The atmosphere in the selection hall suddenly turned ice-cold. Dozens of pairs of eyes—especially those of the noble werewolf maidens who believed themselves far more worthy—stared at Aria with a mixture of shock, malice, and pity. They knew this frail human girl had just signed her own death warrant.

Xavier roughly released his grip on Aria’s chin. He turned around, not even waiting for an answer from her trembling lips.

"Take care of her," Xavier commanded coldly to the head palace butler standing behind him. Without another glance, the Alpha strode away, his black cloak billowing in the deadly wind.

Aria would have collapsed to the floor if an elderly maid hadn't quickly caught her by the arm. In that exact second, Aria's life changed in a flash. Two armored guards escorted her toward a closed carriage. Before the carriage door slammed shut, Aria managed to toss a heavy leather pouch to a hired courier who was already waiting for her outside the gates.

Five hundred gold coins. The advance payment had cleared.

"Take this to the hovel on the western outskirts! Give it to the physician and make sure my mother takes her medicine this very day!" Aria cried out, half-shouting through the gap in the carriage window.

The courier nodded quickly before the carriage bolted away, carrying Aria up the mountain toward the Bloodmoon Palace that stood tall atop a rocky cliff.

The palace was magnificent, yet every corner exuded a dark aura. There were no bright decorations typical of a wedding celebration. No fresh flowers or cheerful music echoed through the halls. There was only a suffocating silence and the cold stares of the guards, who looked at Aria as if she were a lamb being led to the slaughterhouse.

Aria was escorted into a spacious chamber with a large canopy bed in the center. Laid out upon the bed was a gown.

Aria’s heart hammered against her ribs. The gown was not white at all.

"Is this... the wedding dress?" Aria asked, her voice trembling as her fingers brushed the silk fabric, which felt smooth yet as cold as snow.

"Yes, Future Luna," replied the elderly maid who had brought her in, her eyes blankly masking a hidden terror. "This is the tradition for Lord Alpha Xavier's brides. A gown of pure black silk. The palace no longer provides white gowns... because we do not wish to stain white fabric with blood that is difficult to wash away."

Those words hit Aria's chest like a physical blow. They were not welcoming a bride; they were dressing a corpse.

Before Aria could even calm the terror in her chest, night had fallen. Inside the vast bridal chamber, dimly lit by flickering candlelight, Aria stood alone in her black wedding gown, staring at her own reflection in a large mirror.

Her face was deathly pale, but her eyes burned with an unyielding resolve. ‘Mother has her medicine. She will live. If I must die tonight... at least my sacrifice was not in vain.’

The heavy clanking of iron chains startled Aria. The massive oak door at the far end of the room swung open, and a towering figure stepped inside.

Xavier.

The Alpha had shed his ceremonial cloak and now wore only a loose black shirt with the top buttons undone, revealing his broad chest. His crimson eyes glowed intensely in the darkness of the room.

The moment Xavier entered, two guards outside immediately slammed the heavy wooden door shut. A deafening sound echoed once more—the chamber door was being locked from the outside with thick iron chains.

Aria took a sharp step back until her spine hit the bedpost. Her breath hitched, her hands gripping the edges of her black gown with a death grip. She could hear her own heart racing wildly, synchronizing with the heavy thuds of Xavier’s approaching footsteps.

Xavier stopped exactly three paces away from Aria. His predatory aura rolled off him in powerful waves, completely locking the human girl in place. Beneath the dim candlelight, Aria could see the glint of sharp fangs beginning to peek from behind the Alpha's thin lips. The grand grandfather clock in the corner of the room began to chime.

Signaling that the night had grown deep.

Xavier stared at Aria with a lethal intensity, his large, calloused hand slowly rising. "Our first night is about to begin, Human."

Teng... Teng...

The tolling of the giant grandfather clock felt like a death knell echoing deep within Aria’s chest. Every single strike made all the muscles in her body seize up. The air inside the room suddenly plummeted, turning so freezing cold that her breath formed a thin mist as it left her mouth.

Xavier took a step forward. His fangs elongated, and black veins began to bulge around his sharp, chiseled jawline. His crimson eyes no longer held cold arrogance; instead, they flared with a wild, uncontrollable bloodlust.

Aria squeezed her eyes shut, tightly gripping her black wedding gown, bracing herself for the excruciating pain that was about to tear through her neck. ‘Mother... I’m sorry,’ she thought in utter resignation.

However, the agonizing seconds ticked past without any pain.

Instead, what she heard was the sound of a heavy crash accompanied by a choked, intensely painful groan. CRASH!

Aria opened her eyes in shock. Xavier was not pouncing on her. The Alpha was on his knees on the marble floor, clutching his own head as if his skull were being struck by a sledgehammer. His well-built frame trembled violently, and cold sweat poured down, drenching his black shirt.

"Go..." Xavier growled, his voice hoarse, warping into a low, primal canine rumble. "Hide... under the table... now!"

Aria froze. "W-What?"

"I SAID GO, HUMAN!" Xavier roared.

Groaning in agonizing pain, Xavier crawled with great effort toward a bedpost made of pure wrought iron. With trembling hands, he reached for a bundle of pure silver chains that had been deliberately placed there. Without a moment's hesitation, Xavier wrapped the wolf-weakening chains around both his wrists, locking himself securely to the bedpost.

