Chapter 1

"Can you spare some time to go to the hospital with me?"

"Alpha Ashton, you promised you'd be there to witness our child's first heartbeat."

"Ella has acute gastroenteritis, I have to stay with her. As for you, keeping the child is just a burden."

The 17th missed call still flickered on the communicator screen. I stood in the hospital corridor, clutching the crumpled prenatal check-up form.

The scene from seven years ago suddenly flashed in front of my eyes.

"Daphne, go! Don’t worry about me!"

"I won’t leave! If we die, we die together!" My wolf claws sparked against the boulders as I dug in, the wolf tattoo on my shoulder blade burning with the force.

As the rocks fell, I transformed into my wolf form and leapt toward alpha Ashton, alpha of silverclaw pack. The sharp rocks pierced my abdomen, and I heard his howl, a rip through the valley.

"No—!" He covered me with his blood-soaked body, his wolf eyes glowing blood-red. He licked the blood from my lips and swore with the oldest oath of the werewolves: "By the moonlight and the wolf god's name, if I break this oath, I will fall into the abyss of beasts forever!"

Before I lost consciousness, he trembled as he held me in his arms. "Hold on, Daphne! If you die, I won’t survive either!"

Back then, Alpha Ashton would wait outside the operating room for three days and three nights.

I curled up on the operating table, having lost the ability to bear children after the fall, protecting him.

He held my hand, filled with needles, and said, "I can’t live without you."

Now, when the doctor holds my hand and says "miraculous pregnancy," I have to personally end this life that is seven years overdue.

Macie’s claws scratched at my heart. "Ask him if the blood oath under the moonlight still counts?"

"So, from the beginning, I was just a pawn in your power game?" The taste of rust rose in my throat. "Back on the operating table, you promised to make it up to me for the rest of your life..."

He said, "Don’t use old matters to morally blackmail me."

I had been with Alpha Ashton for twelve years, blissfully in love.

Until five years ago, when she returned.

The she-wolf that Alpha Ashton had once loved but couldn't have: Ella.

Of course, he had to drop everything to welcome her back.

At the time, I didn’t pay much attention. Until she became Alpha Ashton’s personal attendant.

I broke down and confronted him, demanding to know what their relationship really was.

He impatiently dismissed it, claiming they were just friends.

I believed him.

Until a week later, I saw them—hand in hand—using a business trip as an excuse to stay in the wolf pack’s inn.

Since then, he rarely came home.

At the council building, they were inseparable. Coming together, leaving together, laughing as if they owned the world.

I turned and saw the familiar custom suit. In his arms, Ella was wrapped in a cashmere shawl, her fingers gripping a limited edition platinum bag. She didn’t look sick in the least.

"Daphne?" She shrank into Ashton’s arms in alarm, her wolf tail provocatively brushing across his groin.

"I didn’t know you had a check-up today, I would’ve had Ashton..."

Macie laughed out loud. "Using the old trick again to fake illness and steal a man?"

"What did you say?" Ashton interrupted impatiently. "Her health hasn’t been good for days, does she need someone with her for a check-up?"

I pressed my hand to my stomach, nausea rising. "Alpha Ashton, seven years ago you knelt outside the operating room begging me to survive, and now you want to personally kill our child?"

Ashton suddenly snapped, "Enough! Without Ella keeping those old men in the council in check, do you really think you could still be Luna?"

He tore open his shirt collar, revealing the red marks left by Ella's nails on his neck. "Look at you now, you look like a madwoman!"

Macie scoffed mockingly. "The scratches on his neck, and the wounds you bandaged for him in the avalanche—which one is more worth cherishing?"

Ella suddenly began coughing violently. "It’s my fault, I’m sorry..."

She trembled as she grabbed Ashton’s sleeve. "You should go be with Daphne, I can get home on my own..."

"No need." Ashton tucked the stray strands of her hair behind her ear.

"Last time when you had a 40-degree fever and cried, saying you were scared, how come you didn’t seem so considerate then?"

He turned to look at me, his eyes cold as ice. "Get rid of the child."

As I bent over, gagging, I heard Ella’s soft gasp. "Ashton, Daphne looks awful..."

Her voice came with the perfect touch of a sob. "Maybe... we should keep the baby? After all..."

"Shut up." His voice was devoid of warmth. "With your thin endometrial lining, I can’t bear to let you suffer. As for her? She’s nothing but a waste who can’t even keep an orphanage running."

"It’s okay, I know Daphne just misunderstood me. I’ll try to get along with her. She’s your Luna—I don’t want to make things hard for you."

He sighed heavily.

"You’re just too kind, and that’s your problem."

I stared at his twisted face, suddenly remembering the full moon night twelve years ago when he put the wolf tooth necklace around my neck: "My Luna, you are the purest moon of the pack."

I couldn’t bear to listen anymore. I turned around and walked out without looking back.