Chapter 1When he asked me to donate my wolf marrow essence to one of the family's core members, I looked into his cold eyes and agreed without hesitation.
I believed it was my duty as the Luna of the Moretti pack.
One year later, I became pregnant.
And then he asked me to donate again.
Because Seraphina's condition had relapsed.
That was the first time I said no.
Not for myself.
But for the pup growing inside me.
He didn't argue.
He didn't shout.
He simply slipped an inhibitor into my dinner that night, quietly and efficiently.
When I woke up, I was already lying in the pack's private medical facility.
The air was thick with the scent of silver-thread barriers, sharp enough to sting my skin.
Instinctively, I lifted my hand to my stomach.
Empty.
Then the pain hit—a deep, crushing ache in my lower back.
They had already extracted my wolf marrow essence.
And at the same time, they had taken my unborn pup.
I turned my head.
I didn't cry.
I didn't scream.
I simply reached out and dialed a number I had sworn I would never call.
The Warden Bureau.
I handed myself over—along with every secret of the pack I knew.
He searched for me like a madman.
"Catherine, where are you?"
"We can have another child. I promise!"
But under the lockdown of the Allied Enforcement Authority, no one ever answered his cries again.
---
"Catherine, once you join the Protection Program, all ties to your past will be permanently severed. The minimum term is ten years. Are you sure?"
The agent's voice on the phone was calm, firm, and official.
I didn't hang up.
I held the phone and slowly walked downstairs.
My Alpha husband—Leo—was standing in the middle of the living room, flipping through a notebook I had deliberately left out.
My diary.
It recorded more than two years of my life as Luna.
The first page had a date.
I remembered it clearly.
The third day after becoming Luna.
That was the first time I was injured protecting the pack.
I wasn't used to combat yet.
A silver blade grazed my shoulder, soaking my sleeve in blood.
When I was carried back to the medical wing, pack members crowded outside the door, their faces pale with fear.
He wasn't there.
He said he had an important meeting that day.
In my diary, I wrote:
It's okay. He's the Alpha. He carries more responsibility than I do. I understand.
The second entry was about the wolf marrow donation.
That time, I miscarried.
The doctors said it was an irreversible reaction caused by forced extraction.
I lay in the treatment pod, watching the ceiling lights flicker on and off, my body feeling completely hollowed out.
He signed the consent form outside.
Quickly.
Decisively.
In the diary, even though the pain of losing the child left me numb, I still wrote:
He must be hurting too. He's just not good at expressing it.
Then came the night the pack was attacked.
An enemy pack crossed the border.
The defenses were torn open.
That night, the Alpha who was supposed to guard the territory disappeared.
No one answered the calls.
All signals were cut.
I tried to reach him through our bond again and again.
No response.
I stood on the walls and held the line all night, leading the pack myself.
I was critically injured and unconscious for three days.
When I woke up, he still wasn't there.
He returned a month later.
And all he said was, "Good work."
So I wrote in the diary again:
This is a Luna's responsibility. I still didn't do enough.
Maybe he had other things he had to deal with.
There were many more entries after that.
The first gift I ever chose for him.
Our first mating anniversary.
The first trip we planned to the northern snowfields.
Missed appointments.
Broken promises.
Being left behind again and again.
And every time, my diary found excuses for him.
He's busy.
The weight on his shoulders is heavy.
I'm being too sensitive.
I stepped off the last stair and stood in the shadow of the living room, watching him flip through the pages.
He read quickly.
No pauses.
Like he was skimming a report that had nothing to do with him.
Finally, he closed the diary.
The black cover reflected the cold light.
He looked up at me.
I instinctively studied his expression.
There was no guilt.
No pain.
Only boredom.
And thinly veiled irritation.
"What's the point of showing me this?" he asked coldly. "Trying to make me feel guilty?"
I didn't answer.
Leo let out a short laugh and tossed the diary onto the coffee table.
"You've always done these things, haven't you? So what's the point of digging them up now?"
The diary hit the table with a soft thud.
Just like the way my years of sacrifice had been discarded.
"Boring."
His judgment was flat, dismissive—like watching a child play with dolls. Completely meaningless to an adult.
In that moment, I finally understood something.
Even if he knew all of it, it wouldn't matter.
None of this had ever counted as something worth cherishing to him.
I looked at him calmly and added, word by word:
"December 31, 2025. Clear weather. I was drugged with an inhibitor and sent to the operating table. A second wolf marrow extraction resulted in another miscarriage."
"The one who drugged me—Leo. My mate."
The fire in the fireplace flickered, then dimmed.
His eyes darkened with it.
He opened his mouth, finally shedding a bit of that Alpha arrogance.
"Catherine… we can have another child."