Aria jolted backward. Her mind raced. He... he is purposely chaining himself up? Xavier didn't want to kill her. He was fighting to restrain something inside him.

Before Aria could fully process what was happening, Xavier's screams of agony shattered the silence once more. The Alpha's body convulsed violently. His eyes, which had been a fiery red, suddenly turned pitch-black—entirely black, with no whites remaining.

From beneath the shadow of Xavier’s body on the floor, something horrific began to manifest.

A dense, pitch-black smoke that reeked of sulfur billowed out from the Alpha's body. The smoke swirled in the air, condensing to form a pair of colossal shadow claws with razor-sharp talons. This was not a wolf's power. This was pure, concentrated black magic.

The shadow claws moved independently, hovering in midair as if they possessed a consciousness of their own.

Locked down by the silver chains, Xavier could only howl in sheer frustration, desperately trying to pull back the dark energy bleeding from his body, but he failed. The magic entirely ignored its host.

The pair of black shadow claws spun slowly in the air before finally detecting the presence of another living soul in the room. Slowly but surely, the claws turned, aiming their sharp tips directly at Aria, who was frozen in the corner of the room.

Aria backed up until her spine pressed flat against the wall. There was nowhere to run. The door behind her was locked beneath layers of heavy iron chains from the outside.

"Run... Aria... Run!!" Xavier screamed with the last shred of his consciousness, uttering her name for the very first time.

But it was too late. The black shadow claws lunged, tearing through the darkness of the room, hurtling straight toward Aria’s throat with lightning speed.

The freezing wind brought by the shadow claws whipped against Aria’s face, reeking of death and stale blood. Her survival instincts took over. Instead of freezing, Aria instinctively threw both hands up to shield her face and neck.

The shadowy black talons slashed across Aria’s right arm. A burning pain instantly flared through her skin, tearing the black silk of her wedding gown and slicing into her flesh. Fresh, deep crimson blood immediately gushed from the wound.

Aria screamed in agony, completely resigned as she waited for the next fatal strike that would end her life.

However, the darkness that was supposed to consume her body suddenly exploded into a deafening hiss.

The exact second the droplets of Aria’s crimson blood splattered and hit the shadow claws, the black mist violently convulsed as if drenched in acid. The black smoke rapidly faded, writhing in agony, and layer by layer, disintegrated into fragments of ash that vanished into the air before they could even touch the floor.

The room suddenly fell deathly quiet.

Xavier, still chained to the bedpost, gasped heavily with what little strength he had left. Slowly, the pitch-black color receded from his eyes, returning to a pair of fiery red irises that were now wide with absolute shock.

He had witnessed the entire thing. The previous five brides had been torn to shreds because the black magic bleeding from his body could not be contained by anything. Yet this human girl... her blood had just annihilated the cursed magic with a single touch.

"You..." Xavier’s voice was hoarse, barely audible. "Your blood..."

Aria couldn't hear Xavier's words. Her head spun violently. The burning pain in her arm, the sheer psychological shock, and the crushing pressure of the supernatural energy that had just occurred completely drained her of all strength. Aria's vision slowly went black. Her body gave out and she collapsed onto the cold marble floor, falling unconscious.

The next morning, sunlight pierced through the large windows of the wedding chamber.

Outside the door, a crowd of maids, guards, and even several elders of the werewolf council had already gathered. Their faces were tense. A few maidservants had brought fresh burial shrouds and blood-cleaning tonics, preparing to evacuate the corpse of the sixth bride just as they had done so many times before.

The iron chains were roughly unfastened, and the heavy oak door was swung wide open. The head palace butler stepped inside with his head bowed, prepared to pay his final respects to the bride’s remains.

However, his footsteps froze. A hysterical shriek escaped the mouth of one of the maids behind him.

In the center of the room, Aria was not lying stiff as a corpse. The human girl was sitting on the edge of the bed, her arm securely wrapped in clean white linen. In front of her, Lord Alpha Xavier sat quietly on the floor, allowing Aria to meticulously apply a healing salve onto the remaining wounds on his temple.

Aria was still breathing. She was alive.

The entire room froze in utter disbelief. For the first time in history, a woman had successfully made it through her first night with the Bloodmoon Alpha and welcomed the dawn completely unharmed.

Xavier paid no mind to the shocked stares of the people standing at the threshold. His eyes were locked entirely on Aria, staring intently at the human girl who was now looking back at him with remnants of fear in her eyes. The Alpha knew his destiny had just changed.

However, as Aria stood up to adjust her torn gown, her hand accidentally brushed against something bulging beneath the bed pillows. Aria looked down and subtly pulled back the edge of the pillow.

A folded piece of worn-out paper was hidden there. With a swift, silent movement, Aria concealed the paper in the palm of her hand before Xavier or any of the servants could notice. While Xavier turned to speak to his guards, Aria slightly opened the paper and read the messy handwriting scrawled inside:

"Do not trust the Alpha. Your mother's mysterious illness... he is the cause of it. You have been sacrificed."

Aria's heart instantly dropped to the pit of her stomach, staring at Xavier’s broad back with a terrifying new sense of dread.