaining himself up? Xavier didn't want to kill her. He was fighting to restrain something inside him.

Before Aria could fully process what was happening, Xavier's screams of agony shattered the silence once more. The Alpha's body convulsed violently. His eyes, which had been a fiery red, suddenly turned pitch-black—entirely black, with no whites remaining.

From beneath the shadow of Xavier’s body on the floor, something horrific began to manifest.

A dense, pitch-black smoke that reeked of sulfur billowed out from the Alpha's body. The smoke swirled in the air, condensing to form a pair of colossal shadow claws with razor-sharp talons. This was not a wolf's power. This was pure, concentrated black magic.

The shadow claws moved independently, hovering in midair as if they possessed a consciousness of their own.

Locked down by the silver chains, Xavier could only howl in sheer frustration, desperately trying to pull back the dark energy bleeding from his body, but he failed. The magic entirely ignored its host.

The pair of black shadow claws spun slowly in the air before finally detecting the presence of another living soul in the room. Slowly but surely, the claws turned, aiming their sharp tips directly at Aria, who was frozen in the corner of the room.

Aria backed up until her spine pressed flat against the wall. There was nowhere to run. The door behind her was locked beneath layers of heavy iron chains from the outside.

"Run... Aria... Run!!" Xavier screamed with the last shred of his consciousness, uttering her name for the very first time.

But it was too late. The black shadow claws lunged, tearing through the darkness of the room, hurtling straight toward Aria’s throat with lightning speed.