Chapter 1"It was all Allie's fault."
In my previous life, Nathan's fated mate jumped from a rooftop after being raped.
Her dying accusation? Me.
Nathan made me his Luna—not to love me, but to break me piece by piece.
Three years of torture. Three years of being called a murderer. Until I couldn't take it anymore.
I jumped.
But as I fell, Nathan caught my hand. For one heartbeat, I thought he'd save me.
Instead, he whispered: "Allie, stay far away from us in the next life."
Then he let go.
When I opened my eyes... I was seventeen again, standing on the same road I walked every day.
This time? I'm done being the scapegoat.
I'm staying the hell away from both of them.
Whatever happens next? Not my problem.
---
In the distance, Nathan and Tiffany were walking toward me.
Tiffany saw me first and waved happily.
"Allie, want to go to training together?"
The moment her voice reached me, my mind snapped.
I froze in terror like I had seen a ghost, then threw my bag down and ran without looking back.
"Allie! Where are you going?" someone shouted.
I ignored every voice calling after me and ran against the flow of pack members heading toward the training grounds.
Sunlight filtered through the trees, and the wind brushed gently against my face.
It felt... good.
It felt so good to be alive.
All the darkness that had once invaded my mind and body, consuming me from the inside out until I could barely breathe -- it was gone.
Now I was seventeen-year-old Allie Whitmore.
Healthy. Energetic. Bright.
My father was a beta who served Nathan's Alpha parents.
Nathan was one year older than me.
We grew up together, trained together.
Many she-wolves admired him.
He was the ideal mate in everyone's eyes -- but he had always been with me.
He was like an older brother to me... and also my secret crush.
I didn't even know when it started.
At one point, I even wished he was my fated mate.
Until one day during chemistry class, I suddenly collapsed.
It was Tiffany Caldwell -- the Alpha's daughter from the neighboring pack -- who took me to the infirmary.
From that moment on, Tiffany entered Nathan's world... and mine.
She and Nathan had similar interests, both being heirs of their packs.
Whenever they were together, they always had endless things to talk about.
Slowly, I became nothing more than a shadow trailing behind them.
Then came the rumor.
Tiffany had been raped.
The news spread through the entire school -- and the entire pack.
Before she jumped from the rooftop, her face was covered in tears as she stared at me with hatred.
"Allie... you killed me."
Then she leapt without hesitation -- so fast that no one had time to stop her.
Not even time for me to explain.
Nathan saw the note she left behind and completely lost it.
He grabbed my throat, his grip tight enough to suffocate me, his blood-red eyes filled with hatred I had never seen before.
"Allie! Why? Why did you force Tiffany to die?
This was known only to you -- so why did you say anything?!"
"I..."
My throat burned.
I swallowed the pain in my shoulder and forced out a broken explanation.
"I didn't! It wasn't me!"
But no one believed me.
Tiffany's final words had already branded me as the murderer.
With a victim's accusation, any defense sounded weak -- pathetic, meaningless.
So I was isolated. Bullied. Destroyed socially in a way I had never experienced before.
Everyone looked at me like I was a killer.
Every gaze in the school and the pack felt like a blade pressed against my skin.
Especially Nathan.
Four years later, at the mate gathering, he publicly announced that I was his chosen mate, his future Luna.
It looked like he had forgotten Tiffany entirely -- like he had returned to the same gentle version of him I once knew.
I believed him.
I thought... maybe Nathan finally believed me.
He even smiled softly and ruffled my hair like he used to.
"Allie," he said gently, "let's seal the mate bond."
That was the Nathan I remembered -- warm, familiar.
For a moment, I truly thought the old him had come back.
But after he inherited his parents' position as Alpha, everything changed.
He drove my parents out of the pack.
I was confined to the pack house.
Hatred and cold violence became the air I breathed every day.
Nathan stopped pretending.
His eyes toward me turned distant and ice-cold.
"Allie, you should suffer everything Tiffany went through."
"Allie... why don't you just die? If you died... maybe I could finally forgive you."
And so, as he wished, six years later I jumped from a rooftop just like Tiffany had.
But he never knew --
Only seconds before he let go of my hand, I met my wolf.
Her name was Mia.
Her first words to me were: "We found our mate. He's coming to save us."
And her last words were: "I think... he just slipped."
Then, through my tears, she closed her eyes forever.
I stood frozen on the road, the school bell still echoing in my ears.
The pain in my body... the cold final words Nathan spoke before my death... Mia's whimpering -- all of it finally began to fade from my mind.
"Allie," he had said in the end, "if in the next life you ever meet me and Tiffany again, stay far away from us."
I exhaled slowly.
This time... I would stay far away from Nathan and Tiffany.
Without hesitation, I turned and ran toward home.
Chapter 2
"Allie? Shouldn't you be in class right now?"
The moment I stepped through the door, my mother was in the kitchen baking my favorite chocolate chip cookies.
She looked up in surprise when I suddenly rushed in.
My eyes burned as I ran straight into her arms and held her tightly.
In my previous life, their loyalty had been ignored.
They were forced out of the pack by Nathan -- someone they had watched grow up.
And before I died, I never even got to see them one last time.
"You're already this big, and you still cling to your mom like this. What will you do when you find your mate?"
Her gentle complaint rang softly above my head.
At the word mate, I shivered uncontrollably and held her even tighter.
"I don't want a mate," I said quickly. "I'm not going anywhere. I'll stay here... with you and Dad."
My mother sighed as if she was helpless, but her smile only deepened.
"Is that so? Then I guess we'll just have to let this little freeloader stay with us forever."
