Chapter 3

They dragged me down to the underground water cell.

Ice-cold water, bone-chillingly cold, rose past my waist.

Silver powder had been mixed into the water—the kind that suppressed a werewolf's regenerative abilities—eating away at my skin with every passing second.

Slowly, my legs went numb too.

"System, activate neural shielding," I commanded.

[Command confirmed. Pain receptors shielded at 70%. Host, your bodily functions are undergoing full-scale collapse. Please minimize energy expenditure.]

"That's enough."

I leaned back against the moss-covered stone wall, closed my eyes, and my consciousness sank instantly into a virtual space built from endless streams of green code.

Maddox thought locking me down here would break me.

He thought that by stripping away every means of communication, he'd turned me blind and deaf.

In the real world, I was a top-tier cybersecurity expert. And in this world, I was a dimensional-tier hacker armed with a system cheat.

This world—I had built it myself.

I pulled up a virtual keyboard, my fingers flying across empty air.

Lines of code scrolled wildly across my retinas.

Sienna thought she'd covered her tracks cleanly. Using Maddox's authority, she'd deleted all the surveillance footage from the hunters' invasion three days ago and altered the security logs, pinning every piece of evidence on me.

But against high-dimensional hacking technology, her crude cover-up was nothing more than a child's sandcastle—one touch, and it would all crumble.

"Found it."

A deeply hidden video file appeared on the screen.

In the footage, Sienna stood at the control console on the edge of the territory.

Not only had she personally shut down the defense grid with her own hands, she'd also exchanged a crate full of gold bars with the leader of the Silverspear Hunters.

That wasn't all. I also dug up her private financial exchanges with the healer, along with the authentic appraisal report for the Absolute Forfeiture Blood Contract.

I packaged every piece of evidence and embedded it into an untraceable Trojan program.

Then I set the delivery time.

Recipients: every single member of the Crescent Moon Pack's Council of Elders, major financial and media conglomerates worldwide, and Maddox's private terminal.

I was going to make sure this storm hit—right when he was at the peak of his triumph—and tear him apart completely.

Once it was done, my consciousness returned to the water cell.

The water felt even colder now.

The iron door creaked open. Maddox stood on the steps, dressed in a sharp suit.

"Two days until the Moon Goddess Ceremony," his voice echoed through the empty cell.

"If you admit right now that you let the hunters in, and apologize to Sienna, I might consider letting you out to attend."

I slowly opened my eyes and looked at his face—that condescending expression of a man doling out charity.

"Maddox." My voice came out so weak it was barely audible.

He immediately came down the steps, brows furrowed, leaning closer.

"What did you say?"

"I said..." I stared into his eyes, the corner of my mouth curling into something cold. "You want me to apologize to that bitch? Dream on!"

Maddox's face turned white with fury, and he struck me hard across the face.

"If I actually die down here," I asked, "would you regret it?"

"Regret it?" He bent down toward me. "If you die, that's on you. You'd deserve it."

"And Sienna? If she were the one soaked in this water, covered in wounds like me—would you say she deserved it too?"

"She's nothing like you." Maddox shot back almost instantly. "She's my adopted sister. She lost her parents as a child. I raised her myself. Taking care of her, being patient with her—that's simply what I'm supposed to do."

"And you—"

"As Luna, what exactly have you done besides stirring up trouble and throwing baseless jealous fits at her?"

"Baseless jealous fits?"

"Maddox. You are far beyond saving."

The air went utterly still.

"Fine! Just fine!" He spun around and stormed toward the exit.

"Since you're so eager to die, then die down here!"

The iron door slammed shut once more.

The Shadowsilver poison had already eaten into the edges of my heart. Every breath now brought up flecks of black blood.

The next day, noise from outside jolted me awake.

The Crescent Moon Pack was busy preparing for tomorrow's Moon Goddess Ceremony.

It was the grandest festival of the year for werewolves—the day an Alpha formally presented his mate to the entire pack.

That role should have been mine, standing beside Maddox.

But now, that place belonged to Sienna.

The cell door opened again. This time it was Maddox's Beta, Ryan.

Looking at my ravaged body, Ryan's expression turned complicated.

"Luna," Ryan said quietly. "The Alpha says Miss Sienna's gown needs the Arctic Snow Wolf pelt as trim. The one you brought back from the snow mountains yourself."

"He's sent me to... retrieve it."

The Arctic Snow Wolf pelt was the only thing keeping me warm right now.

It lay draped over my legs, barely preserving what little body heat I had left.

I said nothing.

Ryan looked unsettled under my gaze, but he steeled himself and reached out, grabbing hold of the snow-white fur.

"The Alpha says you won't be needing it anyway," he added under his breath.

I let go.

The instant the pelt was pulled away, bone-deep cold swept through my entire body.

"Tell Maddox. Take it. Take all of it."

Ryan fled the water cell with the pelt, as if escaping something.

Not long after, Maddox's voice came through the cell's speaker system.

"Rayna, this is your last chance."

"If you still refuse to bow your head before the ceremony begins tomorrow, I will announce your permanent expulsion from the pack in front of everyone."

Through the speaker, Sienna's delicate laughter drifted in faintly.

"Maddox, do you think this gown looks nice?"

"You look beautiful in anything."

I lay on the frozen stone, listening to their exchange, feeling nothing at all.

"System."

[Host, I'm here.]

"Cut off pain receptors completely. Concentrate all energy on sustaining vital signs."

[Command confirmed. Pain receptors fully severed. Host, good luck.]

I closed my eyes and sank into boundless darkness.