In the frosty embrace of the winter night, under the baleful gaze of the blood - red moon, I, a lowly soul once cherished by the fearsome Alpha Alex Hilton, the rabid prince of werewolf packs, now found myself in the most harrowing of circumstances.

Ten years ago, his favoritism towards me, a mere street urchin, had been the talk of the pack.

When my heart yearned for the flute, he callously canceled billion - dollar deals, leaving pack matters in disarray as he whisked me away across the vast oceans.

He live - streamed for 365 consecutive days, a grand and unprecedented gesture, to propose to me. Diamonds rained down upon me like confetti, and he endured three excruciating days of ancestral punishment in the sacred family shrine, defying the strict rules of status, all to make me his mate. His love was all - consuming, a wildfire that burned bright and fierce.​

But now, the very man who had once crowned me his princess, adorned me with his mark on my neck that now felt like a searing brand, had reduced me to a shivering figure kneeling in the snow.

I was clad only in a flimsy nightgown, the icy wind howling around me.

All because he believed I had driven away Susan Charles, the mistress he'd known for a paltry three months.

His eyes, once filled with warmth and adoration for me, now glowed with a menacing amber hue.​

"Baby, what did you say to Susan?" he drawled, sitting nonchalantly by the crackling hearth.

The flames cast an eerie glow on his face, highlighting the sharpness of his features and the coldness in his eyes.

He swirled the wine in his glass, the rich red liquid sloshing against the crystal, a stark contrast to the warmth of the fire and the chill in my bones.​

My teeth chattered violently.

Yet, I managed to choke out, "Alpha Alex, I've never even met Susan Charles."​

His lips curled into a smile that sent a shiver down my spine.

"You're not being good, baby." With a snap of his fingers, a command that sent a wave of fear through the room, a guard promptly handed him a phone.​

On the screen, my brother convulsed in his hospital bed.

Someone had callously pulled his ventilator, and his face was turning a terrifying shade of purple. The sight was too much to bear.

"He's my only family!" I lunged forward, desperate, and clutched at his legs.

Tears streamed down my face, splattering onto his polished shoes, as if my tears could wash away this nightmare.

"Believe me, I said nothing!"​

He crouched down, like a wolf stalking its prey.

He reached out to wipe my tears, but his fingertips were as cold as ice.

"I told you, Susan matters to me too."

His index finger tapped the screen's countdown, a ticking time bomb hanging over my head.

"Be good. You have fifty seconds. Oxygen - deprived wolf don't last two minutes."​

My body shuddered violently.

Yes, he had said Susan was important, but I had forgotten that where his love had once burned hot, his cruelty now bit deeper.​

I'd only seen Susan once, at an exclusive auction.

The moment I entered the grand hall, she blocked my path to the lounge, her chin raised haughtily. "Mrs. Hilton, control your mate. He's disrupting my life."

She worked as a server at banquets, and the more she rejected Alex, the harder he chased her.​

When I confronted him, he merely shrugged me off.

"Just a game with the guys, see how much she'll take. You're my forever."

But when I dared to ask, "What if I don't accept?"

"Be good, and you'll stay Mrs. Hilton."​

I was trapped, at the mercy of his whims.

Instead, came a flood of photos of him live - streaming, dining with Susan, strolling through parks, and indulging in street food.

He posted like a lovesick college boy.​

I cried, I demanded a bond break, but he'd simply say, "Stop acting up. I like obedient babies."

Now, as his countdown ticked away, my resolve crumbled.

"Fine! I told her to leave you, stop pesting you..." Satisfied, he patted my frozen cheek.

"Don't overstep. Think of your brother."​

I nodded numbly, my vision blurring.

Dizziness overcame me, and I toppled into the snow.

A warm liquid gushed between my legs, a horrifying realization hitting me - my three - month - old child was slipping away,.

A howl splits the air as a guard bursts into the room, his eyes wild with urgency.

