My eyes widened in disbelief as I stared at Damien, my sobs heart-wrenching.

“Damien, you bastard! My uncle is all alone because our family saved your father! How can you threaten me with his life!”

Damien said impatiently, “Serve Selena well, take good care of her and her son, and I won't touch him.”

With that, he wrapped his arm around Selena and left.

“Selena, thank you for giving me an heir. I will reward you handsomely.”

Blood poured from between my legs as I begged the Beta guards in the hall to take me to the healer, to save the pups in my womb.

The Matriarch rushed in, her face turning pale at the sight of the blood pooling on the floor around me.

“Get her to the healer now! If anything happens to my grandchildren, I won't spare a single one of you!”

I was taken to the pack's medical room, but the healer never showed up.

The Matriarch was furious, demanding to know where the healers assigned to me had gone.

A young attendant stammered:

“Matriarch, all the healers in the territory have been summoned by the Alpha to the riverside villa. Miss Selena pricked her finger during a blood draw, and Alpha Damien was afraid of complications, so he has all the healers on standby.”

“Right now, in the entire city... there are no healers.”

The Matriarch was so angry she tried to contact him through the mind-link. “He's gone mad! His own mate is hemorrhaging while giving birth, yet he's called away all the healers for an outsider, completely disregarding her life!”

After more than ten attempts, Damien finally answered the mind-link, impatiently asking what the Matriarch wanted, if I was causing trouble and getting her to back me up again.

The Matriarch shouted, “Elara has hemorrhaged to the point of unconsciousness! The pups are dying inside her! How could you take away all her healers? Are you trying to kill your own mate and pups?”

Damien sneered, “Did Elara put you up to this? Her pups were born yesterday. Why is she pretending to be in labor now?”

“Fine, fine. I'm busy taking announcement photos with Selena and our son. She wants a healer? I'll send someone.”

The Matriarch ended the mind-link and held my hand tightly.

“Don't be afraid, Elara. The healer will be here soon.”

I clutched my belly, feeling the life inside me gradually fading.

I thought of my past life, how my pups were also killed by Damien's own hands, suffocated to death right inside my womb.

I trembled all over as I pulled the Matriarch's hand and said with great difficulty:

“Matriarch, three years ago, when my family fell from grace to save Damien's father, you promised you would treat me like your own daughter. You said that if Damien ever treated me poorly, you would help me sever the mate bond with him.”

“I'm begging you, help me sever the mate bond. I won't stand in the way of his beloved's son. I just want my pups to be born safely.”

The Matriarch was already in tears, her words tumbling out:

“Although it was to repay your family, I only said I'd take you in as a goddaughter. Confessing his love, proposing... that was all Damien. He said you were fated mates. He loved you so much, how did it come to this? It's all that bitch Selena's fault. If she hadn't appeared, things wouldn't have turned out this way.”

I smiled miserably. Yes, childhood sweethearts, fated mates... how did we end up like this?

The man who blushed at his coming-of-age ceremony, swearing that if he ever betrayed me, he would be torn apart by a thousand blades and suffer a wretched death.

Now, for another woman, he was putting me through that hell.

“I'm begging you, Matriarch,” I said, gritting out each word.

Hearing my faint, thread-like plea, the Matriarch finally nodded.

“Alright! Before your bonding ceremony, I made him sign an agreement with you, precisely for a day like this. It gives me the power to help you leave him. I'll go get the ceremonial token now and have it processed urgently!”

“Tomorrow, I will announce that your children are my only heirs. As for that ungrateful, monstrous son of mine, I will disown him!”

The Matriarch left immediately.

I lay on the bed as waves of agony ripped through my abdomen, and I cried out.

The young attendant the Matriarch left behind anxiously awaited the “healer” Damien was sending.

Finally, someone arrived.

But it wasn't a healer; it was a delivery courier.

Seeing the bloody scene in the delivery room, he awkwardly handed over a bag. A few ordinary painkillers and a roll of bandages fell out.

“The Alpha said it's just some postpartum bleeding, not fatal. He said you should handle it yourself and stop disgusting him.”

