Chapter 2

I looked at Kian’s red-rimmed eyes. What a joke.

Was he feeling sorry for me? No.

He was just scared.

Scared that the “fake princess” who was supposed to be dead had crawled back. Scared I would threaten his precious Morgana’s position as Luna.

I coldly pulled my hand back, hiding the grotesque scar inside my sleeve again.

I didn’t owe him an explanation.

And I sure as hell wasn't going to tell him that someone had traded their life for mine.

I wasn't that coddled princess anymore. I wasn't proud. I was a survivor.

Seeing my silence, Kian grew agitated.

“Say something! You’ve been hiding in the Southern Alliance all this time?” He gritted his teeth, his voice turning vicious again. “Did you catch that wolf plague down here and have it fry your wolf and your brain? Running to a borderland like this… if you get cornered and torn to shreds by rogues, you’ll have deserved it!”

“Cora Cade!”

Just then, the spice vendor from earlier passed by.

She waved at me warmly.

Then she looked from Kian's dark face back to me, her tone teasing. “Didn’t you just swear you didn’t know the great envoy? You two look pretty familiar to me.”

I gave the vendor a polite nod and a small smile. “You’re mistaken. We don’t know each other.”

“Cade?”

Kian didn't even notice my jab.

He latched onto the surname, his voice shooting up in shock.

“You changed your name?! What pack is that? Who’s protecting you now?”

In the North, changing your name means renouncing your bloodline. Your family. Everything.

I looked at him coldly and slapped away the hand he extended toward me.

“I don’t belong to any pack. Everything I am now has nothing to do with you.”

His armored guards were already starting to close in. Passersby were staring.

As the Northern Alliance’s envoy, Kian wouldn't dare make a scene on southern territory.

It could destroy the treaty negotiations.

He could only stand there, fists clenched, frozen in place.

I turned and pushed open the dessert shop door.

In my peripheral vision, he was still standing in the cold wind, looking utterly lost.

I found it laughable. And tragic.

Four years ago, to get him into the once-a-decade “Beta Elite Trials,” I had swallowed my pride. I used every ounce of my influence and resources as “princess.”

And what was the result?

He wasn't just ungrateful. He called my sacrifice a dirty political maneuver.

He was convinced I did it all just to put my own brother in a position of power, to undermine Morgana within the pack.

His heart was already hers. Everything I did was wrong.

“Mommy.”

Inside the shop, Lily was holding a huge slice of strawberry cake, her amber eyes staring curiously at the scene outside.

“That uncle… is he our family? He smells a little bit like you, Mommy.”

My heart seized.

I knelt down, stroking my daughter’s soft hair, and shook my head with a smile. “No. He’s just a stranger who got confused.”

Family?

I stopped daring to hope for that a long time ago.

I thought of my adoptive brother, the high and mighty Alpha of the Crescent Moon pack, Sterling.

Four years ago, on the Moonlight Altar, the air was cold enough to cut.

Morgana had a shallow cut on her wrist from a silver blade. She leaned weakly into Sterling’s arms, crying a river of tears.

And me? I was held down on the altar’s cold stone slab by two guards.

“It wasn’t me! Brother, I didn’t hurt her!” I struggled, crying, begging him.

But Sterling just kissed Morgana’s forehead tenderly.

Then, his Alpha command crashed down on me.

I was already injured, my wolf soul fragile. I choked and spat out a mouthful of blood.

“Cora, your heart is twisted. You intentionally harmed the true princess. From this day on, your access to the pack’s genetics lab is revoked. Now, get out.”

For one shallow cut on Morgana, he destroyed ten years of my research. Just like that.

“Mommy?” Lily’s soft voice pulled me back.

I took a deep breath and hugged my daughter tightly.

“Sweetie, Mommy only has you. And Uncle Jax. The three of us were enough.”

Lily’s little mouth drooped. “But… I miss Uncle Jax. He’s with the Moon Goddess now. I wish we had other family…”

My eyes burned. I fought back the tears.

Even if it was just the two of us, I would never let Lily near anyone from the Crescent Moon pack.

I refused to let my daughter know that kind of pain. The pain of having something precious torn away.

Those fake relatives… I’d rather she never had them at all.

I paid for the cake and led Lily out the back door of the shop.

I thought I could hide. I thought I could have a quiet life.

I never expected that the very next day, I would see Sterling.