Chapter 3

Chaos spread through the clearing like a plague.

Torchlight flickered wildly across the frantic crowd. Lyra's wails grated like a rusty saw, scraping against everyone's nerves.

"Lock down the camp! Nobody leaves!" Kaelen finally snapped out of his shock. Drawing the silver blade from his waist, he barked out the orders.

Watching the madness unfold, I took a step back, ready to retreat from the mess. But I suddenly realized the surrounding werewolves had already formed a tight circle around me. The usual reverence in their eyes was gone, replaced by naked suspicion and hostility.

"It was you..." Lyra suddenly scrambled off the ground. Trembling fingers pointed at me like a madwoman. "You're jealous that Kaelen takes care of me, so you stole my baby! You were right next to the cradle just now! Only you had the chance!"

"Ridiculous." I sneered at her. "If I wanted to take your pup, do you really think I'd be stupid enough to do it in front of a crowd?"

"Who else could it be?!" Maya suddenly shoved her way through the crowd. Pointing frantically at the hem of my trench coat, she shrieked, "Look! There's blood on Elara's coat!"

I looked down, my pupils contracting sharply.

Somewhere along the inner hem of my coat, a large smear of dark crimson blood had soaked through. It was still wet, reeking of the distinct, coppery-sweet scent of a newborn pup.

Lyra had intentionally rubbed it on me when I stepped close to her earlier.

"Elara, you disappoint me beyond words!" Silver blade in hand, Kaelen advanced on me step by step. There wasn't a shred of trust in his eyes, only a desperate urgency to pin the crime on me dead to rights. "Even if you're angry with me, how could you lay your hands on an innocent pup!"

"Use your rusted brain for one second, Kaelen! Think about how that blood got there!" I didn't back down, glaring holes into him.

Just then, an absolutely suffocating aura rained down from above.

My father, Renaud, stepped forward. His golden, slit-like Alpha eyes gave off a glacial glow in the darkness.

"Father—" I barely opened my mouth.

"Shut up!" he roared. A massive wave of Alpha command slammed into my shoulders, forcing my knees to buckle. I nearly crashed to the dirt. "Caught red-handed, and you still dare to argue? How did I ever raise such a vicious daughter?!"

Staring into my father's "righteous" face, an overwhelming sense of absurdity washed over me. Once again, without a single shred of investigation, he had condemned me.

"Take her down!" my father commanded.

Several burly guards lunged at me.

The wolf spirit within me violently erupted, letting out a roar of pure fury. I sidestepped the first guard's grapple and delivered a vicious backhand elbow to his jaw. The sickening crunch of bone echoed clearly in the night air.

"Who dares to touch me!" My eyes flashed crimson, the power in my veins surging wildly, fueled by sheer, unadulterated rage.

"Elara, stop fighting!" Maya had somehow slipped directly behind me.

I thought she was trying to talk me down, but the next second, an agonizing, piercing pain ripped through my lower back.

I looked down in sheer disbelief. A silver blade, thoroughly coated in the highly toxic sap of wolfsbane, had pierced straight through my right abdomen.

I painstakingly turned my head, locking eyes with Maya. Her face was entirely twisted with euphoric malice.

"You should have died a long time ago, Elara," she whispered directly into my ear, her voice barely a breath. "You've hogged Kaelen for years. Now, it's time you gave everything back to me."

The wolfsbane instantly paralyzed my nerves. My wolf spirit let out a sorrowful whimper, my strength draining away wildly like water from a broken dam. I collapsed heavily to my knees, blood dripping from the tip of the blade into the soil.

But the nightmare wasn't over.

My father walked up to me. Completely ignoring the fatal wound in my stomach, he coldly raised his right hand. A dark purple light ignited in his palm—the Soul-Shattering Hex, an absolute forbidden penal magic within the werewolf packs.

"As Alpha, I must answer to the pack. Stripping away your wolf spirit is your punishment for murdering a pup."

"No..." I gritted my teeth, desperately trying to summon the last shred of my strength to resist.

But my father's hand ruthlessly slammed onto my forehead.

In that instant, I literally heard the sound of my soul being ripped apart. The excruciating agony was so great that it stole my ability to scream. My vision blurred to black, and all the sounds around me faded into a hollow ringing.

Right after, a sensation infinitely more terrifying than having my wolf spirit torn out pulsed from deep within my lower belly.

It was the sensation of life slipping away.

I looked down at the dirt beneath me. Mixed in with the blood from my stab wound were large, dark-red clots—carrying a distinct, flickering aura of life.

I was pregnant.

Before I had even known it myself, I was carrying Kaelen's child. And now, that same child was melting into a pool of blood alongside my shattered wolf spirit.

Laying in a pool of my own blood, I watched Kaelen stumble backward in horror. I watched Maya's victorious smirk. I watched my father's eyes, devoid of any warmth whatsoever.

"R-Report to the Alpha!" A guard suddenly burst out of the woods, gasping violently for air. "The pup... we found the pup! In the abandoned mines in the West Sector! Completely unharmed!"