The night I nearly died whelping my pup, Fenris Langford broke our mate-bond.

Throughout my entire recovery moon, he paraded his claimed consort across every territory in the realm, showering her with the finest pelts and rarest moon-blessed jewels.

When he finally returned to our den, he brought nothing but a bond-rejection scroll.

"Raven despises being called a bond-breaker, so I must sever our mating claim."

"Sign it. I waited until your healing moon ended before presenting this—consider it my final courtesy to you."

"The pup means nothing to me. Keep her as a memento if you wish. Raven will bear me proper heirs soon enough."

I said nothing. I took the quill and signed.

Any delay, even a single heartbeat, would keep me from reuniting with the one my soul truly longed for.

Three moons later, the Everwell Territory Infirmary summoned me urgently from a bonding ceremony.

A female patient had ruptured something vital during an overly aggressive mating encounter. Worse still, because this female had been sharing heat-cycles with multiple males simultaneously, her body had developed severe complications below. They needed me for emergency healing.

I pushed through the infirmary doors and stopped cold.

How fortunate. The one writhing on the healing table was none other than my former mate's intended consort.

——

I lowered my gaze to read the patient's name on the blood-scent record.

Raven Langford.

Before my bond with Fenris was severed, I had heard that name countless times from his lips.

He called her his precious Raven, his voice dripping with devotion whenever he spoke it.

I had believed he found some perfect destined mate in her.

So this was the truth of it.

My mind drifted to the night I birthed our pup. The labor turned dangerous—my body hemorrhaged badly.

The healers kept howling for my mate to come.

But Fenris's connection remained severed. No answer came through the pack-link.

Meanwhile, the howl-network carried images of him and Raven emerging from a pleasure den together, wrapped around each other like true mates.

The Langford Pack commanded enough territory and influence to suppress any rumor they wished. If word spread, it meant Fenris wanted it known.

He was done hiding her.

He intended to make her his Luna.

When I finally clawed my way back from death's edge, Fenris appeared at last.

His expression held only irritation. "Selene, why must you always make yourself look so pathetic?"

"You were a gifted student once, a trained healer yourself. Did you truly have to insist on bearing this pup for me?"

"I never wanted it. Your scheme to secure your position through a child is honestly laughable."

"I've been occupied with important matters lately. I have no time for your pitiful grieving—"

His words cut off as his pack-link hummed with an incoming call.

He answered without bothering to shield his thoughts from me. "Raven..."

Her voice sliced through immediately. "Fenris, my love, is my moon-day surprise ready yet?"

"You said you were just checking on that worn-out Omega at the infirmary. It's been half a turning already—why haven't you returned?"

"I heard she bled everywhere? How disgusting. The whole place must reek of her."

"Come back to me, my Alpha. Don't let her filth stain your fur."

Fenris chuckled softly. "My Raven always thinks of me first. I'm leaving now."

"Your gift is already prepared. I promise you'll be so thoroughly claimed you won't be able to walk..."

He strode out while still speaking, never glancing back at me.

Of course, it never crossed his mind to see our pup either.

Fortunately, I felt no great sorrow.

Once I confirmed my daughter was safe and healthy, I allowed myself a small measure of relief.

Relief that I could finally hold Elder Aldric Langford to the promise he made me long ago.

I reached out through the formal pack channels. "Elder Patriarch, the pup is healthy and whole. May I now be released from the Langford Pack?"

Years ago, when the Langford territory teetered on the edge of collapse, Aldric Langford himself had sought me out.

My scent-sign and moon-birth omens were said to bring fortune to the Langford bloodline. If I could bear even one pup for their pack, their prosperity would be secured for generations.

I was already training as a healer then. To any wolf with sense, such superstitions seemed absurd.

But the powerful always cling hardest to such beliefs.

I refused to accept the arrangement, so Elder Aldric Langford immediately had my younger brother Rowan expelled from the warrior training academy.

My parents called in tears, their voices shaking as they described how they had narrowly escaped a rogue attack on the forest road—just one step away from death.

I had no choice but to yield and agree to the mating bond.

At that time, I already had a steady companion—Kael Frostmere, a Beta from a neutral allied packline. We had been together for ten years.

Kael knew the truth of my forced arrangement. He waited for me all this time, never giving up.

Elder Aldric let out a heavy sigh, the weight of age and authority in his breath. "I have heard the whispers carried through the howl-network these past few days. Since a forced bond yields only bitterness, I will release you from the pack."

"However, your body is still weak from the birthing. I have summoned a team of skilled healers to tend to you. Once your recovery cycle is complete, you may leave."

Raven Langford's shrieking pulled me back to the present moment.

I assessed her condition with the clinical eye of a trained healer.

The damage to her lower body was severe—torn flesh accompanied by a vicious infection. The tissue had already begun to blacken and die, the situation far worse than anyone had anticipated.

She writhed in agony, her whole body shuddering with spasms, yet she continued to spit curses through gritted teeth.

"Useless! All of you are useless! You cannot even handle a simple wound? Do you want me to have this infirmary shut down by tomorrow?"

"Those filthy males are all the same! They take their pleasure and run, leaving me here to suffer! When I get out of here, I will flay every last one of them!"

I kept my expression blank as I pulled on sterile gloves. "Miss Raven, based on my examination, the tearing to your lower body is extensive. Multiple infections have taken hold. You require immediate surgical cleansing."

The moment she heard the word surgery, she ignored her wounds and kept screaming. "Surgery? Who gave you permission to cut into me? I am warning you—if you leave a single scar on my body, I will make sure you all pay!"

"I am supposed to wear a ceremonial mating gown! I am going to become the Luna of a powerful pack! Can you afford to ruin that for me?"

