Three hours earlier, I'd been standing in front of my bedroom mirror, smoothing down the soft gray-blue fabric of my dress. It was simple, understated—nothing that would draw attention away from Ivy's big night. The Crescent Medal ceremony was supposed to be a quiet affair anyway, just me and the pack elders in the small meeting room behind the main hall.

My hands trembled slightly as I fastened the silver bracelet Mom had given me for my sixteenth birthday. The irony wasn't lost on me—in a house where I was constantly overlooked, I was about to receive the pack's highest honor. At seventeen, I'd be the youngest recipient in history.

Downstairs, I could hear the catering staff setting up for Ivy's party. The clink of champagne glasses, the rustle of tablecloths, the low murmur of early arrivals. My sister's Luna announcement was the event of the year, and rightfully so. She deserved this moment.

I checked my phone—6:47 PM. The ceremony was at seven. I'd slip out through the back, accept the medal, and return before anyone even noticed I was gone. Perfect.

That's when I heard the crash downstairs.

Glass shattering. The back door splintering off its hinges. Heavy boots on the kitchen tile.

"She's here," a rough voice called out. "Second floor, end of the hall. Just like she said."

My blood turned to ice. Three sets of footsteps thundered up the stairs, moving with purpose. Not random break-in. Not opportunistic theft. They were here for me.

I lunged for my phone, but the bedroom door exploded inward before I could reach it. Three men filled the doorway—rogues, their scent wild and unwashed, their eyes glowing with predatory hunger.

The leader was massive, scarred from countless fights, his teeth filed to sharp points. "Harper Mills," he said, like he was checking my name off a list. "Right on time."

"What do you want?" I backed toward the window, my heart hammering against my ribs.

"Nothing personal, sweetheart." He pulled something from his pocket, dangling it in front of my face. Keys. Car keys, house keys, and hanging from the ring like a accusation—Ivy's silver wolf charm. The good luck piece she'd worn since she was twelve.

My world tilted. "How do you have those?"

His smile was all teeth and malice. "Don't worry about that. Worry about this—nobody's coming to save you. Your whole family's downstairs celebrating your sister's big night. Nobody gives a shit where you are."

I tried to scream, but one of his companions was already moving. A hand clamped over my mouth, another grabbed my arms. I thrashed wildly, my dress tearing as they dragged me from the room.

"Careful with the merchandise," the leader laughed. "We need her conscious for the photos."

Photos. My stomach lurched as they hauled me down the back stairs, past the kitchen where catering staff worked obliviously, down into the wine cellar where the party music was just a distant thrum overhead.

They threw me against the stone wall, and pain exploded through my shoulder. The leader pulled out his phone, the camera flash blinding in the dim basement light.

"Smile, princess. Your sister wants proof."

Rage gave me strength. I lunged at him, claws extending, but I was still human-form and they were ready. The second rogue backhanded me across the face, splitting my lip. Blood filled my mouth, metallic and warm.

"Feisty," he chuckled. "I like that."

They took turns. Hitting me, photographing the damage, making crude comments about what the "spoiled little rich girl" looked like now. I fought back with everything I had, but three against one in an enclosed space—the math was simple.

During one desperate struggle, I broke free for a split second. Scrambled toward the stairs, toward help, toward life. But the leader caught me by the hair, yanked me backward with such force that I flew across the room.

The wine rack rushed up to meet me. The sharp corner of the wooden frame caught me just above my left ear, and the world exploded into white-hot agony. Blood poured down my face, warm and sticky, pooling on the stone floor beneath me.

"Shit," one of them whispered. "That's a lot of blood."

"Is she dead?" The youngest rogue sounded panicked.

The leader knelt beside me, checking my pulse with rough fingers. I was conscious but barely, my vision swimming in and out of focus. "Still breathing. But we need to go. This wasn't supposed to get this messy."

They fled, their footsteps echoing up the stairs and out through the broken back door. I heard a car engine roar to life, tires squealing on asphalt. Then silence, except for the distant sound of laughter from Ivy's party.

I lay there in the spreading pool of my own blood, my head throbbing with each heartbeat. The gray-blue dress was ruined now, soaked crimson. My phone had fallen from my pocket during the struggle, skittering across the floor just out of reach.

Using every ounce of strength I had left, I dragged myself across the cold stone. My fingers were slick with blood, making it hard to grip anything. But somehow, I managed to pull the phone closer.