"Found Susan! She's teaching disabled kids to paint at the Moonlight Orphanage."

I watch in horror as Alex's eyes light up with a possessive glow.​

Without a second glance in my direction, Alex races out the door.

I reach out, my fingers brushing against the cold, empty air where he once stood.

"Alex, my stomach..."

I gasp, doubling over in pain as a sharp cramp rips through my abdomen.

But he's already gone.​

The butler, a stoic figure with a long - scarred face approaches me with a heavy sigh.

His eyes flicker over my blood - stained nightgown, and I can see the pity in his gaze.

"Sir, the mistress might be miscarrying," he says, his voice low and hesitant.​

Alex's growl echoes through the phone. "She's too disobedient. That child shouldn't exist,"

Before I can protest, the butler grabs my arm.

He leads me to the meditation chamber, a cold, windowless room.

As the door slams shut behind me, I sink to the floor, my body racked with sobs.

I crawl to the door, pounding on it with all my strength.

"Let me out! Save my baby!" I scream, my voice hoarse and raw.​

The butler's voice comes through the door, muffled but clear.

"Madam, the child wasn't in alpha's plans..."

In the darkness of the chamber, I lie there, alone and in pain.

As consciousness fades, I touch my empty womb, whispering: "Alex Hilton, the baby's gone. I don't want you either."​

When I wake, the antiseptic stench of the infirmary fills my nostrils.

I'm lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by white sheets and machines that beep and hum.

I reach down, my fingers trembling as they touch my flattened stomach.

It's empty, hollow, and aching.​

The ward door swings open, and Alex enters, his fingers laced with Susan's.

She's a tiny thing, with big, doe - like eyes and a shock of red hair that falls around her shoulders like a wildfire.

But her gaze is ice - cold as she glares at me, her lips curled into a sneer.​

"Mrs. Hilton, I've left alpha. Why threaten my parents? Can't control your man, so bully the vulnerable?" she spits.​

I turn to Alex.

But his gaze is fixed on Susan.

A stab of pain shoots through my heart as I remember the way he used to look at me.​

"Alex," I croak, my voice barely above a whisper.

"Why didn't you save our child?"​

He doesn't even glance in my direction, his voice cold and indifferent.

"Ask why you got pregnant without permission."​

"Don't I have the right to a child in this marriage?"

"Correct,".​

Susan stamps her foot impatiently, her eyes flashing. "Alpha Alex, I'm not here for baby talk. You promised me closure."​

Alex pats her back reassuringly, then turns to me, his expression dark and menacing.

"Yuki, you drove Susan away and threatened her parents. Apologize."​

"I did nothing!" I snap, my head shooting up.

"I won't!"​

His face contorts with rage, and he waves his hand.

Two burly guards, their eyes glowing with the feral light of the wolf, flank my bed.

"Apologize, or they will help," he growls.​

I look up at him, hope flickering in my chest.

Will he spare me for old times' sake? But he simply nods. "Assist her."​

The guards grab my shoulders.

They yank me out of bed, and I fall to my knees with a painful thud.

"Sorry," I grind out through clenched teeth.​

Alex smirks at Susan, his eyes filled with triumph.

"Accept her apology?"​

Susan nods, then stiffens.

"alpha, we're done. My parents won't allow me to be a mistress."​

He laughs, a cold, harsh sound, and crushes her to his chest.

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone, dialing his lawyer.

"Prepare divorce papers. Give Yuki Smith 500 million."​

My heart feels like it's being squeezed in a vice, and I can barely breathe.

The man who once endured three days of brutal shrine punishment to make me his mate is now expelling me for another woman.​

"You will be my mate," Alex says, tilting Susan's chin up with his finger.

His eyes are dark and predatory, and I can see the wolf within him stirring.​

She hugs him tightly, but over his shoulder, she smirks at me.​

Later, Alex's lawyer arrives with the divorce papers and a black card.

