"Shameless liar," Silas Thorne spat. "You know the price for deceiving me."

He ordered me to be hung by silver chains in the center of their territory for three days and three nights.

Every day, I begged the messenger to take one more message.

Not a single one was answered.

On the morning of the fourth day, as the first rays of sunlight touched my face, he gave the order. My head was severed from my body with a silver blade.

They placed it in an exquisite silver box and gave it to the messenger.

"Deliver this to Alpha Lachlan personally. Tell him we've disposed of the liar who tried to deceive us."

My body was thrown into the barren borderlands.

My family's old steward, who had been searching for me relentlessly, finally found my headless corpse there and brought me back to the Sinclair manor.

After Lachlan deleted my ninety-ninth distress message, no more came.

The Full Moon Celebration was approaching. Every year, I would make him a gift with my own hands.

This year, his gift for me was ready.

Mine would never be delivered.

He grew restless.

He believed I had shoved Cora onto a silver-laced dagger—all for a moonstone necklace meant exclusively for a mate. In a fit of rage, he had sent me back to my family's territory.

He felt no guilt. In fact, he even considered himself merciful for sending his most elite guards to escort me home.

Now his subordinates were saying it was Cora who had dismissed that guard in his name.

He must have been thinking: Ridiculous. Cora might be bold, trading on my favor, but she's gentle by nature. She'd never do something like that.

In his eyes, I was petty and jealous. The kind of woman who would fake ninety-nine messages just to get his attention.

Lachlan threw the gift he had prepared for me onto the table, his face dark. "Rhiannon, Rhiannon… when will you ever grow up?"

My soul hovered above him. My body was long gone, but the pain remained.

Cora resented me. She loved to take what was mine. Lachlan would only say she was young—that I should indulge her.

So I did.

Time and time again.

I never thought she would reach for the sigil meant for his mate.

I refused her, and she snatched the moonstone necklace—then threw herself onto the silver dagger.

Lachlan helped her up from the floor. The disappointment in his eyes when he looked at me was palpable.

"It was wrong of Cora to covet your necklace. But how could you be so petty? To injure her with silver over such a small matter? If you had just given it to her, none of this would have happened. How can you ever be the Luna of this pack with a heart that small?"

So, the girl who stole from me—and used his Alpha's sigil as she pleased—she was fit to be the Luna of the Sterling Pack?

That day, he ordered me to kneel and apologize to Cora.

I refused.

Even when he compelled me with his Alpha command, I did not bow my head.

He sneered and said, "Letting a petty woman like you into my life was the biggest mistake I've ever made."

His words pierced my chest like a silver-laced blade.

When he banished me back to my own territory, I didn't argue. I packed nothing. I walked out of the headquarters in silence, the guards following behind me.

My heart had already shattered.

The Full Moon Celebration arrived.

Lachlan still hadn't received my gift.

He summoned a messenger and thrust an order into his hand. "Tell Rhiannon to come back. This has gone on long enough. Her birthday is in three days. We'll hold the bonding ceremony then."

The messenger set off for the Sinclair family's territory.

My family's territory bordered Ashenfang, but it was close to the headquarters. He returned in less than half a day, his face etched with unease.

"Alpha, Lady Sinclair refused the order. She said… unless you go to her yourself, she will never forgive you."

My soul floated above them, cold and numb.

I saw Cora's servants intercept the messenger just as he was leaving the headquarters' gates.

They spoke in low voices for a long time.

Then the messenger turned right back around—he never even made it to the Sinclair territory.

If he had gone, he would have seen the manor shrouded in mourning, my funeral already being prepared.

My family's old steward had already brought my body home.

All except for my head.

Lachlan knew nothing of this.

The messenger's lie ignited his fury.

"If she won't come back, then let her stay in her own territory."

The next morning, Cora burst into Lachlan's office, covered in blood mixed with moonpetal herbs.

"Alpha, I failed… I angered Rhiannon. She sent people to kill me. Don't blame her, it's all my fault."

Lachlan's eyes blazed with fire. He pulled her into his arms.

"Where is the healer? Go, now! If anything happens to Cora, none of you will live!"

Then, his face turned to ice.

"Bring me Rhiannon. Immediately. If she doesn't come and beg Cora for forgiveness, I will publicly desecrate the Sinclair family's sacred relic—the 'Ancestral Fang'."

The Ancestral Fang. The relic left by my father, Declan, the late leader of the Sinclair family.

I watched him, hollow.

Even as a soul, a tremor of anguish shook me.

But I was already dead.

How was I supposed to go and beg for forgiveness?

This time, the messenger did not linger. He galloped toward the Sinclair family's territory without stopping.

He returned with my mother, Eleonora.