The screen was cracked but functional. With my tongue—my hands too shaky to work properly—I managed to swipe to my contacts.

Mom first. The phone rang and rang before going to voicemail. "Hi, you've reached Diana Mills. I can't come to the phone right now..."

I tried Dad next. One ring, then nothing. He'd declined the call.

Conner. Please, Conner. My big brother who'd always protected me when we were kids, before everything changed.

The call went straight to voicemail, but a text popped up immediately: *Again with the fake emergency bullshit? We're done playing your games, Harper. Dad, Mom and I already cut our pack bond with you. Stop being such an attention whore.*

Pack bond. Cut. The words hit me harder than any physical blow. They'd severed their connection to me—no wonder no one had sensed my distress, my pain, my terror.

I was truly alone.

With trembling fingers, I scrolled to the last contact. The one I'd been avoiding for weeks, the one that hurt most to see.

Ryker. My fated mate. The Alpha who'd rejected our bond the moment he realized his political future lay with Ivy, not me.

The phone rang once. Twice.

"Harper?" His voice was sharp with irritation. "What the hell do you want?"

"Ryker," I whispered, my voice barely audible. Blood was filling my throat now, making it hard to speak. "Help me. Please. I'm dying."

A long pause. Then a disgusted sigh.

"Harper, cut the dramatics. Today is Ivy's Luna announcement. Your attention-seeking has got to stop. I told you I'd get you a graduation present later, okay? We can talk then."

"No, you don't understand—" I tried to explain, but the words came out as a gurgle.

"I understand perfectly. You're jealous of your sister and you're acting out. Well, I'm not falling for it anymore. Grow up."

The line went dead.

I stared at the phone screen until it went dark, my reflection ghostlike in the black surface. Above me, the party continued. Laughter. Music. The sound of people celebrating while I bled out in the basement.

My lips curved into something that might have been a smile. How fitting. Even dying, I was still the family disappointment.

The phone slipped from my fingers, clattering against the stone. My vision was fading now, darkness creeping in from the edges. But I could still hear them upstairs—my family, my pack, my fated mate—all of them celebrating the future that would never include me.

Ninety-nine days until my eighteenth birthday.

I'd never see eighteen now.

I ended the call and slipped my phone back into my jacket pocket, irritation still coursing through me. Harper's dramatics were getting worse by the day. *I'm dying.* The words echoed in my mind with their theatrical desperation. Three years of being her fated mate, and she still hadn't learned that manipulation wouldn't work on me.

The grand ballroom buzzed with celebration around me, crystal chandeliers casting warm light over the elegant crowd. Pack leaders from three territories had come to witness Ivy's Luna announcement, and the air thrummed with political possibility. This was where I belonged—among the powerful, the influential, the ones who shaped our world.

Not in some basement listening to Harper's latest cry for attention.

"Ryker?" Ivy's voice was soft as silk, drawing me back to the present. She stood beside the champagne fountain, her silver gown catching the light like moonbeams on water. Even surrounded by the pack's most beautiful she-wolves, she outshone them all.

I moved to her side, automatically adjusting the delicate beaded shawl that had slipped from her shoulder. The gesture was natural now, practiced from months of public appearances together.

"Ryker哥哥," she said quietly, using the pet name that always made something warm unfurl in my chest. Her dark eyes searched my face with genuine concern. "Harper是不是又打电话来闹了？"

I couldn't help the frown that creased my brow. "She said she was dying. Same old tricks." The words came out harsher than I intended, but the frustration was real. "I honestly don't know when she'll finally grow up."

Ivy's eyes immediately filled with tears—not the crocodile tears Harper was famous for, but real emotion that made her look fragile and heartbreaking. "Don't blame姐姐," she whispered, her voice trembling slightly. "She's just so lonely. All she's ever wanted in this life is to be loved."

Her hand found my arm, fingers resting lightly on my sleeve. The touch was natural, comfortable—everything my bond with Harper had never been. Where Harper's presence felt like chaos and demands, Ivy was peace. Understanding. Everything an Alpha needed in a Luna.

"You're too good to her," I murmured, covering her hand with mine. "Always defending her, even when she doesn't deserve it."

"She's still my sister." Ivy's smile was sad but beautiful. "I just wish she could be happy for me, you know? This is supposed to be the best night of my life, and she's..."