The attendant's eyes were red from crying as they smashed the bag to the ground.

“Luna, I'm taking you to a hospital in the neutral territories. You have to hold on.”

I wailed continuously until my vision went black. My inner wolf was fading. Finally, I passed out.

I was woken by a bucket of ice-cold, silver-laced water thrown on me.

Before me was Damien's face, filled with disgust.

“You're awake. Stop pretending,” he said, looking down at me. “You knew I was announcing the heir with Selena tomorrow, yet you still made a scene about going to a hospital in the neutral territories. Are you that desperate for everyone to think Selena is bullying you?”

Selena stood behind him, holding an unfamiliar wolf pup, tears streaming down her face as she looked pitifully vulnerable.

“Luna, I know you hate me. Take your revenge on me. But why did you have to get the Matriarch to come and take my pup?”

“Before they dragged that attendant away, he was screaming that the Matriarch was filing paperwork to have my pup legally transferred to you! He said I wasn't worthy of being the heir's mother...”

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. I could only shake my head with all my might, trembling as I pleaded:

“I... didn't... Send me to the healer... The pups... they can't hold on...”

“You're lying again!” Damien frowned impatiently. “My mother left in a hurry and held a late-night meeting with the elders. Weren't you the one who instigated her? Do you think you can secure your position just by stealing Selena's pup?”

“You already gave birth yesterday, didn't you? So why are you still pretending to be in labor? Trying to make me feel sorry for you? In your dreams!”

I was in excruciating pain. The blood on my lower body had long since clotted, and the silver dust burned my skin, emitting a thick, foul stench.

Selena covered her mouth and retched, her eyes welling with tears. “Sister, you know I can't stand the smell of blood after giving birth. You're refusing to clean yourself up just to nauseate me, to make me faint, right?”

She cried until her face was pale, shrinking into Damien's arms, looking utterly pitiable.

“Look at you!” Damien's face was filled with revulsion. “Like a madwoman, reeking. What a disgrace!”

He waved his hand, ordering the Beta guard to continue pouring buckets of silver-laced water over me. My face turned ashen, my body shivered uncontrollably, and my bloodline felt frozen. Only then did he stop them.

Selena, nestled in his arms, cried, “Luna, I'm begging you, please don't separate me from my pup... If you insist on taking my son, I'll jump from the top of this building!”

She made a move as if to jump, and Damien quickly held her back.

His rage finally boiled over. He turned, kicked away my hand that was clutching his pant leg, and leaned down to hiss coldly:

“Don't think you can get your way by manipulating my mother. I've already sent people to lock down the Moonhaven Retreat. Your little plot won't succeed!”

“As for you—I warned you not to bully Selena and her pup, but you just won't listen! In that case, I have no choice but to use special measures.”

He whipped his head around and gave a cold order to the Beta guard:

“She drove Selena to the point of jumping. She should pay the price. Go, tear off her uncle's protection rune and publicly execute him as a traitor!”

“Damien!” I screamed. “Are you insane! That's my uncle! Our family saved your father's life!”

“So what!” Damien sneered. “To get you married into an Alpha family, to make your pup the future leader, your uncle saved my father, using that debt to force me to marry you. Now you're Luna, and I've even gotten you pregnant. It's your own failure that you couldn't give birth to my first pup. The debt is paid. I don't owe you anything!”

“Do it!”

I scrambled wildly toward the Beta guard, trying to stop them, but I was viciously kicked to the ground.

The violent impact sent a fresh wave of agony through me, and the blood that had begun to clot burst forth anew, staining the floor crimson.

The pain was so intense I screamed until my throat was raw, curling into a ball.

Damien was about to drag me again when his eyes fell on my highly swollen belly, exposed by the kick, and then the scarlet spreading across the floor. His face went deathly pale.

He instinctively lunged to my side, holding me, and turned to Selena, demanding:

“What's going on?! I told you to monitor Elara's delivery! Didn't you use the mind-link to tell me she already gave birth yesterday and the pups were sent to the nursery?!”

“Then why is her belly still so big?! Why is she still bleeding?!”