Chapter 1
I lay down once more in the treatment pod at the Wolf Pack Clinic.
The silver-grey dome shut out the moonlight beyond the windows. Equipment hummed faintly, like someone counting in a whisper from very far away.
I hadn't truly slept for three nights straight.
Every time I closed my eyes, the screams of the past floated up from the darkness — short, shrill, pressed against my eardrums, refusing to fade.
The doctor told me to relax my fingers, follow my breathing, and confirm — one more time — the current time, place, and name.
"It's 1:17 a.m. You're at the Wolf Pack Clinic. Your name is Evelyn. You are safe here."
I nodded. My palms were still ice-cold.
Jack sat beside me, his hand covering the back of mine.
He was here in his capacity as my bonded mate, accompanying me through the stabilization sessions. His white shirt sleeves were rolled to the elbows, his expression patient and focused.
Whenever I jolted awake, he would press down on my shoulders and remind me not to look back — not to search for the source of the sound.
"I'm here," he said. "You don't need to be afraid."
That sentence was like a thin thread, pulling me back out of the nightmare.
Ever since I met Jack, he had stayed by my side — caring for me, helping me.
He wrote down the doctor's instructions for me. At night, he left the bedside lamp on.
Gradually, I came to believe that the love between us was unbreakable. At the very least, I could feel it: Jack loved me.
That belief helped my mental state recover, bit by bit — all the way through to after the wedding.
He brought me in for a fertility examination.
The doctor reviewed the results. His tone turned heavy quickly, his gaze drifting between the two of us. "I'm afraid the results are not good."
Jack straightened immediately and released my hand. "Get to the point. The pack needs an heir."
The doctor sighed and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "The trauma left by the forced interruption of her childhood Awakening Ceremony runs too deep. The energy backlash didn't just destroy her nervous system and cause chronic insomnia — it also produced permanent reproductive damage. Given her current physical condition, the probability of bearing a pup is virtually zero."
I stared at the ceiling. The only sound left in my ears was the steady drip of the monitors.
Jack was silent for a few seconds, then let out a short laugh.
The smile was so faint it sent a chill down my spine.
"So — it comes down to bloodline after all."
The doctor frowned. "This has no direct connection to bloodline purity. It was caused by the ritual damage—"
"Inferior blood can't withstand a true Awakening." Jack cut him off and turned to me. "If you hadn't been reckless back then, you wouldn't have ended up like this."
My throat felt as though an invisible hand had clamped around it.
The words I wanted to say jammed in my chest. In the end, all I could do was lower my head.
He was right. It was my fault.
Jack needed an heir.
Back at home, I rummaged through old belongings, looking for a clean scarf.
At the bottom of a trunk lay a faded glass case. Inside rested a few dried leaves of Moonlight Grass.
The silver-white veins had long lost their luster, yet the sight instantly transported me back to that summer.
Back then, in preparation for the Awakening Ceremony, I had secretly slipped into the hills behind the estate and, under the moonlight, picked my first stalk of Moonlight Grass.
Joanna arrived with several others and found me. They snatched the stem away. She laughed and said someone like me had no right to touch the pack's sacred herb — that she'd sooner throw it away than let me use it.
They ground the Moonlight Grass into the mud. Shoe soles crushed it again and again, its delicate green juice staining the cracks between the stones.
I sat nearby with my arms around my knees, watching that faint glow vanish bit by bit.
I had never felt such despair.
Late that night, Jack picked up his phone.
He thought I was asleep. The cold light of the screen reflected off the side of his face.
I could vaguely make out that he kept opening the same chat window, his thumb hovering over Joanna's name, never quite pressing down.
"Whose messages are you reading?"
Jack looked up. His expression smoothed over almost instantly.
"Nobody's."
"Is it Joanna?"
"You've been like this a lot lately." He placed the phone face-down on the table. "The insomnia is making you paranoid. The bullying you think you remember — maybe it never even happened. She's not a bad person."
I stared at him, a tightness spreading through my chest. The doctor had said that trauma could distort memories, but I knew I wasn't wrong.
Jack stood to pour water. As he passed me, his sleeve brushed my wrist, and a familiar scent drifted down.
Bay laurel.
Joanna's signature bay laurel fragrance.
My phone buzzed at that exact moment. The screen lit up. The new message was a single short line:
Joanna: Let's meet tomorrow night. There's something I need to tell you.
