Chapter 3

I followed Lina's gaze — Damien was already standing in the entrance of the great hall.

Every breath in the room tightened at once.

The shift ceremony was the Silver Moon Pack's most sacred bloodline ritual. An outsider entering uninvited was an act of open provocation.

Damien clearly didn't care.

One arm was wrapped around the waist of the woman beside him. The other rested on her shoulder, as if shielding something fragile.

Faye Vale cowered behind him, her eyes darting nervously across every face in the hall.

Damien and I had grown up together after our packs formed an alliance.

When I lost control during my first shift, he'd bitten his own finger open and used his blood to suppress my feral wolf.

When the Elders publicly punished him as a boy, I'd knelt in the snow to beg for mercy on his behalf — knelt until my knees were black with bruises.

Everyone in both packs had been certain: I would be the Shadow Pack's future Luna.

And now, at my own shift ceremony, he stood in the doorway with another woman in his arms.

Faye stepped out from behind Damien, walked straight to me, and dropped to her knees on the stone floor.

Cheek pressed to the ground. Arms stretched forward.

A textbook Omega submission — the highest gesture of deference a lower-ranked wolf could offer an Alpha.

She trembled all over. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her voice thin as a string about to snap. "Serena, I'm so sorry… this is all my fault…"

Her fingertips twisted the hem of her dress until they turned white. "If you won't forgive me, I'll leave right now — I'll never appear in front of Damien again… Please don't blame him. He only did this because the guilt was eating him alive…"

Every word came out broken, choked with tears. Her face was the picture of guilt and terror — a wolfless Omega standing before a room full of Alphas, so helpless it was hard to even look at her.

In my past life, this scene had melted my heart on the spot.

She was an Omega who had lost her wolf. As an Alpha's daughter, I had a natural obligation to protect someone like her.

I'd even gone to the Silver Moon Elders myself.

"She's a lone rogue — it's too dangerous for her out there. Why not grant her protected status and let her stay in the Shadow Pack as an Omega? That way she'd have a legitimate place, and it wouldn't affect the betrothal. Everyone wins."

That kindness became the thing that killed me.

This time, I stood beside the blood pool and didn't move a muscle.

Faye waited. And waited. No response came.

She lifted her head. Tears slid down her cheeks. Her voice splintered further. "Serena, I know I don't deserve it… I don't deserve anything… I don't even have a wolf anymore. I'm just a burden to everyone…"

Then she started kowtowing. One bow after another.

Her forehead struck the stone with a dull thud.

Blood ran down her face, mixing with tears, dripping onto the snow-white floor.

Murmurs rippled through the hall. Someone gasped. Others whispered to each other.

Lina tensed and took half a step forward.

I glanced at her.

She froze.

I picked up the ceremonial blood wine from the attendant's tray and took a slow sip.

Let's see how far she's willing to take this little performance.

Because that's all it was — a performance.

Every single second of it.

The whole "wolfless, broken Omega" act was fake. Those pitiful tears were fake. Every tremor and sob she'd ever put on in front of Damien — not one word of it was real.

In my past life, behind the Shadow Pack's main compound, outside a hidden chamber —

I'd seen Faye shift in the dead of night with my own eyes. Her wolf was perfectly intact. Stronger, even, than most rogues.

The moment she returned to human form, she'd called a black-market dealer.

"Get me those long-term shift suppressants — the kind that won't show up on blood tests or provocation scans."

"As long as I never shift, Damien will spend the rest of his life believing he owes me."

"I don't need him to love me. I just need him to feel guilty forever."

Damien had been played. I had been played. Both packs — every last one of us — had been dancing on her strings.

And in my past life, I'd asked Damien one question: why he could never let Faye go.