That night, Ryan stayed by my side and told me stories about his mother.

His voice was soft, almost hesitant, as he spoke:

"My mom used to sell handmade crafts to make a living. She could earn about twenty dollars a day, but it was never enough to keep us well-fed. Sometimes, she’d take me to the woods behind the pack house to forage for herbs and roots."

"There was this one plant—sweet but toxic. I almost died from eating it once. My mom was so scared; she held me all night, calling my name over and over."

He paused, his eyes distant, then continued:

"She was so skilled with her hands. Whenever my clothes got torn, she’d mend them and sew these little symbols into the fabric."

"Sometimes it was a paw print, sometimes a crescent moon."

"She said she’d heard about a rare breed of cat—Maine Coons—that wealthy humans kept as pets. She wanted to sew one for me, but she’d never seen one before."

When he talked about Cleo, his eyes lit up, as if he were reliving something warm and tender.

I didn’t say anything, just watched him quietly. He seemed to realize he’d spoken too much and grew uneasy. After a long silence, he knelt by my bed and whispered,

"Luna, you’re like my mother."

His voice was so quiet, but I heard it. And I also heard the rustling of the leaves from the oak tree outside the window.

Are you crying?

"I’m nothing like your mother," I said, my voice cold and distant. "Not at all."

"Leave this place. Before I decide to kill you."

With that, I turned away and closed my eyes.

The sound of his footsteps never came. He didn’t leave.

That night, I didn’t dream.

But I felt the blanket being pulled over me, again and again.

And the cool cloth on my forehead was replaced, time after time.

All the stories say that children are innocent.

Ryan Ward is indeed innocent.

But I can’t bring myself to ignore him either.

From that night on, he became a frequent visitor to my territory.

He would often hide under the tree in my yard, watching me, sometimes bringing little trinkets he had made himself.

A carved wooden wolf figurine, wild berries he had picked outside.

Sometimes, he would even give me things that William had given him.

How could he know that everything William had was actually part of my pack’s inheritance?

By early spring, the flowers in the territory had bloomed.

Isn’t spring the season of renewal?

So I stopped pushing Ryan away. Instead, I began to let him help me with certain tasks.

For example, delivering messages to the warriors outside.

William had imprisoned me here, claiming I was ill and needed seclusion, cutting me off from the outside world.

But if the Lycan King knew about my situation, I could escape this nightmare.

So I told the somewhat confused Ryan:

“Just give it to any warrior you see. Tell them it’s a letter from Princess Estelle, meant for the Lycan King.”

He agreed and then ran off, his coat flapping in the wind, stirring up a flurry of petals.

I didn’t expect Ryan to be gone for so long.

When I saw him again, it was five days later.

His eyes were evasive when he met my gaze, and he stood before me with the same awkwardness as when we first met, speaking before I could:

“I gave it to the warrior at the gate, Luna. They took it.”

I didn’t say anything, so he stepped closer, cautiously asking:

“Luna, have you been feeling better?”

The concern in his eyes seemed genuine.

Countless times before, Ryan must have asked his mother the same question, over and over:

“Mom, are you feeling better?”

I felt an inexplicable irritation.

Yes, his mother had poisoned me, causing me to lose my pup. And I, in turn, had killed her and was now using him.

This was destined to be an unending cycle of hatred.

Yet here he was, caring for me, tending to my well-being. How absurd was that?

So I turned and walked away, but Ryan panicked.

He was so young, stumbling after me in his haste, tripping on the porch and hitting his head hard enough to leave a large bump.

Ryan’s eyes immediately welled up with tears.

“Lu…Luna.”

When I didn’t stop, he quickly wiped his eyes and pulled something from his sleeve.

It was a silver wolf pendant.

The quality was poor, full of imperfections.

His hands, holding it, were rough with calluses, a mess of scars and blisters.

Ryan presented it to me as if it were a treasure.

He said:

“Luna, my mother used to say that all women in the world love beautiful things.”

“She had a pendant like this once, and she cherished it. So I thought you might like it too.”

William was a scoundrel.

It took me a long time after our marking to admit that truth.

He had climbed to his position by stepping on the remains of my pack, the Coleman Pack. I thought he would be grateful.

But instead, he kept a chosen mate outside, someone he truly cared for.

Despite his so-called love, that woman and her pup had lived in hardship, because William didn’t dare touch anything from the pack.

Now, his own pup had to do manual labor just to earn a little money, his hands ruined with calluses.

I thought of that woman again.

If you could see your pup living like this in the Ward Pack, would you regret it?

I didn’t know, and I never would.

I just took the poor-quality pendant and almost reached out to touch his injured head.

But my hand stopped halfway.

I said:

“Why did you have to be her pup?”

Yes.

Why did you have to be *his* pup?

Ryan didn’t fully understand, yet he seemed to grasp a little.

He smiled awkwardly, reaching up to touch the bump himself:

“Luna, if you had known my mother, you would have liked her too.”

“She was kind and gentle. Everyone in our neighborhood loved her.”

“If she were still alive, she would have…”

His voice trailed off, the rest of his words stuck in his throat.

“She’s not alive anymore. She’s gone… I didn’t even get to see her body.”

For the first time, the boy broke down in front of me, tears streaming down his face as he sobbed uncontrollably.

And all I could do was grip the pendant tighter and tighter in my hand.