"Tomorrow is my mother's birthday," he added. "Get ready. I'll pick you up."
I watched his back as he left and thought silently:
There won't be another one.
Still holding the phone, I finally answered the question I had been avoiding.
"Catherine, once you join the Protection Program, all ties to your past will be severed for at least ten years. Are you sure?"
"I'm sure," I said clearly.
The agent didn't hesitate.
"Understood. We'll erase your scent records. Your identity within the pack will be cleared. You'll become someone else—somewhere no Alpha can track."
"Welcome to your new life."
"We'll send someone to get you in three days."
Three days.
That was all I had left.
In three days, I would disappear completely from the Moretti territory.
---
Chapter 2
I didn't sleep well.
Not because of grief—that had already been ground down into numbness inside the treatment pod of that wolf medical center, worn away piece by piece by silver-thread barriers—but because of clarity.
A clarity so sharp that even turning over in bed felt calculated.
Three days.
No—today there were only two left.
I had to stay normal, just like before.
I couldn't suddenly act strange.
I couldn't suddenly turn cold.
I couldn't skip the banquet.
I couldn't stop trying to please the former Luna—Leo's mother, the ex-Luna of the pack.
I knew them too well.
In the Moretti pack, any "noncompliance" would be marked as abnormal behavior.
And any abnormality would be magnified by the Elders' Council into a risk.
And risk had only one outcome:
Control.
Interrogation.
Loss of choice.
I would not let them ruin my escape.
So I got up, washed, dressed—every movement clean and efficient, like carrying out a cold, merciless mission.
The old me would have started preparing a week in advance.
Choosing gifts.
Selecting accessories.
Picking a dress dignified enough, polished enough, to "deserve" standing beside an Alpha.
I would even practice my smile in the mirror—not too sharp, or I'd look arrogant; not too soft, or I'd look spineless.
I would think:
What flowers does the former Luna like?
What are the Elders focused on lately?
What wine would please them at the banquet?
What sentence could make Leo's mother roll her eyes one time less?
Today, I thought about none of it.
I treated myself as what I truly was now—someone whose scent record was about to be erased. Someone who would disappear from this world in two days.
I didn't want to spend another ounce of thought on Leo.
And that naturally included his mother.
The woman who, from the very first day I married into this pack, had taken me apart with her gaze and reassessed my worth piece by piece.
She always said, "Remember your place, Catherine. You are just the Luna."
"Without my son, you are nothing."
She loved reminding everyone of her own achievements:
Former Luna, who once stood beside the former Alpha.
Former Luna, who gave everything to the pack.
Former Luna, who deserved respect.
And I—this current Luna—was nothing more than "a bonus item attached to a contract."
A useless piece of excess.
Even though I had protected the pack successfully, again and again.
I fastened the last button and stepped out of the room.
Leo had already sent me a message saying he was waiting in the car.
I took a deep breath, pushed the door open, and walked outside.
As I reached for the car door handle—
I heard Leo's voice from inside the vehicle.
Gentle.
Soft.
A kind of tenderness I had never been given.
"I know," he said. "I'll remind her."
After a brief pause, he even added with a faint smile in his voice, "You're very thoughtful."
My fingers froze on the handle, cold as if sliced by silver thread.
I didn't need to see the screen to know who it was.
I glanced at the terminal on the center console.
The contact name was exactly as I expected—Sera, followed by a small crescent moon symbol.
A mark.
A claim.
A declaration.
A reminder that she was the one who should be standing beside Leo, as his Luna.
Leo ended the call and turned to look at me.
He seemed to notice my pause, but he didn't explain.
He simply flipped the terminal face down, as if that moment of tenderness had never existed.
"Get in," he said flatly.
I took the back seat and closed the door.
The car filled instantly with his Alpha scent, heavy and suffocating.
The silence stretched on.
I assumed he would treat me as he always did—escort me to the banquet, place me where I belonged, display me, then take me back once I'd served my purpose.
But then he spoke.
"Have you been…"
He paused, as if choosing his words carefully.
"How's your body lately?"
I froze.
That question almost didn't sound like him.
It almost sounded like concern.
Some small, pitiful corner of my heart lifted instinctively—like a starving wolf cub reacting to the sound of food.
Then his earlier words echoed in my mind.
You're very thoughtful.
My stomach churned with nausea.
I realized that even this concern was likely prompted by Seraphina—after forcing the extraction of my wolf marrow, after killing my child, she still used my mate to perform this fake, condescending display.
A declaration.
My Alpha would always belong to her.
What a joke.
This man could negotiate blood-pact deals worth billions.
He could silence the Elders' Council.
He could stabilize border supply lines.
But he needed another woman to remind him that I could feel pain.
