Ivy POV

The realization tore through me, more agonizing than the thick silver chains piercing my collarbones.

*Fated Mate.*

My mind flashed back to the Great Hall. When I drove that silver dagger coated in high-grade wolfsbane into Kyler’s chest, the Lycan King hadn't fought back. With his terrifying, unmatched strength, he could have snapped my neck before I even blinked. Instead, he had just looked at me. There was no anger in his eyes, only a profound, tragic devotion. He had recognized my scent. He knew I was his Fated Mate, and he chose to let me kill him rather than harm me.

A phantom wail echoed in the deepest, emptiest part of my soul. I had destroyed the sacred Mate-bond. I had slaughtered the only man who could have given me the Soul's Peace, all for a lie.

"Crying for the tyrant?" Denisse sneered from her opulent litter, her voice dripping with venom. "Don't waste your tears, Ivy. I have one last gift for you before you rot."

She leaned forward, her gaze dropping to my slightly swollen belly. "Did you honestly believe a royal Alpha like Darius would ever touch a wolfless stray like you? That you were carrying his pup?"

My breath caught. The cold dread in my stomach turned to pure ice.

"Darius wouldn't soil his hands," Denisse laughed, a high, grating sound that bounced off the damp stone walls. "He arranged a substitute for that night in the dark. A filthy, wandering Rogue named Stuart Snider. He reeked of rotting flesh, but he was more than happy to breed a blind, desperate fool."

*No.*

The word wouldn't form. The ultimate humiliation crashed over me, suffocating me. I wasn't carrying the pup of the man I thought I loved. I was carrying a Rogue's bastard. I had been nothing but a pawn, a joke, a disposable weapon.

The betrayal, the crushing guilt of Kyler's death, and the searing agony of the holy metal finally broke me. A violent cough racked my body, and thick, dark blood spilled from my lips, staining my torn clothes. My vision darkened. As my spirit shattered completely, I welcomed the suffocating blackness, taking my boundless, burning hatred into the void.

*

I gasped, my lungs expanding violently as if breaking the surface of a frozen lake.

There was no stench of rotting flesh. No suffocating wolfsbane. Instead, the faint, crisp scent of lilies and rain filled my nose—*my* scent.

I blinked against the sudden, blinding sunlight. I was lying on a velvet blanket draped over a chaise longue. Across the room, a pale blue coat hung near a carved oak round table, and a wooden-framed vanity mirror reflected a face I hadn't seen in years.

I wasn't in the Silvermoon Dungeon. I was in my old bedroom at the Russell Estate.

"Miss Ivy? Are you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost."

I whipped my head around. Standing there, holding a stack of fresh towels, was Kaya. My loyal Omega maid. She was young, her face unmarred by the brutal torture that would eventually claim her life. She was alive.

I stared at my hands. They were small, unscarred by silver blades. I was fifteen. I hadn't experienced my first shift yet. I was still the despised, wolfless fifth daughter of the Russell Pack.

The Moon Goddess had given me a second chance.

"Kaya," I choked out, my voice trembling. "What time is it?"

Kaya blinked, startled by my intensity. "It's almost three in the afternoon, Miss."

*Three PM.*

The memory struck me like a physical blow. Today was the turning point of my miserable past life. At three o'clock today, my father's vicious mistress, Jackie, would slip a variant of liquid silver and wolfsbane into the medicine of my adoptive mother, the High Luna Josephine. It was the poison that would permanently blind her and cripple her Inner Wolf.

And tonight... tonight was the night Jackie and Denisse would shove a foul-smelling servant into my room to frame me for infidelity, destroying my arranged marriage to Denver Mason, the third son of the Mason Pack.

My sorrow and guilt instantly hardened into a cold, lethal resolve.

I didn't have time to explain anything to Kaya. I threw off the velvet blanket and sprinted toward the door. I had to get to the Luna's Suite. I had failed Kyler in my past life, but I would not let them destroy the only mother who had ever loved me.

Ivy POV

I didn't stop running until my bare feet hit the polished marble outside the Luna's Suite. I shoved the heavy oak doors open, my chest heaving.

The acrid stench of wolfsbane mixed with a sharp, metallic odor hit my nose instantly. In the center of the grand room, my adoptive mother, High Luna Josephine, lay pale and frail against the pillows. Standing over her was the loyal Omega maid, Kortney, holding a porcelain bowl filled with a steaming, pitch-black liquid to Josephine's lips.

"Stop!" I screamed, lunging forward.

I slapped the bowl out of Kortney's hands. It shattered against the polished oak floor. The moment the black liquid touched the wood, it hissed violently, sending up plumes of stinging white smoke.

Kortney shrieked, stumbling back. "Miss Ivy! What are you doing? That's the Luna's medicine!"

