Chapter 1

When I was reborn, and my Alpha husband's ward clamped a muzzle around my neck as a joke...

I didn't shift into my wolf and tear her arm off like in my past life.

I ripped off the bloody muzzle and gave Roman a smile.

"If you think this is a joke, keep indulging her."

And I walked away without looking back.

Because my death in my previous life was too miserable.

After our fallout, Roman used his Alpha authority to freeze my accounts overnight.

Exiled, I was diagnosed with terminal silver poisoning.

Dying in agony, I swallowed my pride and crawled back to the Pack gates.

But he let Chloe force me to my knees and refused to open the doors.

In the end, my wolf spirit shattered, and I froze to death.

I only understand after dying: love and dignity are worthless.

Survival and money are all that matter.

…

"You should have learned how to be quiet a long time ago, Nova."

Chloe let out a smug, sweet giggle.

I froze in place.

A chained muzzle clamped around my neck. Worse still, the inner lining was covered in tiny, sharp silver needles. They pierced my skin the second it locked.

At this exact moment in my past life, I completely lost control.

Stripped of my reason by humiliation and agony, I shifted straight into my wolf form and bit Chloe's arm off.

And Roman pushed the door open at that very second, only to see his Luna brutally torturing his fragile ward.

This time, without even furrowing my brow, I reached for the clasp at the back of my neck and snapped it open.

Blood trickled down my neck and dripped onto the pure white wool rug, like two rapidly rotting roses.

Just like in my previous life, the door swung open, and Roman strode into the room.

His gaze quickly darted between the bloody muzzle on the floor, my bleeding neck, and Chloe, who was shrinking back continuously.

"What happened?" he asked, his brows tightly knitted.

"I just wanted to play a joke, Ro," Chloe tugged at his cuff, feigning weakness. "I didn't know that toy had silver needles in it. I swear."

Roman sighed. He rubbed his temples, looking at me with nothing but exhaustion in his eyes. "Nova, she didn't mean it. Put that murderous look away."

"Since you think putting toxic silver around my neck is a joke, then keep indulging her.

"Tomorrow's seventh-anniversary celebration is canceled. I'm leaving."

With that, I walked out without a backward glance.

When I tore things up with him here in my past life, what did it get me? Roman used his absolute Alpha authority to freeze all my financial accounts and Pack territory passes overnight.

After leaving the territory, I was diagnosed in the black market: silver poisoning had caused complete blood necrosis and wolf spirit failure. If I didn't get blood dialysis at a human facility, I wouldn't live past a month.

Severe pain and high fevers tortured me until I was a shadow of myself. I crawled back to the territory like a dead dog, kneeling in the snow to beg to see him. And the result?

In front of all the guards, Chloe told me to kneel and beg for mercy if I wanted to see Roman. But after I knelt, she laughed and told me the Alpha wouldn't see me, that he was sick of just hearing my name.

In the end, my wolf spirit shattered, and I died outside the territory.

Love and dignity? In the face of capital, power, and life and death, they are so cheap.

In this life, I just want my life, and I want my money.

"Nova! Stop!"

Roman chased after me.

He grabbed my wrist tightly.

"Are you done causing a scene? I've explained it many times. Chloe is just an orphan I took in! She's young and a bit mischievous. You are my Luna—why must you pick fights with a child?"

In my past life, he used the exact same excuse.

Back then, hearing those words made me burn with jealousy.

I instantly released my absolute Luna Aura, screaming hoarsely that I was breaking our Mate bond, and then left the territory.

I was stupid enough to think that going crazy and cutting ties could threaten an Alpha who controlled a massive business empire and an entire Pack.

As a result, I hid alone in an abandoned cabin outside the territory, enduring high fevers from the silver poison and watching my wounds turn black and rot.

I thought his heart would ache and he would come looking for me.

But the next day, the Pack's intranet was flooded with photos of him and Chloe attending the Northern banquet. He placed the crown symbolizing the Luna on Chloe's head, letting her press against his chest and giggle.

That image was like a saw, tearing my heart to shreds.

My thoughts pulled back to reality. My lips uncontrollably curled into an extremely cold smile.

Roman caught that smile, and his face instantly darkened.

"I'll say it one last time. She is just an orphan I adopted," he glanced lightly at the wound on my neck still oozing black blood, his tone dismissive. "It's just a needle mark. Stop blowing things out of proportion."

A wave of dead silence washed over my chest. Not out of anger, but because I felt pathetic for who I used to be.

A needle mark.

Once, to protect him, I didn't hesitate to take a silver bullet aimed at his heart.

He didn't know that this "needle mark" in his eyes completely triggered the remnants of the silver bullet inside my body.

After the symptoms flared up in my last life, I was so poor I couldn't even afford the cheapest antibiotics, in so much pain I vomited black blood on a bed in an underground clinic.

In my most desperate moments, I even secretly pawned my dowry jewelry, saving only the necklace he had placed on me with his own hands.

Because he swore when he put it on me: as long as he was alive, he would protect me.

But in the final moments of my life, dragging my bloated, bruised body to kneel outside the territory and beg the guards to report my arrival...

The only thing coming through the Mate bond was his sentence:

"You chose to leave the territory yourself. You bear the consequences."

And as I was dying, the bond transmitted the emotional shudders and low pants of his intimate moments.

And my last trace of lingering attachment to him was completely ground to dust.

Ultimately, I collapsed in the snowstorm and died.

"I'm not jealous, nor am I targeting her," I pulled back my thoughts, my voice steady.

"I just want to go back to my room to rest. Go back and keep her company."

I turned and walked away, without the slightest bit of nostalgia.