Chapter 2
My mate bond with Harvey had been arranged since our grandfathers’ generation.
Back then, Black Moon Pack and Sliver Claw Pack formed an alliance. A blood bond was meant to secure the power between the two packs.
My mother was the Luna of Sliver Claw Pack, but she died giving birth to me.
And I— was born with a congenital defect in my wolf spirit, unable to withstand strong stimulation.
The Pack Doctor concluded that I wouldn’t live past twenty-five.
Since childhood, I had been protected like fragile glass by the entire pack.
I couldn’t participate in high-intensity training.
I couldn’t force a shift.
Even during the full moon, the Pack Doctor had to remain by my side.
I was the most delicate and the most useless heir of Sliver Claw Pack.
At first, Harvey hated the arranged mating bond.
He was the future Alpha of Black Moon Pack, extraordinarily gifted, with pure bloodline.
And I— was a sick wolf who might collapse and die at any moment.
One day, he covered my eyes and said he was taking me to see the night view.
Instead, he tricked me into an amusement park ride.
A drop tower.
By the time I realized something was wrong, the harness had already been locked around my body.
With a sudden shove from him, I stumbled forward and dropped.
The wind tore past my ears.
My heartbeat spiraled out of control.
My wolf spirit felt like it was being ripped apart.
That was the closest I had ever come to death.
My vision went black.
Luckily, the Omega who always stayed with me noticed I had gone missing and rushed to the amusement park.
She frantically had the staff stop the ride and pull me down.
Even so, I fell into a coma for three days.
Harvey stayed beside my bed for those three days and nights.
When I finally woke up, his eyes were bloodshot.
Even his fingertips were trembling.
It was the first time I had ever seen him so shaken.
“Emma… I am sorry. I didn’t expect this to happen.”
His voice trembled.
“I just wanted you to give up on the mate bond.”
He kept apologizing.
But I only raised a pale smile.
“I don’t blame you, Harvey… could you just… like me once?”
He froze.
Perhaps he hadn’t expected that after nearly dying because of him—
I would still be hoping for his affection.
After a long silence, he said quietly,
“Emma… I really don’t know what to do with you.”
From that day on,
he stopped resisting the bond.
He began to indulge me, protect me, spoil me.
On full moon nights, he personally stayed beside me, suppressing the violent surges of my wolf spirit.
When the elders of Black Moon Pack criticized me during pack meetings, saying I was too weak to be their Luna— he turned against them publicly.
Everyone said Harvey treated me like a wolf pup that never grew up.
But I knew the truth.
It was guilt.
And I accepted it willingly.
When I was sixteen, I truly fell in love with him.
That day he stood on a stage, sunlight falling across his sharp features.
He had just led the pack to claim a new territory.
He looked unstoppable.
He only glanced at me once— and my heart lost control.
In that moment, I knew.
In this life, I would never love anyone else.
I wanted to become his only Luna.
But later— Sophia appeared.
After Harvey fully took control of the pack, he was ambushed near the border by wolves from Sliver Fang Pack.
Sophia, already injured in her wolf form, took a fatal strike for him.
Her back was left with a wide scar of silver wounds.
From that moment on,
Sophia’s life-saving act became the scale that always hung between us.
Every time there was a choice— after weighing everything, he placed Sophia before me.
Even when both of us needed him at the same time.
He always said, “Sophia saved my life. Helping her is the least I can do.”
“At worst, you’ll feel a little wronged. But Emma… I’ll make it up to you later.”
I nodded.
I liked him.
Enduring a little pain didn’t matter.
On the day we were supposed to establish the Luna bond at twenty-two—
he publicly canceled our blood oath.
And chose Sophia.
After the banquet ended, he came to see me.
“Iron Fang Pack is running out of resources,” he explained. “Sophia is an illegitimate daughter. Her parents want to marry her to an old Alpha over fifty in exchange for support.”
“I can’t let her become a sacrifice.”
He said he had signed a three-year mate agreement with Sophia.
A marriage in name only.
After three years, it would end.
Then— he would marry me.
My heart felt like it had been torn open.
But I still nodded.
I voluntarily moved into the villa at the edge of the pack territory—
becoming the lover who could never be acknowledged.
When my father found out, he was furious.
He stormed into Black Moon Pack’s council hall and slammed his hand on the table in front of everyone. He wanted to take me back to Sliver Claw Pack.
But I refused to go. My wolf spirit spiraled out of control as I cried. I could barely stand.
“I like Harvey,” I said.
“Even if I have no name or status… I still want to stay by his side.”
“He promised he would marry me after three years.”
That was how I explained it to my father.
My father pointed at my nose and called me a fool.
But love had blinded me.
I refused to listen to anyone.
In the end—
I cut off contact with my father.
I locked myself inside that villa like a prisoner.
Counting the full moons.
Waiting for the three years to pass.
Waiting for him to keep his promise.
What I didn’t understand then was—
Responsibility.
Gratitude.
The interests of the pack.
All of them stood ahead of me.
And I—was simply the one who could be sacrificed.
The one who could be made to wait.
The one who could be compensated later.
Only when I was pushed into the depths of that forest and became prey for a leopard did I finally understand.
I was always the one destined to be abandoned.