"That is high-grade liquid silver," I snarled, my eyes locked on the burning floor. If Josephine had swallowed that, it would have permanently blinded her and completely destroyed her already weakened Inner Wolf.

I didn't waste another second. I grabbed a pair of heavy shears from the vanity and climbed onto the bed.

"Ivy, my sweet girl..." Josephine whispered, her voice trembling with exhaustion.

"Trust me, Mother," I said softly, before driving the shears into her luxurious velvet quilt. I ripped the fabric open, pulling apart the pristine white cotton.

Kortney gasped, covering her mouth.

Crawling blindly through the stuffing were over a dozen mutated leeches. They were thick, black, and grotesquely bloated with Luna blood. These parasites had been slowly draining Josephine, injecting micro-doses of silver toxin into her system to keep her Inner Wolf dormant. It wasn't a rare wasting disease. It was a calculated assassination.

I grabbed the remaining shards of the broken bowl and poured the last dregs of the liquid silver directly onto the nest of parasites. They writhed and stiffened, dying instantly in the toxic puddle.

"Gather these disgusting corpses," I ordered Kortney, my voice cold and authoritative. "Bury them deep under The Ancient Pear Tree in the courtyard. Tell no one."

As Kortney scrambled to obey, I knelt beside the bed and took Josephine's freezing hands. Tears welled in her beautiful eyes as the horrifying truth dawned on her.

She thought I was the illegitimate daughter of her Alpha husband, Carlton, and his vicious mistress, Jackie. She didn't know the dark truth I had carried since my past life: Jackie, a terrified wolfless woman, had stolen me as an infant to replace her own stillborn, hiring Rogues to slaughter my true parents—Northern Lycan guards. Jackie had no maternal bond with me. When I was six, she deliberately abandoned me in the rotting, Rogue-infested borders of The Dead Lands.

It was Josephine who had tracked my scent. Josephine who had brought me back from the brink of death. She was the only mother my soul recognized.

"Jackie did this," Josephine breathed, her voice hardening as she stared at the dead leeches. The submission that had clouded her eyes for months vanished, replaced by the fierce, undeniable aura of a High Luna.

"Where is Falon?" I asked suddenly, scanning the room.

"She asked for the afternoon off," Josephine replied, her brow furrowing.

A chilling realization washed over me. Falon, the Omega maid in charge of the bedding. In my past life, shortly after Josephine's death, Falon's bloated body was found floating in The Moon Lake. Jackie had silenced her to cover up the leeches.

"Falon isn't coming back," I said quietly, squeezing Josephine's hands. "Jackie bought her, and now Jackie will dispose of her. Mother, you have to fight back. Use your Luna authority. I won't let her hurt you ever again."

Josephine nodded slowly, her grip on my hands tightening with newfound resolve.

I left the Luna's Suite as the afternoon sun began to dip, casting long, bloody shadows across the estate. The first battle was won, but the war was just beginning.

I walked back to my bedroom, my mind calculating the next strike. Tonight, Alpha Derrick Mason and his wife were arriving for a grand banquet to celebrate my engagement to their third son, Denver.

I stood by my window, staring out at the darkening courtyard. I knew exactly what was coming. Denver Mason, fresh from his first shift and arrogant with his new Dire Wolf power, despised the idea of mating a "wolfless" girl like me. Tonight, he and my malicious half-sister, Denisse, would execute their trap. They planned to pump wolfsbane gas into my room, drag my unconscious body out to the Ancient Pear Tree in the courtyard, toss a filthy, stinking servant on top of me in the dirt, and frame me for infidelity right there in the open where every guest could witness my shame.

In my past life, that night had ruined me.

But this time, I was ready. I traced the faint, invisible outline of the pear blossom birthmark on my forehead. Let them come. I was going to tear their arrogant little plot to shreds.

Ivy POV

I didn't have to wait long. A soft knock echoed through my bedroom, and the delicate bead curtain parted. Darcie, Denisse’s Omega maid, stepped in, holding an ornate velvet jewelry box.

"A gift from Miss Denisse for your engagement, Miss Ivy," Darcie said, bowing low.

She played the part of a respectful servant perfectly, but her scent betrayed her—a sour, pungent reek of deceit and nervous sweat. I recognized the velvet box instantly. It belonged to Dixie, my father’s third concubine. Denisse had stolen it to frame me for theft alongside infidelity, ensuring I would be completely ruined.

"How thoughtful of my sister," I smiled, taking the box without a hint of suspicion.

The moment Darcie scurried out and closed the door, a sickly-sweet mist hissed from the air vents. Wolfsbane.

