Chapter 1

Sabine POV

The red stain of blood glistened against my pale skin.

I flinched at the sting of the needle as the doctor pulled it out and pressed a small wad of cotton to the injection site.

“How are you feeling, Luna Sabine?” the doctor asked while stripping off his gloves.

“I’m fine,” I answered automatically.

He paused, searching my face. “You don’t look fine.”

I sighed. Was it that obvious that I really didn’t feel well?

“Luna?”

“It’s the headaches again,” I blurted, then exhaled. “They’re getting worse. Sometimes it feels like my head is splitting open and then…”

I closed my eyes and saw the faces that appeared every night. A chaotic swirl of them in my dreams, rushing toward me so fast that one feature melted into another.

“And then?” the doctor prompted.

I continued.

“The nightmares,” I said, my voice dropping to a whisper. “They happen every night. I see people… things I can’t describe, and then I wake up. When I fall back asleep, it’s the same thing again.”

The doctor’s pen scratched across my chart as he wrote down everything I described.

“I’m sorry you’re suffering so much, Luna,” he said at last. “However, as I’ve explained, ninety percent of people struggling with memory loss also report severe headaches and nightmares. So these… symptoms are to be expected.”

I looked away, irritated and angry at his answer. It was easy for him, sitting there with his legs crossed in his comfortable consultation room, to tell me that when he wasn’t the one dealing with the headaches and nightmares.

Turning back to him, I asked, “Does that mean I’m going to keep suffering like this? Isn’t there any medication you can give me for the pain and the dreams? You assured me I would recover my memories some time ago. Why hasn’t that happened yet?”

The doctor tugged at his tie, losing his confident posture. He shifted in his seat and cleared his throat nervously.

“Actually, er—Luna,” he said. “It’s strange that you haven’t been responding to the medications we’ve been giving you…”

“Why aren’t they working?” I demanded impatiently.

He removed his glasses and chewed on the arm, brows furrowed while he thought.

“Some drugs can interfere with the effectiveness of others,” he said, then looked up. “Are you taking any other medication besides what we give you here?”

“The only other thing I take is the herbal mixture my husband makes for me.” I frowned. “And honestly, it works much better than what you’ve been giving me. I…”

I stopped, suddenly remembering I had completely forgotten to ask Dominic, my husband, to refill the herbal drink five days ago. No wonder the headaches were back and I felt like hell!

“We’ll keep monitoring you closely, Luna,” the doctor said. “I assure you that you will recover your memories soon. Just be patient and don’t forget to take your medications as prescribed.”

“Fine,” I said, almost rolling my eyes.

Sometimes I wondered why I even bothered coming to these check-ups. He always said the same thing.

I barely listened to the rest of his discharge advice as I slid off the exam table, grabbed my purse, and walked out of the room.

I was heading toward my car when my phone rang. I pulled it out and saw a text from Lilian, my best friend.

*You’re still coming to my shop, right? Don’t ditch me now.*

I laughed at the crying-laughing emojis that followed. Lilian could be so dramatic sometimes.

“On my way. Keep your shirt on. Just left the hospital,” I texted back.

“Good morning, Luna Sabine,” a couple of nurses greeted as they passed.

I looked up. “Good morning,” I replied with a smile.

As I walked, something made me glance back. They were still staring, whispering excitedly. The shorter one, wide-eyed and awestruck, blushed when she caught me looking. Then they hurried away.

I straightened my posture, carrying myself with the same poise I always did, but a familiar weight pressed down on my shoulders.

To everyone, I was the perfect daughter, strong and confident, of the late Alpha Varela. The perfect Alpha, now Luna. What a joke.

For the last eight months I had been struggling so hard, growing weaker and less sure of myself. And it had all started with an accident.

It was funny that I couldn’t even remember it, even though it had changed my life in so many ways. All I could recall was waking up in a hospital room with no memory of anything recent. Only childhood memories and my name.

I hadn’t even remembered that my parents had died two months earlier and that, according to a prophecy, I was supposed to marry the eldest son of the Holt family—Dominic Holt, my husband now.

As if losing my memories wasn’t enough, my wolf had gone completely silent, not speaking, not moving. She had abandoned me.

But Dominic—sweet, gentle Dominic, who they said hadn’t left my bedside for days—had been patient with me.

“We’ll get through this together,” he had said, his brown eyes locked on my green ones as he held my hand. “I’ll help you remember.”

He hadn’t been able to help me regain my memories, but he had helped with everything else.

When the pack council wanted to hand my Alpha position to my Beta because of the amnesia, Dominic had stepped in. He told me that, by law, I could keep my title if I married him and named him temporary Alpha.

“Let’s do it,” he had said.

By then I was already madly in love with him because he loved me despite everything. Our wedding took place while I was still in the hospital bed. It wasn’t what I had dreamed of, but I was happy anyway.

When I left the hospital, I handed my Alpha title over to Dominic. It was my way of thanking him for standing by me through it all, and he was doing a good job.

A smile curved my lips as I reached my car. I climbed in and entered Lilian’s shop coordinates into the GPS.

Even though months had passed since the accident, I still struggled with directions and locations. Maybe it was partly because the Bloodmoon pack territory was so vast—the largest after Nightbane. Soon I merged into the late-afternoon traffic as I left the hospital.

Suddenly a bolt of pain shot through my skull and my fingers tightened on the wheel.

“Stupid headaches,” I muttered through gritted teeth.

Gradually the pain faded, leaving an unpleasant throbbing in my temple. Bad, but I could live with it; after all, this happened often.

Focusing on the road, my phone began to buzz.

I glanced away from the road for a second, checking the phone on the console to see who was texting. It was Lilian, asking exactly where I was.

I shook my head and looked back at the road—only for my heart to slam against my ribs.

A little girl, about five years old, face smeared with ice cream, was running straight into the road and I was about to hit her.

“NO!” I screamed and wrenched the wheel to the right.

My car swerved, missing the child by inches. But at the speed I was going, there was nothing to stop it. It left the road, plunging through the trees.

Someone was screaming. A second later I realized it was me.

My car slammed into a tree and flipped. My head bounced off the roof and the windshield exploded in a shower of glass, shards slicing my face and body.

And the pain… there was nothing in this world to compare it to. I hung upside down, suspended by the seatbelt cutting into my chest and stomach. Blood dripped from my face into my hair.

I felt darkness slowly creeping over me and my eyes began to close, the faint ringing in my ears fading.

Suddenly a stabbing pain—worse than anything I had ever felt—ripped through my skull. My eyes flew open as I screamed from the force of it. I bit my tongue, tasting blood.

The pain was too much and I couldn’t get my hands around my head. It felt like it was splitting open and wouldn’t stop.

But that wasn’t the only thing that happened. Hundreds of images flashed through my mind so fast they were almost blurred. I saw faces that seemed familiar, faces I suddenly began to remember while my head felt like it was about to explode.

“Make it stop. Please, make it stop,” I moaned.

It didn’t. I heard voices inside my mind, each one speaking to me as if they had known me for years.

“You’ll make a fine Luna…” one said.

“I don’t want to marry him!”

“Sabine! Come here…”

I squeezed my eyes shut and gasped, wanting it to end. Wanting it to stop. I knew I would go insane if it didn’t.

The voices stopped abruptly all at once. And then one I recognized as my own rang out.

“You killed my parents, you monster!”