"Hey." I turned to face her fully, my hands settling on her shoulders. "Don't let her ruin this for you. Tonight is about your future. Our future."

The words felt right in a way that talking about Harper never did. Ivy and I made sense—politically, socially, emotionally. We moved in the same circles, understood the same pressures, wanted the same things. A strong pack, a stable future, a partnership built on mutual respect and shared goals.

Not the messy, complicated tangle of obligation and resentment that defined my relationship with Harper.

I thought about all the times Harper had called me over the years, always needing something. Help with pack politics she didn't understand. Comfort after another fight with her family. Support for dreams that would never align with pack needs. And every time, I'd promised to be there later, to make it up to her, to give her the attention she craved.

But there was always something more important. A treaty to negotiate. A border dispute to resolve. Ivy's schedule to accommodate.

Harper never seemed to understand that being Alpha meant making hard choices. It meant prioritizing the pack's needs over personal desires. It meant choosing the mate who would strengthen us, not the one who would constantly demand emotional labor I didn't have time to give.

"You're thinking about her again," Ivy observed, her thumb brushing across my knuckles where our hands were still joined. "I can see it in your eyes."

"I'm thinking about you," I corrected, and it was true. "About how perfect you look tonight. About how proud I am to stand beside you."

Her smile was radiant, transforming her face from merely beautiful to absolutely luminous. "Dance with me?"

I led her onto the dance floor as the quartet began a slow waltz. She moved like liquid starlight in my arms, every step perfectly synchronized with mine. Around us, the crowd watched approvingly—the future Alpha and his chosen Luna, everything a pack could want in their leaders.

This was what mattered. Not Harper's tantrums or her desperate attempts to reclaim a bond we'd both known was wrong from the start. The Moon Goddess might have marked us as mates, but fate could be overruled by wisdom. By choice.

By love.

Because as I spun Ivy across the polished floor, her laughter bright as silver bells, I realized that's what this was. Not the desperate, clawing need Harper called love, but something deeper. Steadier. Built on foundation instead of chaos.

"I love you," I whispered against her ear as the music swelled around us.

Her breath caught, and when she pulled back to look at me, her eyes were shining with unshed tears of joy. "I love you too."

The words sealed something between us that had been building for months. This wasn't about pack politics or arranged marriages anymore. This was about choosing each other, again and again, despite what fate had originally decreed.

The song ended, and we remained in each other's arms for a moment longer than necessary. The applause around us felt distant, unimportant compared to the perfect bubble of contentment we'd created.

Then Ivy's phone buzzed against her purse.

She glanced at it briefly, her expression shifting to something I couldn't quite read. "Excuse me for just a second?"

I nodded, watching as she stepped toward the edge of the dance floor. Her fingers moved quickly across the screen, and I caught a glimpse of an image before she deleted whatever message she'd received. Her face remained perfectly composed, that same serene smile never wavering.

"Everything okay?" I asked when she returned to my side.

"Of course." She slipped her phone back into her purse and raised her champagne glass toward the crowd. "Just some spam. Now, shall we make that toast?"

I lifted my own glass, pushing aside the nagging feeling that something had just shifted in the air around us. Tonight was about celebration, about the future we were building together.

Not about whatever game Harper was playing now.

The morning light filtered through the heavy curtains of our bedroom, casting long shadows across the hardwood floor. My head pounded from last night's celebration—too much champagne, too many toasts, too many congratulations on Ivy's Luna announcement. But beneath the familiar ache of a hangover, something else gnawed at me. Something wrong.

I sat up slowly, pressing the heel of my palm against my forehead. Diana was already awake beside me, her dark hair spread across the white pillowcase like spilled ink. She'd been restless all night, tossing and turning in a way that was unusual for her.

"Marcus," she said quietly, not opening her eyes. "Do you smell that?"

I inhaled deeply, expecting the usual scents of our home—coffee brewing downstairs, the lingering fragrance of last night's flowers, maybe the faint aroma of whatever the catering staff had prepared. Instead, something acrid and sweet hit my nostrils. Something that made my Alpha instincts prickle with unease.

"What is it?" I asked, though part of me already knew I didn't want the answer.

Diana sat up, her face pale in the morning light. "It's coming from downstairs. From the basement, I think." She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly looking fragile despite her Luna strength. "It smells like... like something rotting."