After spending the entire night trying to steady my emotions, I went back to school the next day.
When I got off the car, I caught a glimpse of Nathan and Tiffany standing at the intersection ahead, talking and laughing.
That was our usual meeting spot. They were waiting for me.
But fear instantly rose in my chest.
I lowered my head, clutched my bag tighter, and rushed straight into the school without looking back.
On that familiar path through campus -- the three of us walking together -- I had always looked at Nathan, while Nathan only ever looked at Tiffany.
That was how it had always been.
A one-sided love I should have ended long ago.
And yet, my younger self had been foolish enough to secretly feel happy just to steal a few extra seconds of his attention on that path.
After school, I lingered far too long before finally stepping out.
Nathan and Tiffany were already waiting at the school gate.
There was no way to avoid them. I forced myself to walk over.
Tiffany didn't mention the fact that I had run away yesterday.
Instead, she acted just as close as before and looped her arm through mine.
"Allie, we waited for you at the intersection for so long today. Why didn't you come?"
I hesitated for a moment, then quietly pulled my hand away from hers.
Tiffany froze for a split second -- but quickly returned to normal.
"Today is my birthday," she said softly. "Allie... you're not coming with me?"
My heart trembled.
In my previous life, it was on Tiffany's birthday night that she got drunk, cried in front of me, and -- without meaning to -- confessed that she had been assaulted when she was younger.
This time, I couldn't hear it.
I lowered my head, forcing my voice to stay calm.
"I... I have something to do at home. I won't go. Happy birthday."
Without waiting for her reaction, I turned and walked away quickly.
Behind me, I heard sudden, hurried footsteps.
"Allie." Nathan's voice.
My heart jumped. I walked faster.
But in just a few steps, Nathan caught up and cut in front of me, blocking my path.
His shadow fell over me completely.
"Why are you running?"
For the first time, I slowly looked up at him -- Nathan at eighteen.
He wore a black short-sleeved shirt.
His features were sharp and defined, but his blue eyes held depth and detachment that didn't belong to someone his age.
It was the same gaze as in my previous life.
And suddenly, I realized something.
An eighteen-year-old Nathan shouldn't be looking at me like this.
Panic surged through me.
I instinctively stepped back, almost losing my balance.
But Nathan stepped forward again, closing the distance, his shadow swallowing mine.
"Allie... are you afraid of me?"
Chapter 3
The next second, Nathan's expression suddenly softened.
As if nothing had changed, he reached out and gently ruffled my hair.
"Allie, are you feeling unwell? Why do you keep avoiding Tiffany and me?
It's Tiffany's birthday today. She'll be really upset if you don't come. Let's go celebrate with her, okay?"
He was smiling -- but I could sense the quiet probing beneath it.
Of course.
Ever since yesterday, I had been acting completely out of character -- avoiding them whenever possible, keeping distance from Nathan, no longer clinging to him the way I once did.
If... this Nathan wasn't the same eighteen-year-old Nathan, then he would definitely start to doubt whether I was still the seventeen-year-old Allie.
Three years after sealing the mate bond, whatever feelings I once had for Nathan had long since been worn away by mental torture and emotional exhaustion.
Now, what I felt for him was nothing but fear -- and hatred.
"I... I..."
I forced a smile, but Nathan cut me off before I could finish.
"Let's go. We're celebrating Tiffany's birthday together. I'll send you home later."
As an Alpha's command, I couldn't refuse.
So I followed silently behind them.
In the past, when the three of us walked together, I would always be the one watching Nathan and Tiffany laugh and talk in perfect sync, my heart quietly aching.
But now, I only looked at them coldly, without any emotion at all.
Even my mind was already calculating an excuse to leave early.
The night before I jumped from the rooftop was Tiffany's death anniversary.
Nathan, who was usually away indulging in his own affairs, unexpectedly returned to the pack house.
He smiled at me -- softly, almost cruelly.
"Allie, do you remember when you were stopped by the lake?
That day I was on patrol. I stood by the lake and watched you for a long time."
The reflection in the glass window of the pack house showed my face turning pale in an instant.
That day... I could never forget it.
I had been chased all the way to the lake by several pack members.
They called me a murderer.
They lined up to slap me one by one, shoved my head into the water, tore my books apart and threw the pieces into the lake.
In the end, they forced me to kneel and repeat a hundred times:
"Tiffany, I'm sorry. I was wrong."
I obeyed -- numbly, hollowly -- because only then would the humiliation end.
On graduation day, I thought it was finally over.
I tried desperately to forget everything, to seal away anything related to Tiffany.
I thought I could start over.
But now, six years later, Nathan told me something I never knew.
That day of humiliation... he had been there.
He had always been there.
The Nathan who once held my hand as a child, who grew up beside me like an older brother, had stood somewhere nearby -- watching silently as I was humiliated, beaten, and forced to my knees.
Nathan leaned closer, his voice still calm as he continued speaking.
"Also, Allie... your mother is sick now and can't afford treatment. Your father has been rejected by the entire pack for disloyalty to the Alpha. Life has been very hard for him.
All of this... is because of you. They could have lived their whole lives as respected Betas. But now they're forced to pay for your mistakes."
I watched my own unfocused pupils slowly go dead as his words sank in.
So that was it.
As long as I, the so-called "sinner," was still alive in this world -- and as long as Nathan remained in my life -- none of this would ever end.
The only way out was death.
To die... as "atonement."
That was why, on that night, I climbed to the rooftop where Tiffany had once jumped -- and left behind a note that said:
I am not the murderer.
