Chapter 1On my way to pick up my daughter from school, I came across a post on Reddit.
[What's the most thrilling thing you've ever done in your life?]
The comments were all over the place.
Some talked about cheating, others bragged about seducing their alpha mate's father-in-law.
The discussion was lively and heated.
I scrolled past with little interest until a familiar profile picture caught my eye.
She wrote that she had ruined a girl's entire life with a single sentence.
[She was my alpha's future luna, young, beautiful, perfect.]
[The night before their mating ceremony, she was kidnapped, and alpha asked me to deliver the ransom.]
[I suggested we wait a few days, let her suffer a little so she'd learn to behave.]
[But she was too weak. The kidnappers broke her, drove her mad, and she ended up in the werewolf psychiatric ward.]
[This year marked her third year inside.]
[And I'm finally becoming alpha's luna. Our mating ceremony is next week.]
That word “finally” carried a tone of long-planned satisfaction and cruelty, like a provocation three years delayed.
The post quickly gained traction.
Within minutes, her comment was already pushed to the top.
Cassie even attached a photo.
Two hands tightly intertwined, wearing the bonding ring I had designed but never had the chance to put on.
[I don't think I did anything wrong.]
[Even if I could go back a hundred times, I'd make the same choice.]
[After all, in this world, the only one worthy of him is me.]
[Not some spoiled, whiny she-wolf. Someone like that doesn't deserve to be luna.]
She spoke of the hardships she endured alongside Damon, how they built up their pack together, and the nights they fought side by side, leaning on each other for strength.
She never once mentioned where Damon's funding for the pack came from.
Leah wasn't out of school yet.
By the time the light turned red, dozens more comments had appeared.
Some cursed her for being shameless, insisting no good would come from harming others.
Some claimed the problem was my weak mental state, that none of it was her fault.
Some even dug up her identity and found the photos that had once shaken the entire werewolf realm.
When I saw that blurry picture, my mind went blank for a moment.
It felt as if I had slipped back in time and seen the helpless girl I was three years ago.
Stripped naked and dumped by the roadside, forced to walk bare under the harsh lights of pack members and the media.
While behind me, Cassie stood beside Damon—glamorous, untouched—forming a stark contrast.
Even though Damon worked hard afterward to suppress the scandal, that humiliation lived forever in the memory of the internet.
While I was still lost in thought, the light turned green.
I sighed and pressed on the gas.
By the next intersection, her comment had been deleted, but my phone had received a message five minutes earlier.
[Mary bear, are you okay?]
The number was unfamiliar, no name attached.
But in this world, only one person had ever called me Mary bear.
I hesitated for a moment, then deleted the message.
This concern had come far too late.
It had been three years. Whether I was doing well or not had nothing to do with him anymore.
The car kept moving forward. I didn't have time to look back.
Only once in a while, when the leaves drifted through the air, did certain distant memories return to me.
Mark Twain
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Chapter 2
Before I turned twenty-three, I had never suffered a single hardship.
I was the treasured daughter of the alpha of the Bloodmoon Pack.
Warriors escorted me whenever I went out, and maids took care of my daily life.
Even my arranged mate was a tall, good-looking, impossibly strong future alpha—Damon.
Back then, everyone said, “Mary really is blessed, the brightest gem in the entire werewolf realm.”
Until the night before the mating ceremony, when I was kidnapped by some rogues.
They demanded an astronomical ransom from my family—eight hundred million in total.
But I wasn't afraid at all.
My alpha parents loved me more than their own lives, and Damon would marry no one but me.
Even if it meant draining everything they owned, they would keep me safe.
At first, the kidnappers treated me with some restraint.
But on the seventh day, a bucket of cold water shattered that illusion.
A rogue yanked my hair, kicking me to the ground.
“If your pack couldn't afford the ransom, then what the hell is this?”
I looked up.
On the TV screen was Damon's face, radiating confidence.
He stood side by side with Cassie, raising a champagne glass together, while members of the pack hall chanted in unison, “Alpha Damon! Alpha Damon!”
“Thanks to Alpha Damon's eight hundred million, you really saved the day!”
“With that, I hereby declare Alpha Damon the new alpha of our pack!” a pack elder announced beside him.
Eight hundred million.
Exactly eight hundred million.
The rogues let me make one last call to Damon.
The call connected, but Cassie's voice came through, “Alpha Damon is busy. Can I help you with something?”
“Oh, Mary. Alpha Damon doesn't have time for you, you…”
“A little deeper, yes… Damon, faster! Fuck me harder!”
“The meeting is about to start. If you keep delaying, you'll be late. The pack meeting is waiting…”
The call ended abruptly, cutting off the intimate sounds.
Damon seemed to be declaring something silently.
Between love and his alpha career, he chose his career.
Between Cassie and me, he chose Cassie.
I stood frozen, unable to process any of it, not noticing that the rogues' eyes on me had already changed.
On the eighth day, with no ransom paid, the kidnappers broke my fingers to escalate their threat.
Damon didn't respond. He didn't waver.
On the ninth day, still no ransom.
The rogues filmed a video of me being violated, threatening to ruin my reputation forever.
Damon still didn't respond. He only issued a statement that afternoon in the pack's name:
[The Fullmoon Pack will never bow to criminal forces.]
On the tenth day, my parents announced they were leading the pack north to relocate.
