My fingertips grazed the parchment-like blood bond, the fifth-year creases oozing with cold coffee.

When I stormed into the Bond Hall, clutching that sodden scarlet paper, the clerk's s pupils constricted, "Ms. Lagerfelt, the system lists your bond status as... single."

"Impossible!"

"Anders and I-"

The clerk's head snapped up, a growl rumbling in his throat: "System records show Mr. Anders Trier's legal mate is Ms. Caroline Chastain."

"Her werewolf imprint matches his perfectly."

"Caroline Chastain"-the name struck like a silver-tipped icicle.

All of Black Hessen knew Anders' childhood diaries reeked of my scent; he'd fallen from a triple-tree oak while chasing my runaway familiar, breaking his wolf bone but laughing as he licked my tears.

And Caroline... merely the "stand-in" he'd claimed smelled "Five-tenths like me" during my overseas veterinary studies.

The Bond Hall's revolving door shattered into ice shards behind me. I stumbled into the downpour

My phone vibrated on the leather seat-Anders' message appeared

"Baby, canceled the North American Wolf Pact's billion-dollar hunt,"

"Bought Blood Moon roses; the cake's laced with silver honey. Want to nuzzle your ear tonight, just like our first moonlit run."

Memories sliced through the rain: at eight, his broken left arm oozed but he still smiled at sight of me; at sixteen, snowflakes dusted the white tip of his wolf as he stood beneath my window; at eighteen, he lit firecrakcers in the sky with my name in the sky?

Across the ocean, his video calls came daily,

On the cracked video screen, his irises bled into wolf-black,. "Baby," he slurred "I drank the entire pack's alchol supply. Every time I close my eyes, your scent fades... I'll howl myself to death under the next full moon."

I surprised him on my return.

Pushing open the club door, I saw him kissing a girl-her profile a Five-out-of-ten mirror of mine.

My bag thudded to the floor.

I ran, and he chased like a madman: calls, messages, standing in the rain, pleading: "It's not what you think! I missed you too much... Just hugs and kisses, I swear! Jessica, I love you to the point of madness..."

By the fifth night of rain, his wolf form had half-shifted on my doorstep. A werewolf's body should withstand torrents, but his body heat flared like a dying star, searing my palm when I pressed it to his forehead.

"Jessica..." He snarled.

"Don't send me away... I'll rip out my own throat before-"

I dragged him inside.

In the infirmary, as I applied moonwort salve to his rain-burned skin, his hands clamped around my wrist.

"Swear you'll stay," he growled.

I nodded, fool enough to believe a liar's howl.

Five moons later, Caroline Chastain walked into Anders' office wearing a glamour.

"Her parents are dying of shadow rot," Anders said.

"In our pack, we honor the Blood Oath: no wolf left behind."

When she bent to file documents, her collar shifted, revealing a scarlet mark at her nape.

Anders caught my stare.

"She's a prodigy," he said, pouring two glasses of wine.

"Fired her, and the Black Hessen pack would call us dishonorable."

I tolerated it for a season, watching her place wolfsbane in my tea, listening to Anders lie about "late-night pack meetings" while his scent lingered in her office.

Once, I found a torn pact fragment in his study, inscribed with Caroline's name. But each time I confronted him, he'd press my hand to his chest, where his heart thrummed the rhythm of our old mating call.

Until today, when the Bond Hall's system revealed the truth: he'd tied her to his soul with a blood pact, while keeping me as his public moon.

As the car pulled into the villa district, my tears had dried.

My knuckles grazed the enchanted door handle.

Through the oak, Anders' voice rumbled like distant thunder

or-then heard Anders and his friend in the living room.

"Caroline took a moonblade scratch-nothing a vial of wolfsbane salve can't fix."

His friend's words carried the heavy pant

"Stay with Jessica. The last time she smelled a lie, she shredded her dorm's oak table."

Anders lounged on the sofa.

Two buttons of his shirt were undone, revealing the edge of a scarlet mark that pulsed when he spoke: "How many times? No smoking-Caroline can smell nicotine through Five layers of silver."

He crushed the cigarette, casual.

"Alright, love-sick fool."

The friend chuckled, lowering his voice.

"Alright, love-sick fool." The friend chuckled, lowering his voice.

"But if Caroline's your true mate-, why bind yourself to Jessica? Is she more than a moonlit stand-in?"

Anders' Adam's apple bobbe

" I thought she was just a replacement, planned to dump her when Caroline returned. But after sending her away, I dreamed of her every night. I couldn't take it, so I brought her back as an beta. I can't live without Jessica, but Caroline... I can't let her go either. "

His friend sighed: "Anders, Jessica will rip out your throat if they find you've bound a secondary mate.."

Anders was silent for a long time, throat bobbing.

"Then she must never know."

I remembered this morning, his gentle kiss on my forehead. Every time he got drunk, mumbling: "Baby, I can't live without you."

How he'd hold my cold hands to his chest:

"This heart beats only for you."

All lies.

I pressed my palm to the enchanted Pact Stone in the Records Chamber.

The clerk-a werewolf elder scratched runes into the air, each letter burning blue before dissolving into the stone.

"To cancel a pureblood's pack identity," he growled, "requires destroying your blood scroll. The process will feel like ripping out your soul's imprint."

I nodded, extending my wrist.

He sliced it open a vein, and my blood fell onto the stone, forming a sigil that began to writhe like a wounded snake. The Pact Stone rumbled, peeling my name from its depths-each syllable of "Jessica Lagerfelt" burning away.

"Name change requires a lunar invocation," the elder said.

