The freezing wind brought by the shadow claws whipped against Aria’s face, reeking of death and stale blood. Her survival instincts took over. Instead of freezing, Aria instinctively threw both hands up to shield her face and neck.

The shadowy black talons slashed across Aria’s right arm. A burning pain instantly flared through her skin, tearing the black silk of her wedding gown and slicing into her flesh. Fresh, deep crimson blood immediately gushed from the wound.

Aria screamed in agony, completely resigned as she waited for the next fatal strike that would end her life.

However, the darkness that was supposed to consume her body suddenly exploded into a deafening hiss.

The exact second the droplets of Aria’s crimson blood splattered and hit the shadow claws, the black mist violently convulsed as if drenched in acid. The black smoke rapidly faded, writhing in agony, and layer by layer, disintegrated into fragments of ash that vanished into the air before they could even touch the floor.

The room suddenly fell deathly quiet.

Xavier, still chained to the bedpost, gasped heavily with what little strength he had left. Slowly, the pitch-black color receded from his eyes, returning to a pair of fiery red irises that were now wide with absolute shock.

He had witnessed the entire thing. The previous five brides had been torn to shreds because the black magic bleeding from his body could not be contained by anything. Yet this human girl... her blood had just annihilated the cursed magic with a single touch.

"You..." Xavier’s voice was hoarse, barely audible. "Your blood..."

Aria couldn't hear Xavier's words. Her head spun violently. The burning pain in her arm, the sheer psychological shock, and the crushing pressure of the supernatural energy that had just occurred completely drained her of all strength. Aria's vision slowly went black. Her body gave out and she collapsed onto the cold marble floor, falling unconscious.

The next morning, sunlight pierced through the large windows of the wedding chamber.

Outside the door, a crowd of maids, guards, and even several elders of the werewolf council had already gathered. Their faces were tense. A few maidservants had brought fresh burial shrouds and blood-cleaning tonics, preparing to evacuate the corpse of the sixth bride just as they had done so many times before.

The iron chains were roughly unfastened, and the heavy oak door was swung wide open. The head palace butler stepped inside with his head bowed, prepared to pay his final respects to the bride’s remains.

However, his footsteps froze. A hysterical shriek escaped the mouth of one of the maids behind him.

In the center of the room, Aria was not lying stiff as a corpse. The human girl was sitting on the edge of the bed, her arm securely wrapped in clean white linen. In front of her, Lord Alpha Xavier sat quietly on the floor, allowing Aria to meticulously apply a healing salve onto the remaining wounds on his temple.

Aria was still breathing. She was alive.

The entire room froze in utter disbelief. For the first time in history, a woman had successfully made it through her first night with the Bloodmoon Alpha and welcomed the dawn completely unharmed.

Xavier paid no mind to the shocked stares of the people standing at the threshold. His eyes were locked entirely on Aria, staring intently at the human girl who was now looking back at him with remnants of fear in her eyes. The Alpha knew his destiny had just changed.

However, as Aria stood up to adjust her torn gown, her hand accidentally brushed against something bulging beneath the bed pillows. Aria looked down and subtly pulled back the edge of the pillow.

A folded piece of worn-out paper was hidden there. With a swift, silent movement, Aria concealed the paper in the palm of her hand before Xavier or any of the servants could notice. While Xavier turned to speak to his guards, Aria slightly opened the paper and read the messy handwriting scrawled inside:

"Do not trust the Alpha. Your mother's mysterious illness... he is the cause of it. You have been sacrificed."

Aria's heart instantly dropped to the pit of her stomach, staring at Xavier’s broad back with a terrifying new sense of dread.

That morning, the Grand Hall of Bloodmoon Palace, usually buzzing with werewolf gossip, fell completely silent. News that Aria—a mortal human girl with no inner wolf—had managed to survive her wedding night spread like wildfire blown by a gale. Not only had she survived, but she was also found tending to the unconscious Alpha. To the Council of Elders led by Beta Magnus, this was both a harsh slap in the face and an impossible anomaly. The five previous pure-blooded brides had ended up as piles of lifeless flesh due to the ferocity of Xavier’s curse. How could a mere piece of weak human flesh suppress such a monster?

Inside her luxurious new room, Aria sat on the edge of a velvet-canopied bed. Xavier had moved her from the chained bridal chamber to the Amethyst Pavilion, the innermost area of the palace with the tightest security. Two gigantic wolf warriors stood rigidly behind the oak door of her room, ensuring that not even a single insect could enter or leave without permission.

Click.

The door opened, and a well-built man stepped in with his ceremonial cloak draped over his shoulders. Xavier. His face was no longer as pale as last night, but lines of exhaustion were still clearly etched at the corners of his sharp eyes. His gaze, the color of honey gold—signaling that his human side was in control—instantly locked onto Aria's gauze-wrapped arm.

"How is your wound?" Xavier’s baritone voice broke the silence, sounding deep yet possessing a gentleness foreign to Aria’s ears.

"I am fine, Your Majesty," Aria answered formally, bowing her head slightly to maintain her distance. She had not forgotten the fact that the man in front of her could turn into a black mist monster in the blink of an eye.