The words sent a chill down my spine that had nothing to do with the morning air. I'd been an Alpha for over twenty years, had dealt with rogue attacks, territorial disputes, and pack politics that could turn deadly in an instant. But this smell—this wrongness in my own home—felt different. Personal.

Footsteps thundered up the stairs, and Conner burst through our bedroom door without knocking. His hair was disheveled, his eyes wide with the kind of panic I hadn't seen since he was a child.

"Dad, there's something seriously wrong downstairs," he said, his voice tight with barely controlled fear. "The smell is getting worse by the minute."

I forced myself to stand, my legs unsteady. The hangover was nothing compared to the growing dread in my chest. "Where exactly is it coming from?"

"The old wine cellar, I think." Conner ran a hand through his dark hair, a gesture he'd inherited from me. "You know, the one we haven't used in years. Harper used to play down there when she was little, but after Ivy complained about the spiders, we locked off that whole section."

Harper. The name hit me like a physical blow, and I had to grip the bedpost to steady myself. When had I last seen her? Yesterday afternoon, maybe? She'd been getting ready for something, wearing that gray-blue dress she'd bought with her own money. I'd been too focused on the party preparations to pay attention.

Too focused on Ivy to notice my other daughter.

"Marcus?" Diana's voice was sharp with concern. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

I wished that were all it was.

The smell hit us full force as we descended the main staircase. It was stronger now, unmistakable in its sickeningly sweet decay. Diana gagged, pressing her hand to her mouth, while Conner's face turned green.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered. "What the hell died down there?"

I knew. Deep in my bones, in the Alpha blood that connected me to my pack, to my family, I knew. The severed bond might have cut off our emotional connection, but blood called to blood. And Harper's blood was calling to me now, screaming from beyond death.

My hands shook as I unlocked the door to the basement corridor. The smell rolled up the stairs in waves, making my eyes water. Each step down felt like walking toward my own execution.

The wine cellar door stood slightly ajar, just enough to let that terrible smell escape. I pushed it open with trembling fingers, and the world tilted on its axis.

Harper lay crumpled against the far wall, her body twisted at an unnatural angle. The gray-blue dress was soaked through with dried blood, the fabric stiff and dark. Her skin was waxy pale, tinged with the blue-gray of death. But it was her eyes that broke me—half-open, staring at nothing, filled with an accusation I'd carry for the rest of my life.

Behind me, Diana's scream shattered the morning silence. It was the sound of a mother's heart breaking, raw and primal and devastating. The sound echoed off the stone walls, seeming to go on forever.

"No," she sobbed, pushing past me to kneel beside Harper's body. "No, no, no. Not my baby. Not my little girl."

Conner appeared in the doorway, took one look at the scene, and his knees buckled. He caught himself against the doorframe, his face white as bone.

"Harper?" he whispered, like saying her name might bring her back. "Harper, what... how..."

I forced myself to move closer, my Alpha training overriding the father's grief that threatened to consume me. The wound on her head was vicious, the blood pooled beneath her body already dry and flaking. But there were other injuries too—bruises on her arms, defensive wounds on her hands. She'd fought. My daughter had fought for her life while we celebrated upstairs.

Her phone lay beside her, the screen cracked but still faintly glowing. I could see the call log, the last entry burned into my retinas: "Mate - Ryker. Missed Call."

The timestamp showed 9:47 PM last night. Right in the middle of Ivy's announcement. Right when we were all too busy, too important, too focused on the future to answer a dying girl's call for help.

"She called," Conner said, his voice breaking. "Last night, she called me. Left a voicemail asking me to come make macarons with her. Said she'd forgive me if I came home within the hour." He sank to his knees, his whole body shaking. "I thought it was just another one of her games. I thought..."

He couldn't finish the sentence. None of us could.

That's when I noticed it—a faint glow emanating from somewhere near Harper's body. At first, I thought it was just the light from her phone, but as my eyes adjusted to the dim cellar, I saw the source.

A moonstone, no bigger than a child's fist, lay partially hidden beneath her outstretched hand. The sacred stone every pack kept in their most important spaces, designed to record the final moments of any wolf who died within its presence.

The stone pulsed with soft, ethereal light, and I knew with absolute certainty that whatever had happened to Harper in her final moments was trapped inside that glowing crystal.

The truth was waiting for us.

And I wasn't sure any of us were ready to face it.