Chapter 1

A thunderous boom split the sky. Lightning roared, and dozens of enchanted silver chains tore through the storm clouds straight toward me.

They struck all at once, and my skin split open. As the force sent me plummeting, I saw my husband, Damian Blackwood, standing beyond the storm clouds, staring down at me with cold, brutal malice as I sank.

“With the blood of the Silvermoon, may Damian Blackwood be cursed with eternal damnation!”

With the last of my strength, I whispered the spell, and as I watched, Damian’s wolf form cracked under the curse. His body collapsed, and he fell into Moonshine Lake alongside me.

“Elara. Elara, quit spacing out.”

Someone nudged me. I slowly opened my eyes and saw my father. However… wasn’t I just killed? Didn’t those silver chains pierce straight through my heart?

I blinked hard, looking around, trying to shake off the impossible vision, but everything felt too terrifyingly real. I had been brought back to life and sent back in time. Most importantly, I was back on the very day Damian was supposed to choose his mate during the bonding ceremony.

“Damian,” my father, the Alpha of the Silvermoon Pack, said, “I have two daughters. Which one will you choose?”

I met Damian’s gaze. I remembered how, in my last life, he had looked at me with tenderness and had gifted me the Blackwood token—a wolf fang—without hesitation. Yet now, all I saw in his eyes was disgust.

“Chloe, my youngest daughter, may only be a Beta Gray Werewolf by blood,” Father continued, stroking his beard, “but she has a loyal heart and a gentle nature. She’s admired you for a long time. If you would return her feelings, I would gladly give my blessing.”

Chloe stood beside him, sneaking shy glances at Damian.

The mate-selection of a Golden Lycan was a major event in the Alliance—one that determined bloodline inheritance and required the Alliance council elders to witness it. Everyone knew the unspoken truth: as a high-ranking Silvermoon Alpha, I was the one Damian should choose. Instead, Damian took the wolf-fang token of the Blackwood family and placed it into my sister Chloe’s hands.

The entire hall gasped. Even Chloe stared at him in disbelief. However, it was at that moment that I knew my husband from the previous life had also been brought back to life and sent back in time.

In the last life, everything had unfolded as expected. Damian had chosen me, and Chloe had used Father’s connections to marry into another high-ranking Silvermoon Alpha family.

Damian cherished me at first as our marriage was praised across the Alliance. That was until I gave birth to a child with the bloodline of a low-rank Omega Black Werewolf. From then on, everything shattered.

A mighty Golden Lycan producing an Omega? The whole Alliance mocked him, whispering that his bloodline wasn’t pure. Meanwhile, Chloe gave birth to a pup with pure golden fur, and suddenly her home was overflowing with admirers praising her husband’s powerful bloodline.

Humiliated, Damian turned vicious. He berated me constantly, furious that he hadn’t chosen Chloe instead.

In the Alliance, werewolf bloodlines fell into four ranks: Omega Black Werewolves, Beta Gray Werewolves, Alpha Silver Werewolves, and Golden Lycans. Each rank was divided further into low, average, and high categories.

The higher the rank, the rarer and stronger the werewolf, so families married with bloodlines in mind, hoping for powerful offspring. Exceptions existed, of course, where a high rank could produce a low rank, and a low rank could produce a high rank. Only after reaching adulthood could a werewolf shift perfectly between human and wolf forms.

Pressured by shame, Damian spiraled out of control. To salvage his reputation, he spread lies that I had slept with a rogue Omega, claiming that was why my pup was born with a “lowly” bloodline.

Then, he crushed our newborn with a single claw before the pup’s eyes even opened, summoning the enchanted silver chains that eventually executed me. I died without ever exposing his true identity.

Damian Blackwood wasn’t a high-ranking Golden Lycan at all. He was just a low-rank Omega Black Werewolf pretending to be one.