Xavier walked closer and sat on a single chair across from Aria. He stared at his own palms, which were completely free of the burn marks from the silver chains last night.

"The palace physician has examined the residual energy in the bridal chamber," Xavier paused, his eyes narrowing inquisitively. "Your blood... possesses an ancient purifying glow. The moment your blood touched that black mist curse, its magic shattered. You are the antidote I have been searching for all this time, Aria."

Aria clenched her hands in her lap. "So, is that why you moved me to this luxurious pavilion? Because I am useful as your walking medicine?"

A faint, bitter smile touched Xavier's firm lips. "In this palace, usefulness determines whether you deserve to live or die, Aria. The Council of Elders wants your head because they fear what they do not understand. By placing you here under my direct command, not a single one of them will dare to touch you."

Xavier stood up, giving a final order to the guards outside to tighten their patrols before walking away, leaving Aria drowned in her own thoughts.

That night, the atmosphere in the Amethyst Pavilion was so quiet that the ticking of the clock sounded like the strikes of a judge's gavel. Aria tried to lay her weary body down on the incredibly soft silk mattress. However, her mind remained in turmoil. She thought of her mother back in the village. Had the 100 gold coins she sent arrived yet? Had the physician there treated her mother’s black lung disease?

As Aria turned onto her side, her head felt something obstructing beneath her silk pillow. Something hard and rustling.

Aria startled. She sat up and quickly reached under the pillow. Her hand pulled out a neatly folded piece of dull parchment. With her heart beginning to race, she unfolded the paper. The writing inside was written in a deep red ink that resembled dried blood.

Aria read the text line by line, her breath catching in her throat:

"Do not be deceived by the luxury that monster gives you, Aria. Your presence in this palace is no coincidence, but a trap. The black lung disease your mother suffers from in the village was intentionally engineered and spread by Xavier's secret order. He needed your purifying blood, and the only way to bring you here without suspicion was to make your mother terminally ill so that you would volunteer to be his sacrifice."

Aria's hands trembled so violently that the parchment slipped from her grasp and fell onto the blanket. Her eyes widened in utter horror, while the room around her felt as though it were collapsing and spinning out of control in an instant.

The contents of the mysterious letter kept spinning in Aria’s head, tearing apart the fragments of peace she had just managed to build. Xavier engineered all of this? Xavier made her mother terminally ill? The thought made Aria’s stomach churn with nausea. If that man could chain himself to protect others, was he also cruel enough to sacrifice an old woman in a remote village for the sake of his own survival?

Aria could not just sit still and guess. She had to find proof. When the wall clock showed two in the morning, Aria approached her bedroom door. Through a small crack, she saw the two wolf guards still standing rigidly. However, Aria knew the layout of the Amethyst Pavilion had a utility window at the back of the kitchen that led directly to the inner garden. With light movements, Aria slipped out through it, ignoring the stinging pain in her right arm which had begun to dry.

The night atmosphere in the Bloodmoon palace garden was ominous. The night wind blew, carrying the scent of damp earth and pine. Aria crept along the stone path, hiding behind large trees every time she heard the heavy footsteps of patrolling guards. Aria had only one destination: Alpha Xavier’s Private Greenhouse, a place where palace rumors claimed he kept a collection of rare and deadly plants from across the entire continent.

Fortune seemed to be on Aria's side. The side door of the stained-glass greenhouse was not fully locked. She slipped inside, greeted by warm, humid air and the heavy aroma of hundreds of exotic plants. The greenhouse was vast, illuminated by the glow of light-emitting crystals mounted on the ceiling. Aria walked carefully, her eyes scanning the rows of plant labels. As the daughter of a traditional herbalist in her village, Aria had a sharp eye for botany.

She kept walking until she reached the innermost zone, which was cordoned off by a chest-high iron fence. In the center of this forbidden zone grew a small tree with a jet-black trunk and reddish-purple petals. Black Rosewood.

Aria’s heart pounded. She gripped the iron fence so tightly that her knuckles turned white. Next to the large pot sat a leather-bound journal and a silver bowl containing a thick, purplish fluid extract. Aria knew the exact symptoms of the black lung disease her mother suffered from: coughing up clotted blood with a faint sweet aroma, followed by acute shortness of breath that slowly turned the tips of the fingernails black. It was not a naturally contagious disease. It was the side effect of inhaling the burnt pollen of Black Rosewood.

"So... the letter was true," Aria whispered in a trembling voice, tears of anger and betrayal beginning to well up in her eyes. "You poisoned my mother, Xavier..."

Aria turned in a hurry, intending to grab the journal as evidence and flee this accursed place immediately. However, the moment she spun around, her steps instantly froze. Her blood felt as though it had turned to ice.

Framed in the dim exit of the greenhouse, a well-built figure stood with his arms crossed. Xavier. The Alpha's face looked incredibly dark, half-hidden by the shadows of giant palm leaves. His honey-gold eyes had dimmed, projecting a cold, threatening aura.

In his muscular right hand, Xavier was holding a small glass vial filled with the exact same thick, purplish liquid found in the silver bowl of the Black Rosewood.