Beside me, Kaya gasped. Her Inner Wolf, highly sensitive to the toxic herb, immediately succumbed. She crumpled to the velvet rug, unconscious. The gas flooded my own lungs, and the familiar dizziness crashed over me. My vision swam. My limbs went slack.

But even as the darkness pressed in, something fought back.

A strange warmth pulsed in my chest—faint, foreign, nothing I had ever felt in my first life. It pushed against the wolfsbane haze, not enough to stop it completely, but enough to keep a sliver of my consciousness from drowning. I still couldn't move. I still couldn't open my eyes. But somewhere deep in the fog, a single thread of awareness held firm.

The Goddess's gift. It had to be. I had felt this warmth once before, when I first woke in my old bedroom, when I realized I had been sent back. At the time, I had been too shocked to question it. But now, lying paralyzed on the rug, I understood. The Moon Goddess had given me more than a second chance. She had planted something inside me. Something that was only beginning to stir.

I didn't know what it would become. I didn't know if it would save me or simply let me witness my own ruin. But it was more than I had ever had in my first life. And right now, it was all I needed.

I let my body go completely limp, my eyes shut, my breathing shallow. Through the haze, I heard the door creak open.

Two masked servants crossed the room. Rough hands grabbed my arms and hauled me up from the floor. I kept my body slack, my head lolling, as they carried me out into the cool night air.

They dumped me onto the damp earth beneath the Ancient Pear Tree. The smell of rotting leaves and wet dirt filled my nose. The warmth in my chest flickered weakly, keeping that single thread of awareness from snapping.

"Disgusting wolfless trash," a voice sneered from above me.

I kept my eyes shut, but I knew that arrogant tone anywhere. Denver Mason. He reeked of his newly awakened Dire Wolf, his Alpha ego practically suffocating the small, dimly lit clearing. He despised the idea of mating a girl who couldn't even use the pack's mind-link, viewing my very existence as an insult to his bloodline.

"Strip her," Denver ordered. "Make it look like she rolled around in the dirt with him. I'll go fetch the guests."

Footsteps crunched on the dead leaves as Denver turned his back to head toward the Grand Dining Hall. I heard the trembling, heavy breathing of Johnny, a wolfless estate servant, as he knelt beside me in the damp leaves. His shaking fingers fumbled at the collar of my pale dress.

The warmth in my chest surged.

My eyes snapped open.

Before Johnny could even register the icy glare of his prey, I moved. Years of brutal, blood-soaked warrior training under the legendary Gamma Gunnar surged through my muscles. I lunged upward, my hand clamping around Johnny's throat like a steel vise. With ruthless precision, I dug my fingers into his vagus nerve.

He didn't even have time to choke. His eyes rolled back, and he collapsed into the dirt like a sack of stones.

I lay there for a moment, breathing hard, staring up at the bare branches of the Ancient Pear Tree silhouetted against the moon. The warmth in my chest was still there, steady now, like a second heartbeat I had never noticed before.

It was real. Whatever the Moon Goddess had done to me when She sent me back—it was real. I had no other explanation. I had been completely wolfless in my first life. No senses. No resistance. No warmth. But now, something had changed. Something was growing inside me, buried so deep that even the wolfsbane couldn't reach it.

I didn't know what it meant yet. But if the Goddess had given me a weapon, I was going to wield it.

I pushed myself up, brushing the soil from my dress. Watching Denver's retreating silhouette in the distance, a cold, lethal smile touched my lips. I swore to the Moon Goddess right then and there that this arrogant Alpha would pay dearly for his stupidity.

Dragging Johnny’s unconscious body deep into the thickest bushes, I grabbed Dixie’s jewelry box and melted into the shadows. I moved swiftly toward the Grand Dining Hall, slipping onto the dark terrace. With my White Wolf senses slowly awakening, the thick glass doors were no barrier to my hearing.

Inside, the banquet was suffocatingly opulent. The heavy, dominant scents of powerful Alphas and Lunas clashed in the warm air.

"Carlton, where is dear Ivy?" Luna Jean Mason asked, her voice laced with genuine curiosity and warmth.

My father, Alpha Carlton, stiffened. His Inner Wolf rumbled with irritation at my absence, feeling his pride wounded in front of his esteemed guests. "She is... still preparing, Jean. You know how girls are."

"Preparing?" Elder Augusta scoffed from the head of the table, her gray eyes flashing with disdain. "A wolfless disgrace lacks the basic discipline of our Pack. Josephine spoils her too much."

Across the table, Jackie and Denisse exchanged a fleeting, triumphant glance. They were practically vibrating with smug anticipation, waiting for the orchestrated scream from the courtyard that would declare me a ruined, filthy thief.

I stood in the darkness of the terrace, the stolen jewelry box cool against my palm. Let them bask in their false victory for a few more minutes. I turned my back on the glittering hall and slipped away into the night.