Stepping out of the bond hall, my phone thrummed incessantly-missed calls and messages from Anders. I let it ring, unread, unreturned.

Dusk had fallen by the time I reached the villa.

Anders stood in the living room, rushing to me the moment I entered, panic pooling in his eyes. "Baby, where were you? I've been waiting for hours-almost mobilized every contact in the pack."

I stared at him, my heart clamped in a vice.

I remembered sophomore year, during the Wolfsbane Festival-when he abandoned the sacred Bloodmoon Vigil to find me.

The elders had warned us: missing the ritual meant risking a werewolf's first shift under a waning moon.

Back then, I'd been his entire world. But his love, it seemed, had never been singular.

My throat clogged.

Yet I mustered a calm smile.

"Went to the park. Forgot to tell you. Sorry."

Relief flooded his features as he pulled me into a hug.

" I'm not angry, just worried."

He kissed my hair, voice softening.

"You wanted steak. Let me cook for you, yeah?"

He released me, turning to the kitchen.

I watched his back-shirt sleeves rolled, long fingers gripping a knife. Warm light caressed his profile, even his brow bones looked tender.

Five years ago, when my stomach ulcers flared under the bloodmoon, the hospital's walls made my wolf form itch. Anders burst through the enchanted ward.

"I found a master chef who specializes in werewolf convalescent cuisine," he said, pressing a steaming bowl into my hands.

The soup glowed with moonlight. But what caught my eye were his fingers-third-degree burns wept silver-blue serum, crisscrossed with cuts that healed too slowly, as if cursed.

"Anders, your hands-"

He pulled back, hiding them behind his back.

"Just... mishaps with a dragonfire stove."

For thirty days, he came every dawn, each meal more elaborate.

Then his phone rang. I saw his face twitch at the screen.

He dropped the knife, wiping his hands.

"Baby, urgent pack business. I have to go."

He untied his apron, kissing my forehead.

"Eat first; don't wait."

I nodded wordlessly.

After he left, I stood before the steaming food-perfectly sauced steak.

But the sight squeezed my chest until I couldn't breathe. I

'd seen the caller ID: Caroline Chastain.

I hailed a cab, tailing his car.

Not to the office, but to the hospital.

The entire VIP floor was cleared; doctors and nurses bowed to Anders.

The director hunched, voice hushed: "My deepest apologies. We failed to protect Miss Chastain from her fall. We'll assign more nurses-"

Anders' face was ice, voice frigid.

"Next time, this hospital closes."

Hidden behind the enchanted ward, my fingers ripped through the linen gown.

His friend had called it "minor scratches," but Caroline's hospital bed was ringed with candles.

The door creaked open, releasing a wave of ... my own blood.

Caroline leaned against the headboard, her wrist bandaged in gauze.

Anders knelt at her bedside.

"Does the scar throb?" His voice was velve.

Caroline sniffled.

"First the car crash, now this..."

"I'm a curse, Anders. Jessica will-"

"Shh."

"I'll handle her."

Anders' voice dropped to a growl.

"We're mates, Caroline. "

He reached behind his neck, unclasping a chain that had rested there for years.

The pendant hit my nose like a silver bullet: a crescent moon carved from the same Pact Stone we'd sworn on, set with a fang from his first shift.

I'd spent 365 nights bleeding into a silver cauldron, summoning the Moon Goddess to bless it-each drop of my pureblood now pulsed in the charm.

He was already fastening the chain around Caroline's neck.

Caroline gasped, clutching the charm.

"But this is the Bloodmoon stone you said-"

"-that only my true mate could wear."

He finished, pressing a kiss to her bandaged wrist.

"Consider it a late mating gift."

I staggered back, hitting a silver IV stand. The charm around Caroline's neck throbbed in time with Anders' heartbeat. The memory of giving him that gift burned in my throat: how he'd sworn to wear it until his last breath.

My heart tore like flesh under a dull blade.

I fled the hospital, steps as airy as mist.

The moment I shut the door, my phone vibrated-Anders' message:"Baby, urgent business . Don't be angry. I'll make it up to you."

Staring at the screen, my fingers shook over the keyboard.

I typed:"Business trip, or time with your loved she wolf?"?

I spent the days packing:-every trace of "Jessica Lagerfelt" stuffed into a black suitcase.

As the zipper closed, I heard something shatter in my chest: quiet, final.

Five days later, Anders returned.

He pushed the door, holding a bouquet of roses , smile as tender as memory:

"Baby, I'm home."

I stood in the living room.

He set down the flowers, reaching to hug me:

"I hated leaving you. Forgive me?"

"I'm not angry. Do what you need."

He paused, then smiled, taking my hand:

He paused, diamond cufflinks catching the chandelier light.

"No more pack board meetings." His thumb brushed the back of my hand "I have a surprise in the penthouse."

The elevator opened to a wall of white roses, their petals dusted with diamond powder.

As we stepped onto the marble floor, a crowd of socialites gasped, iPhones flashing:

"Can you believe it? Alpha Trier bought out the entire Burj Khalifa penthouse for Miss Lagerfelt!"

"Those roses are from his private greenhouse in Monaco-each one costs a thousand dollars."

"Look at that necklace! Is that the Star of Africa II? He had it recut into her birthstone."

I touched the diamond pendant, its weight pulling at my neck.

The stone was indeed my birthstone, but something felt off.

A socialite whispered behind her hand: "Did you hear? He chartered a private jet just to pick up her favorite macarons from Ladurée. The flight cost more than my apartment."

Another laughed: "Devotion? He's obsessed. I heard he had this entire penthouse redecorated three times."

He'd gifted me the world's romance, yet given mate bonds to another.