Her eyes burned with hatred as she glared at me. "Are you doing this on purpose? Trying to destroy me? Let me tell you something—my intended mate is the wealthiest Alpha in all the territories! One word from him and every single one of you will be banished!"

I cut her off. "It is too early to worry about such things. If we do not operate immediately, the infection will spread. Forget about a mating ceremony—your ability to bear pups could be permanently damaged. Your life itself may be at risk."

I was simply stating facts.

For patients like her, sympathy was the most worthless thing I could offer.

The healer-assistant beside me handed over the consent scroll for the procedure. Raven snatched it and tore it to shreds without hesitation.

She screamed like a creature gone feral. "Sign what? I refuse to sign! You incompetent healers are trying to harm me! I will report all of you! I will destroy your reputations!"

Then something seemed to occur to her. Her gaze turned venomous as she fixed her eyes on me. "What are you supposed to be? You think you are worthy of performing surgery on me? Go fetch the head of this infirmary at once! Otherwise, I will have my intended mate tear this pathetic healing den to the ground!"

If her condition had not been so critical, I would have gladly walked away.

But my duty as a healer would not let me abandon her, no matter how much I wanted to.

I had no patience for her ranting. "Besides me, there is likely no other healer in this infirmary capable of performing this procedure. Where is your kin? Someone needs to sign."

At the mention of family, Raven's composure cracked for just a moment. "Kin? I do not need kin. I make my own decisions."

"Just hurry up and do the surgery! If you delay my affairs, you will face consequences you cannot imagine!"

I reminded her once more. "According to pack law and infirmary protocol, surgery requires a family member's signature. Or perhaps your intended mate could come?"

I pressed the question, my tone still flat, as though this were merely routine.

Raven's face twisted with something between rage and fear. "You had all better keep your mouths shut. If even a whisper of this reaches the howl-network, I will make sure none of you have a proper pyre when you die!"

I raised an eyebrow but did not push further.

This kind of situation was nothing new in the infirmary. I had seen it many times before.

I simply pushed the consent form in front of her: "Think it over carefully and make a decision as soon as possible. Time is of the essence. After treating your injuries, I need to rush back to complete the bond-forming ceremony..."

My words were interrupted by a man's voice suddenly sounding behind me:

"Bond-forming? Who are you going to form a partnership with?"

"We only broke our blood pact three months ago, and you're already forming a new alliance?!"

Fenris Langford, accompanied by four enforcers dressed in black, sealed off the entrance to the treatment room.

His meticulously tailored dark robe accentuated his tall and slender figure, and the Alpha aura emanating from him was almost suffocating.

"Selene, I'm talking to you, did you hear me?"

"What? Only three months after the blood pact was broken, you already don't recognize your former partner?"

His gaze swept past me, and before I could respond, his expression instantly changed when he saw Raven on the treatment table.

Raven was connected to an oxygen tube, her face ashen.

Fenris's eyes immediately showed heartache, but the chill in his voice pierced me directly. "Selene, what did you do to her?"

"She was perfectly fine when she left the territory this morning! What have you been up to behind my back?!"

Raven weakly raised her hand, reaching towards Fenris: "Brother Zhou! She wants my life!"

Her voice was hoarse and broken, "She was churning inside me with a healing scalpel! She even said, 'If I cut you like this, you'll never be able to bear children again!' I kept begging her, but she made me suffer unbearably..."

Before she could finish speaking, she suddenly coughed violently, her chest heaving, and the monitoring equipment emitted a piercing alarm.

She gasped for breath, screaming with all her might, "So you're Zhou-gege's ex-partner!"

"Zhou-gege, she's just jealous! Jealous that I can bear your child, jealous that I'm about to become the official mistress of the Langford territory!"

I tossed the blood-stained gauze into the medical waste bin, then slowly waved the medical record in front of Fenris. "Chief Langford, her abscess ruptured, causing a blood infection. If your prospective partner had arrived forty minutes later, she'd be lying in the morgue by now."

Before Fenris could even take the record, Raven preemptively... "Brother Zhou, she's talking nonsense! She's deliberately framing me!"

"Because she knows you broke your blood pact with her for my sake, so she wants to use her position as a healer to get revenge on me."

Raven forcefully pulled the IV needle from the back of her hand. "Brother Zhou, look! She deliberately misplaced the needle, and now I'm covered in bruises, even my neck!"

"She even threatened me! She said she'd spread my medical records throughout the Howling Network, letting all the werewolves know that Brother Zhou married a woman inferior to her!"

I turned to look at Raven.

Her body was indeed covered in bruises.

But these marks were already there when she was brought into the treatment room.

Clearly, they were marks left from lovemaking.

Fenris pulled her into his arms, stomping on the medical records on the ground. "Selene, you used the old patriarch's life-saving herb to blackmail me into a blood pact back then, and when you failed, you tried to destroy Yingying now?"

He sneered, "The Evergreen Territory Healing Center? You think you're worthy to work here?"

"It seems I was too lenient with you when we broke the blood pact, allowing you to dare lay a hand on my woman now."

"Selene, perhaps you haven't tasted the consequences of angering me, Fenris Langford."

As he finished speaking, two enforcers swiftly stepped forward and immediately twisted my arms behind my back.

I was forced to kneel before Fenris and Raven.

I looked up at him, my voice mocking, "Fenris, aren't you curious why she'd rather die than accept treatment?"

The enforcers tightened the restraints on my wrists, the leather digging deep into my flesh, a stinging pain spreading throughout my body.

I lost a lot of blood during my difficult childbirth and am still breastfeeding. My body has not recovered at all, and the forced bending over made my abdominal pain start to intensify.