I was completely abandoned, a discarded pawn with no remaining value.
The kidnappers were furious.
In their rage, they used every means possible to torment and humiliate me.
Back then, both the kidnappers and I still clung to a sliver of hope that someone would come to rescue me.
But no one came. Not a single person.
During the time I was held captive, Damon and Cassie grew closer by the day, their relationship constantly splashed across news reports.
They attended alpha events together, hosted lavish parties, clinking glasses and riding high on their success.
Soon, the entire werewolf realm knew their names.
By becoming the new alpha, Damon stood poised to become the wealthiest and most powerful alpha of the werewolf realm.
A bright, boundless future lay ahead for him, while behind me lurked a pack of vicious, merciless demons.
They unleashed all their fury and resentment upon me in a frenzy of violence.
Silver-laced whips, silver daggers, hot irons, and wolfsbane… They made every moment a living hell, trapping me between agony and the craving for death.
On the fifteenth day, I finally found a chance to escape.
The obstacles along the way had blurred from my memory.
All I remembered was running.
Running until my legs went numb, until my wounds split open, until my breath came in fragments.
Just as I was on the verge of collapse, crumpled among the dead leaves, crying in despair and ready to give up, I heard a song.
It was the song that belonged to Damon and me.
That song guided my way forward.
Mark Twain
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Chapter 3
I couldn't care about my naked body.
I couldn't care about dignity or shame.
All I wanted was to live.
I believed that as long as I followed that song, I would find Damon.
But when I finally reached the source of the music, all I saw was Damon visiting a small pack with Cassie by his side.
It was a grand setup, filled with pack members and reporters.
How amusing.
He had money for investments and charity, but not to ransom his future luna.
He had time for receptions, interviews, and pack visits, but not to save his own mate.
He stood here bathed in praise and applause, while I endured humiliation and torture at the hands of monsters.
I stood there naked, stunned, letting the crowd take in every wound on my body.
In that moment, every gaze and every spotlight fell on me.
Damon's expression turned cold instantly.
He didn't ask if I was hurt, didn't ask what I had been through.
He only said, “Mary, what are you making a scene for?”
A scene? A scene?
So all the pain, all the torment I had endured—in his eyes, it was nothing more than a tantrum for attention.
My blood, my scars meant less to him than the dust beneath his shoes.
I threw myself at him, crying, “Why didn't you save me?”
“Why? Why?”
“I'm your future luna, the mate who grew up with you, the one you were meant to spend your life with…”
“I even had…”
Before I could finish, Damon cut me off ruthlessly.
He pushed my hands away in front of everyone, his gaze cold and complicated.
“Mary, why can't you ever learn to behave properly? How can you ever be my luna like this?”
“I sent Cassie to handle the negotiations as soon as I received the news. Once things settle down, the money will be transferred in full.”
“You were never in real danger. Why put on such a dramatic show?”
Who would gamble their dignity and life just to put on a show?
I stood frozen, tears streaming down my face, staring at the man I had loved since childhood.
Even as my tears dried up, Damon's expression never softened.
If anything, he seemed annoyed that I had disrupted his charity event and embarrassed him.
In the end, someone wrapped me in a blanket and dragged me away.
Cassie pretended to care, but loosened her scarf just enough to reveal the hickeys on her neck.
“Do you want to know why your alpha parents didn't come to save you?”
“Are you confused why Damon's attitude toward you changed so suddenly?”
“It's because… you're not the daughter of the alpha of the Bloodmoon Pack!”
Cassie said that on the day the ransom note arrived, my parents were frantic with worry.
They swore they would do anything, even if it meant going bankrupt, to bring me back.
But Damon stopped them.
He showed them a paternity test, proving that I was just a swapped child, replaced by an omega maid.
The true daughter of Alpha Rig of the Bloodmoon Pack had already died from the abuse and torment of that omega maid.
His words made my parents halt their rescue efforts.
The cherished daughter of Alpha Rig… was actually an imposter.
Years of raising me kept them from abandoning me completely, yet the pain of their lost daughter left them unsure how to face me.
After much hesitation, they left me eight hundred million as my bonding gift and entrusted me to Damon.
In truth, they had done more than enough for me.
What they never expected was Damon's cruelty.
He took the eight hundred million—my bonding gift, my ransom—invested it into his own pack, and bought himself the alpha position.
With that, he rose to become a renowned alpha across the entire werewolf realm, his future limitless, while I was left broken, barely clinging to life.
That day, I cried every tear I had left in this lifetime.
When I looked up, Damon had already walked toward me.
He stood against the light; I couldn't see his expression clearly, but I saw the moonstone necklace on his neck, a matching set with Cassie's.
He lowered his head and said, “Mary bear, I won't give up on you because of your disgrace.”
“But remember, you no longer have a pack to return to.”
“If you want to be my luna, you need to behave.”
Everyone told me this was Damon compromising, showing goodwill.
That he knew my spoiled temperament, knew the shame I'd endured, and still chose to accept, tolerate, and forgive me.
That alone, they said, proved he loved me.
But this so-called love… sounded more like a threat to me.
If it had been the old Mary, I would have raged, screamed, torn the world apart before yielding.
But after everything fate had done to me, I became afraid.
I realized my entire existence hung on Damon's whim.
My life, my future, my every joy and sorrow… it was all in his hands.
So, I did as he wished.
I learned to behave.
Mark Twain
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