"Mrs. Hilton, alpha says it's all pretense. He'll remarry you when he's done,".​

I take the papers, my eyes fixed on the signature line that reads "Yuki Smith."

Once, I thought I could never leave him, that I was destined to be by his side forever.

But now I see the truth: love that steals your self - worth is the deadliest cage of all.​

Without hesitation, I pick up the pen and sign my name.

As I lift the pen from the paper, something inside me cracks, but beneath the pain, there's a sense of relief.​

Alex Hilton, this time, I'm the one walking away.

Tabloid photos of Alex Hilton and Susan Charles flash across my phone like a strobe.

His pupils are slitted in every image, a detail the paparazzi mistake for camera glare but I recognize as the telltale sign of his wolf .​

He buys her full-page spreads in Vogue, where she poses in threadbare cotton dresses, ponytail swishing like a flag.

Socialites who once sneered at my thrift-store clothes now clamor for "Susan-core"-designers stitch fake ragged patches onto silk gowns, as if poverty were a chic accessory.

The trending that turns my stomach: "Hilton Heir Splurges Millions on Visually Impaired Muse."

He flies in ophthalmologists from six continents, their reports piled like a pyramid, then shatters the table when they confirm her congenital vision loss is irreversible.

In the leaked security footage, his eyes glow molten gold as he pins a healer by the throat: "I'll rip out my own retinas to match hers!"

I know that look-the mania of a werewolf desperate to bind his mate.​

So his brand of madness isn't exclusive.

Those once-sacred gestures-canceling board meetings to tune my flute, tattooing my name over his heart-were just his playbook for seduction, rewritten for each new obsession.

I was naive to think I was different.

At the hospital, my brother's hand is cadaverous.

Three years ago, Alex summoned a private air ambulance with a trauma team, yanking him back from the brink.

Now I press his cold fingers to my cheek: "I'm taking you somewhere we can start over."

Tears fall like ash on his hospital gown.

I thought he'd rescued me from the streets, but he'd only built a gilded cage .

I should have known his kindness came with a price.​

At the registry office, the clerk studies my ID-she remembers the tabloid story of the beggar who became Mrs. Hilton.

The auction house is flooded with his gifts: diamond chokers that once graced my neck, jade bangles that matched his mother's.

Under the auction lights, they gleam like the false promises in his eyes.

Back at the villa, I feed my old keepsakes to the fire: a half-knitted scarf, charcoal sketches of his sleeping face, a patchwork cushion made from his discarded shirts.

Flames curl around the fabric, and I see eighteen-year-old Alex kneeling on the floor, carefully folding these "trash" into a cigar box: "These mean more than all my trust fund."

Now I know he was just playing the part of the smitten lovers.​

Now he stands in the doorway, Susan tucked under his arm: "What's burning?"

His nostrils flare as he catches the scent of wolfsbane ash.​

"Memories," I say, not looking up.​

"Fetch the emerald bracelet for Susan."

That heirloom piece, pressed onto my wrist on our wedding eve: "This links you to the Hiltons-forever."

Now he dangles it before another woman.

As I climb the stairs, Susan trails me, fingernails clicking on the banister.

Her eyes rake over my walk-in closet, jealousy pooling in her gaze:

"Yuki Smith, still lurking? How desperate."

I place the velvet box in her hand, missing the predatory glint in her eye.

She smashes the bracelet on the floor, then shoves me hard.

The staircase railing slams into my spine; my forehead splits on a marble step, blood dripping onto the carpet like rubies.

When I look up, Alex is cupping Susan's scraped knee, his pupils slitted: "Did she attack you?"

Susan buries her face in his chest, voice vibrating: "She said I wasn't fit to wear Hilton jewels, then threw me down the stairs!"

Alex's stare bores into me like ice picks.

His guards drag me to the drawing room, where a silver-tipped cane whistles through the air. Each lash splits my skin.