She didn’t ask if I had fought with Damien. Instead, her eyes fixed on my face with concern.

“What’s that smell? Is that… blood?”

I saw the familiar fear in her eyes. It was the same panic I’d seen in her eyes back when she was still with my abusive biological father, before she met my stepdad.

Not wanting to worry her, I forced a smile. “I just pushed myself too hard during training.”

Mom finally breathed a sigh of relief and urged me to go rest.

I grit my teeth against the pain, making my way back to my bedroom. I collapsed onto the bed, a cold sweat beading on my forehead.

I dry-swallowed a few suppressant herbs and closed my eyes, praying for sleep.

If I could just fall asleep, the pain would fade.

In my dreams, there was no heartless Damien, no ever-worrying mother.

In the haze between dream and consciousness, my mind drifted back to a purer time with Damien.

Back then, I had not yet set foot in the Alpha’s mansion. The moonlight witnessed our love.

We walked barefoot through the forest, fingers intertwined.

I never mentioned my dwindling bloodline, and he never spoke of his status as the Alpha’s son.

We were just two wolves from broken homes, finding warmth in each other.

He told me he would build himself up from nothing and make his Alpha father see him in a new light.

I told him I wished my mother could leave my abusive father.

When I said that, he, a boy of few words, looked at me, and his own eyes mirrored my pain.

He reached out to wipe a tear from my eye, then clumsily pulled me into his arms, patting my shoulder gently as he promised.

“Elara, as long as I’m here, you’ll never have to be afraid again.”

I didn’t know how to describe the feeling then, only that my heart ached so fiercely it felt like it would burst.

That day, Damien’s shirt was soaked with my tears.

I thought we would be like that forever, but then, he rejected me, suddenly and decisively.

I refused to accept it, my eyes red-rimmed as I pleaded with him through our mind-link, asking why.

He just said, “My wolf no longer recognizes you. That’s all.”

I couldn’t accept such a dismissive answer, so I kept trying to win him back.

I peeled the hardest Moonlight Fruit for him with my bare hands until my fingers bled, but I didn’t stop.

I stood in line for hours under the scorching sun just to buy his favorite Mountain Spring Brew, and I didn't mind one bit.

Soon, everyone in the pack knew me as the shameless girl who wouldn’t let go, and they all placed bets on when our bond would be severed for good.

But when I learned my mother was having a bonding ceremony with his Alpha father, I knew it was truly over between us.

That sleep would have been perfect if the pain hadn’t ripped me from it.

I clutched my side in agony, pressing so hard my knuckles turned white.

This usually eased the pain slightly, but this time, it did nothing.

My face was pale, and I desperately craved a glass of hot water.

But I never expected to find Damien still on the terrace sofa; he was supposed to have left hours ago.

The mansion lights were off, and I could barely see him in the faint moonlight.

He sat there silently, leaning back on the sofa, a cigarette between his fingers, its tip glowing like a malevolent red eye.

Hearing me, he glanced over, his expression annoyed.

“Elara, are you trying to scare me to death, wandering around like a ghost in the middle of the night?”

“I’m sorry. I just wanted some water.”

I bit my lip and turned my face away, not wanting him to see how pathetic I looked.

But he didn’t seem inclined to let me off so easily.

Damien stood up and strode toward me. “The Blackwood pack isn’t stingy. If you’re trying to play the victim to get sympathy, the only one who’ll fall for it is my father.”

He frowned, his gaze sweeping over my frail body with contempt.

"Get any thinner and your spirit won't have the strength to cross over."

I froze for a moment, then forced a weak smile.

His words were a prophecy.

I really was going to die.

“Yeah. Just getting ready.”

I held my tongue, deciding not to tell him the truth.

After all, he so desperately wanted me to disappear.

I might as well give him one last surprise.

“Who cares if you care or not? I’d be thrilled if you died!”

Damien snorted and brushed past me, only to pour a glass of warm water. He placed it on the table, his movements infusing it with a faint trace of his healing energy.

“Just looking at you ruins my mood. I wouldn’t have come back if I’d known.”

He seemed disgusted to be in the same space as me, grabbing his suit jacket and hurrying out of the mansion without even touching the water he had just poured.

I watched him go, a man who treated me like an enemy, avoiding me like the plague.

It had been this way for six years.

How had I survived?

I stared at the rippling surface of the water in the glass and couldn’t resist taking a small sip.

The warmth was familiar.

In that moment, my vision blurred.

To be honest, I didn’t even recognize myself anymore.

I couldn’t understand why I still chased after him, even after he had cast me aside.

Was it because he was the hand that pulled me from the mire? Or was he the one person I could confide in through the agony of my curse?

Damien gave me one year of sweetness, and it sustained me through six years of pain.

I even wondered, if not for this sudden curse, would I have eventually chosen to sever this damned mate bond?

But now I was dying, and I still wanted to keep loving him.

It was a sweet illusion I had woven for myself.

On the path to the Eternal Moonlight, at least I could proudly say that I once had the most sincere love.

The next time I saw Damien was at the pack’s annual gala.

I was with my best friend, Seraphina Vance, accompanying her after a check-up with the healer.

He was there with his mate-to-be, Isolde.

I felt like a sewer rat, desperately searching for a dark corner to hide in.

But my clumsy posture only made me look pitiful. The werewolves around me stared at me as if I were a lunatic.

Some even went out of their way to avoid me.

I didn’t care about the strange looks. My mind was consumed by the image of Damien showing Isolde the wolf totem tattooed on his chest.

The mark meant only for his fated mate—for me—had been desecrated, forcefully altered with dark magic to incorporate the Thorne clan’s sigil of thorns.

That desecration of the sacred mark hurt more than any claw ever could.

I had thought it was just a choice people make as they mature, a sacrifice for power.

But I was wrong.

Damien was only like this with me.

I looked up to see if he had left, and my gaze met Damien’s probing stare.

He frowned and quickly looked away.

He saw me, but he didn’t come over.

I had always been an awkward person.

I was never one to ask for things directly; I would just sulk in silence when I wanted something.

Not even my mother noticed this about me, but in the one year Damien and I were bonded, he had spoiled me rotten.

He indulged my quiet stubbornness, giving me everything I never had the courage to ask for.

At first, it was the magic dolls I never had as a child, and later, a gorgeous moonlight gauze dress.

How could I forget the boy who once cared for me so dearly?

The pain began to creep in again.

When Seraphina returned, she found me huddled on a bench in the corner and her face crumpled, her heart breaking for me all over again.

“Elara, you have to hold on. The baby still wants to call you godmother.”

I glanced at her swollen belly with envy, then looked down at my own flat stomach, my heart heavy.

A pup had once started to grow here, too. A life that never had the chance to see the moonlight.

“Sera, don’t cry. A pregnant she-wolf shouldn’t get so emotional.”

I gently wiped the tears from the corner of her eye. “I’ll hold on until your baby calls me godmother.”