Chapter 1
Alpha Noah of Silverclaw pack looked up at me with gentle eyes and took out a red velvet box.
He opened it in front of me. “Kathy, isn’t it beautiful?”
“Do you think Evelyn will like it?”
Inside lay an expensive moonstone ring. I nodded calmly, “It’s beautiful.”
My fingers unconsciously brushed over my bare ring finger, where only a faint indent remained.
It was the bond mark he branded onto my skin with his Alpha token on my eighteenth birthday — once a symbol of our connection, now it felt like a festering wound.
A week ago, Evelyn slit her wrists after losing her intended Alpha, demanding to marry Alpha Noah — and she specifically asked for the exact same wedding ring I had bonded with him using.
That was a ring he had personally custom-made for me — the only one of its kind in the world.
A once-exclusive token of our love, now destined for another woman’s finger.
“In two more minutes, this pill will erase all your memories of loving me. In seven days, you’ll take the antidote, and none of this will hurt anymore,” he said, pulling a small pill from his pocket and waving it in front of me.
“You’re really going through with this?” I clenched the hem of my dress, my nails digging into my palm.
“We promised to bond forever — do those vows mean nothing now?”
His fingers brushed my hair with the same tenderness as always. “She’s my first love. She wants a grand wedding. You’ve always been the understanding one — don’t make this harder for me.”
Memories from the lab surged forward uncontrollably. Those long nights — he’d slip a warm cup of cocoa beside me to ease my exhaustion.
I had once joked about forgetting him, and he had teared up instantly, kissing me hard through the lump in his throat. “Kathy, I love you. If you ever forget me, I’ll lose my mind.”
“Look at his hypocritical face!” my wolf soul, Zoe, snarled in my mind. “Remember how he said he’d go mad if you forgot him? Now he’s the one pushing you into the abyss of oblivion!”
Now, every memory was a dull knife stabbing again and again at my heart.
“What about the bond-severance agreement?” I looked straight into his eyes, catching the fleeting flicker of panic in them. “Are you really planning to sever our connection, all for her?”
We had once sealed a soul-bond under the witness of the pack elders — a magical tie now burning with searing pain.
He gripped my trembling hand, so tightly it almost hurt. “Once all this is over, we’ll bond again. This is just temporary, you have to believe me.”
“Idiot!” Zoe howled, filled with anguish. “He’s giving your ring to someone else, forcing you to take a memory-erasing drug — he’s trying to erase you completely!”
He cupped my face gently, his thumb stroking my cheek. “Baby, this is all for us.”
“Evelyn’s emotionally unstable right now. She needs me. Once she’s healed, we’ll start over. Our love will be even stronger then.”
“Start over?” I broke free of his hand, tears finally sliding down uncontrollably. “Do you think I’m a fool? You give her our wedding ring, force me to take this drug — and then expect us to go back to how we were?”
“Look,” he said, pulling up a contact on his communicator. “I found a top-tier alchemist. He’s already working on the antidote. Seven days — that’s more than enough. You have to trust me, trust in us.”
His patience began to fray, and his tone turned harsher: “Must you be so unreasonable? I’m just trying to fulfill her final wish. Can’t you be understanding, just this once?”
Zoe’s voice came through in a desperate sob. “Kathy, let’s run! It’s not too late!”
“If you’re that afraid I won’t come back,” he added coldly, “then I can leave the bond-severance agreement and everything else with you.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but a sharp pain stabbed into my temple. My vision blurred.
The document in my hand — the words “I, Kathy, rejected you…” — twisted into unreadable smears.
I looked up blankly at the once-familiar man before me. “What… bond-severance agreement?”
He immediately snatched the paper from my hands. First surprise flickered across his face, then a chillingly relieved smile spread across his lips. His voice turned soft, almost too soft to be real.
“It’s nothing. Just a misunderstanding.”
The drug was taking effect.
And the very first memory it erased — was our severed bond.
Alpha Noah pulled the document from my grasp, speaking with a gentle tone, so gentle it no longer felt real.