"I'm fine," I replied flatly.
Leo noticed my cold tone. He paused, then tried again—his concern sounding almost sincere this time.
"Don't touch cold water for now. The residual effects of the silver inhibitor will slow your recovery."
I didn't respond.
"And avoid anything too stimulating—cold food, spicy food, all of it."
He hesitated, then added, "No intense physical activity."
He sounded serious.
Serious like a responsible Alpha, carefully caring for his Luna.
I almost laughed.
I remembered the night he slipped the inhibitor into my dinner, without a sound.
I remembered waking up to an empty womb, the pain like my soul had been ripped out.
I remembered him signing the consent forms outside the treatment room—decisive, unwavering.
If he had ever truly cared, how had it come to this?
"I'll handle the pack's defenses for a while," Leo said. "You can rest properly."
I didn't respond to his hollow concern.
I simply closed my eyes, signaling that I was tired.
I could feel my indifference making him uneasy.
Because his gaze lingered on me.
Longer than it ever had before.
Then he started the car.
I smiled faintly.
Two days left.
And then I would disappear completely.
---
Chapter 3
The lights in the banquet hall were blinding.
Crystal chandeliers hung beneath the domed ceiling, slicing the light into countless sharp fragments that scattered across the floor, the glasses, and every carefully curated face.
The air was thick with spices, alcohol, and the mingled scent of wolf pheromones—familiar, suffocating.
I walked in beside Leo.
And immediately saw the woman standing at the center of the hall, right next to his mother—Octavia.
It was Seraphina.
She wore a pale dress, perfectly tailored, standing close to Octavia as they spoke intimately about something.
The scene looked natural.
Effortless.
As if she were the true lady of this place.
And I—just an intruder who had wandered in by mistake.
Octavia noticed me first.
Her gaze slid off Seraphina and landed on me, cold and appraising, like she was looking at trash that had already lost its value.
"You're here," she said flatly. "You don't look very happy."
Seraphina turned to me, a smile forming on her lips—one that could almost be called gentle. As if trying to soften Octavia's sharpness.
But her words struck just as precisely.
"Catherine," she said softly, "you look… a little worn today."
Octavia let out a cold laugh, her disdain undisguised.
"She's always like this. Weak, unstable scent. Standing beside my son like that only makes people question whether the Moretti bloodline has gone bad."
Someone in the hall chuckled under their breath.
Not kindly.
My hand at my side tightened slightly.
"I opposed choosing her as Luna from the start," Octavia continued, as if stating an obvious fact. "Her bloodline wasn't pure enough. Her strength wasn't sufficient. Looks like my concerns were completely justified."
Seraphina sighed lightly, as if she felt sorry for me.
"Aunt Octavia, don't say that," she said gently. "Catherine wasn't like this before."
She was right.
I wasn't like this before.
Before the first extraction of my wolf marrow, my power was stable, my bloodline clear, my presence strong enough to suppress other she-wolves of the same rank.
Back then, I could stand on the city walls and hold off invading packs on my own.
Now—I had to consciously control my breathing just to keep my weakness from showing.
"Before?" Octavia scoffed. "What does 'before' matter?"
Her eyes were sharp as blades.
"What stands here now is a Luna who can't even protect herself."
"My son is an Alpha," she continued. "He needs a mate who can secure the pack's bloodline and stabilize its strength—not a woman who—"
She paused, her gaze dropping deliberately to my flat stomach.
"Can't even carry a child to term."
For a moment, everything went silent.
I could hear the blood pounding in my temples.
Two children.
Two innocent lives I had lost.
My vision blurred. The lights stretched and smeared into indistinct shapes.
I forced myself to stay upright, even as my body trembled faintly.
The hall fell quiet.
Finally, Leo spoke.
"This isn't urgent," he said.
Of course it wasn't urgent—for him.
Both of my children had died because of him.
I looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes.
Leo met my gaze and froze for a second, instinctively stepping toward me—
Only to be cut off by his mother.
"Not urgent?" Octavia turned to Seraphina, her expression instantly softening. "That's fine, then."
She patted Seraphina's hand gently.
"If Catherine can't give birth, then Seraphina can."
A sharp intake of breath echoed somewhere in the hall.
And I—I went completely still.
"After all," Octavia continued slowly, her eyes drifting toward Seraphina's abdomen, "she already has one inside her."
The world stopped.
Every sound, every gaze, every breath—vanished.
So that was it.
The last fragile layer of self-deception shattered completely.
I had once believed that maybe they were just companions.
I had even naively thought things hadn't gone that far.
But now I understood.
So many nights spent together.
So many times I wasn't there because he was "busy."
How could there not have been sex?
And I had even made excuses for him.
How ridiculous.
---
