Chapter 4

Once the bag was full, Noah stepped back, releasing his grip on me.

"Done. Let's get back. Daisy's at home waiting for this blood to save her life."

Hearing him so casually use the word 'home' snapped me back to reality for a moment. All this time, the only place they ever called home was wherever Daisy was.

I lay limp and weak on the floor, my back soaked in cold sweat. Everything in my vision twisted and swayed.

My eyes burned as I stared around the manor where we had all grown up together.

Every corner of this place was once filled with happy memories of the four of us.

The vineyard on the east side, which Liam had planted for me with his own hands on his twentieth birthday.

The swan lake in the back garden, which Noah had spent half a year redesigning for me with a landscape artist.

And all the dazzling couture jewelry in the walk-in closet, which Caleb had scoured the world to find just to make me smile.

How ridiculous. On the verge of losing consciousness, these were the things I saw.

Noah noticed my gaze and seemed to realize his slip of the tongue.

"I didn't mean it like that. The place where Daisy lives... and here... they're both our homes."

No. This hadn't been their home for a long time.

With no hope left in my heart, I gritted my teeth and used the wall to pull myself to my feet. The needle mark on my arm was still oozing blood.

Liam went into the bathroom out of habit, emerging with cotton pads and a bandage.

He held them out to me, then took an instinctive step back.

"You should dress it yourself. If Daisy sees this, she'll get jealous and start crying again."

There was a time when even a paper cut on my finger would make his eyes redden with worry. No matter how important his business was, he would always be the one to bandage my wounds.

I didn't take the bandage. Leaning on the wall, I shuffled back to my room.

But just as I pushed the door open, Caleb rushed up the stairs, carrying a sweat-drenched, nightmare-plagued Daisy in his arms.

He moved around me and gently placed Daisy on my bed.

My legs gave out, and I slid down the doorframe to the floor.

"Daisy, baby, wake up."

Caleb tried to soothe her for a long time, but Daisy's face remained scrunched in pain, her hands clenched tightly on his collar.

He was frantic, pacing back and forth, when he suddenly remembered an old folk remedy he'd heard about from a witch.

An old glass heirloom, passed down through the family line, had to be reforged in fire to release a century of protective light sealed within, warding off disaster and soothing the spirit of the gravely ill.

He glanced around the room, then yanked open the drawer of my vanity with a burst of frustration.

Caleb rummaged through the contents, turning everything upside down as he searched for something.

A powerful sense of dread seized my heart. The next second, I saw him pull out the only thing my father had left me.

It was a deep blue, hand-blown glass amulet passed down from my great-grandmother's generation, with a sliver of gold leaf engraved with our family crest sealed inside.

The night he died, he had placed it around my neck with his own hands.

"What are you doing!" I screamed hoarsely, but Caleb just clenched his fist around it and walked straight to the fireplace.

I lunged for him. "Don't! That's from my father... It even has my name on it..."

He didn't look at me. He just tossed the glass pendant into the roaring flames.

The glass landed in the heart of the embers with a sharp crack, its deep blue surface instantly fracturing.

My vision went black with rage. I covered my mouth as I coughed up a mouthful of blood.

Caleb gently patted Daisy's back. "Don't look, sweetie," he said with a warm, polite smile. "It's an old, dirty thing. It will only bring you bad luck."

I scrambled to my feet and rushed to the fireplace. Ignoring the searing heat, I plunged my bare hand into the flames to grab the amulet.

The moment the searing glass touched my skin, it shattered in my palm.

Sharp fragments embedded themselves deep in my flesh, the molten glass searing my skin. The searing pain nearly made me pass out.

But it was too late.

The glass amulet that had been in our family for four generations was now just a pile of blackened, twisted slag in my hand.

The gold-leaf crest my father had sealed inside shriveled into a worthless, blackened lump in the heat.

Clutching the bloody fragments, I collapsed to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably as I stared at Caleb with bloodshot eyes.

"That was the last memento my father gave me before he died!"

"What right did you have to destroy it?"

From an angle Caleb couldn't see, Daisy curled her lip into a smirk.

The next second, she pushed Caleb away and knelt before me, trembling.

"Evie, it's all my fault... It's because I'm sick..."

"They're only doing this for me. Please don't be angry, okay? I'll give you my life back."

Before she could finish, she snatched the silver-handled letter opener from the nightstand and pressed it to her own neck.

A thin red line of blood began to well up on her skin.

Noah burst into the room at the commotion and saw Daisy holding the blade to her throat, tears streaming down her face.

He stormed over and shoved my shoulder hard, making me stumble.

He snatched the bloody glass shards from my hand and threw them out the window.

"Evangeline! You are truly vicious!"

"She's this sick, and you're still tormenting her?"

The three men stood like knights, shielding the fragile Daisy behind them. They looked at me as if I were the most heinous of sinners.

But who remembered that they once used to protect me the very same way?

Caleb held Daisy tight, sighing softly . "Evie, a woman as vicious as you could never be a bride in this family."

Liam looked at me with cold disappointment. He took Daisy's hand and started to leave.

"Evie, I'm truly disappointed in you."

"When you finally learn to control that spoiled temper of yours and stop bullying Daisy with your cheap tricks, then we'll consider marrying you."

Noah glared at me, his chest heaving with anger.

"She's so heartless. I would rather die single than marry a woman like her."

He lifted Daisy into his arms and walked out of the room.

At that very moment, the sky outside suddenly transformed.

A colossal, piercing blood moon emerged from behind the clouds, bathing the entire manor in a crimson glow.

A moonlit carriage, drawn by massive silver wolves that radiated a chilling aura, descended from the heavens to hover just beyond the balcony.

Beside the carriage, several royal guards in heavy armor, bearing silver wolf-head insignias, knelt on one knee.

The lead guard looked up, his voice cutting through the night air.

"The Lycan King has sent us to retrieve you," the guard announced. "It is time to depart, Your Highness, the Luna."