Chapter 5

My father took the phone, watched silently, and his face instantly darkened further.

On the screen was a group chat with twenty members—all my so-called "exes." At this moment, they were flooding the chat with screenshots of their conversations with Lydia.

The content could only be described as utterly damning.

In my past life, these werewolves had been so dazzled by Lydia's fake "Alpha princess" identity that they'd even conspired to kill me just to please her.

Reborn, the first thing I did was track down every single one of them and reveal the truth—that I was the real heir.

Once they realized they'd been deceived, all twenty immediately turned around, begging me for forgiveness.

Twenty werewolves. Twenty sets of records.

This ironclad evidence finally showed me Lydia's true face.

Now, my parents could see it too.

She suddenly lost it, rushing over without even caring that my father was an Alpha.

Lydia snatched the phone from my father's hand and shrieked, "You paid people to frame me! This is all fake!"

I nearly laughed out loud. "Chat logs from years ago can be faked? What am I, a fortune teller who knew in advance how low you'd sink?"

The sheer volume of evidence made Damon's expression shift repeatedly. Seeing the phone seized by Lydia, he immediately restrained her and took it back.

Damon scrolled through the chat records, took a deep breath, then clicked through Lydia's selfies one by one, his fists clenching with audible cracks. "This is what you call 'just chatting for a bit'?"

In those conversations, Lydia had said every possible thing to drag me down.

That I was an adopted daughter. That I was shamelessly clinging to her family. That I wasn't worthy of being Luna.

To break me up with those men, she'd stopped at nothing. Suggestive photos, flirtatious messages, even actively inviting them to her place.

Oh, and that property she'd bragged about? A gift from my parents.

The ones with status and influence, she still kept in touch with, meeting up occasionally for secret rendezvous.

The rest, used and discarded, still followed her around like loyal dogs.

I picked up my phone and hurled it at Lydia's face. "You said you were testing them for me—so this is how you did it?"

I turned to Damon. "Congratulations. You're the twenty-first unworthy mate she's helped me weed out."

With that, the three of us—my parents and I—turned and left without looking back.

Lydia stumbled after us. "Selene, please don't do this. Aren't we best friends…"

Even now, she was still using her old tricks, trying to soften me with tears.

Pathetic. Did she think I was one of those foolish wolves?

My mother moved quickly, pulling me away so Lydia couldn't touch me, then turned and delivered several sharp slaps. "Get out of Bloodmoon Pack! I don't ever want to see you again!"

"Out of respect for your father's sacrifice, I'm giving you one month to pay back that money. Otherwise, don't blame me for being ruthless!"

Lydia was beaten senseless, crawling up like a stray dog, but she hung her head and didn't move.

Damon tried to say something, but my father's stern glare silenced him. "And you—don't come looking for Selene anymore! After tomorrow's ceremony is canceled, we're done!"

The next day, I waited all day, but no one from Blackwood Pack showed up.

My mother saw through their tactic of stalling and dodging, so she hired a top lawyer for me—one who specialized in werewolf contract disputes and had never lost a case.

Fortunately, since we hadn't been together long, there were no property disputes.

Over the next few days, I lived in blissful peace.

The power struggle within Blackwood Pack intensified, and we planned to watch from the sidelines. But Alpha Blackwood called my father several times, begging for help.

Finally, my father struck a deal with him: "I won't withdraw my support—but your son must break the bond with my daughter."

And so, Damon was forcibly dragged to the Council of Elders by his own father and made to sign the dissolution papers.

I successfully regained my freedom.

As for my mother, she only received a few scattered payments from Lydia—less than one percent of the total owed.

My mother's exact words were, "These paltry sums don't feel like repayment. They feel like mockery."

But knowing Lydia's extravagant nature, I knew this was all she could scrape together.

I thought that was the end of it.

Until six months later, when I saw Lydia again—at an auction.