Chapter 4

A gentle stream of warmth flowed through my fingertips, spreading slowly into every limb.

I forced my eyes open. Above me was an unfamiliar, vaulted stone ceiling.

"You're awake." A low, steady female voice sounded beside me.

I tried to sit up, but a pair of cool hands pressed down on my shoulders. "Don't move. Your body has been pushed far past its limit."

I turned my head and saw an older woman in a silver-gray robe, a bone-carved healer's emblem pinned to her chest.

"This is the Moon Hall of Silver Moon Pack. I'm the healer here, Vera. You collapsed in the pine forest near the border. Our patrol brought you in."

I opened my mouth, but my parched throat couldn't produce a sound.

"Take it easy. Let me continue treating you." Vera placed her palm over my chest, and a thread of soft silver light seeped from her hand into my skin.

But the next second, her expression changed completely.

The silver light recoiled as though it had touched something deeply corrupt, snapping back and dissolving into a wisp of black smoke in the air.

"Your wolf..." Vera stared at me, then reached for a bone needle carved with ancient runes from the wooden rack beside her. Without hesitation, she drove it into the edge of the mate mark on the back of my neck.

A single drop of blood laced with tendrils of dark mist seeped along the needle, giving off a sickeningly sweet, coppery stench.

"Someone has placed dark magic on you." Vera's voice dropped to barely a whisper. "This isn't a simple mark removal. This is a Soul Devourer, a forbidden curse. Someone has been using it to drain your wolf, constantly and without stopping!"

She held the bone needle in the air, following the invisible thread extending from the drop of black blood. It pointed toward the dark sky beyond the window.

"And the source of this curse hasn't been severed. The medium draining your wolf is still tethered directly to Frost Fang territory."

My first thought was Sera.

No wonder she had been so confident. So that was her plan: use my wolf to complete the seal.

Just as I pieced everything together, the heavy wooden doors of the Moon Hall burst open.

A Silver Moon guard rushed in. "The Arbiters are here. They're demanding to take Evelyn!"

Vera's brow furrowed. She looked at me and said quietly, "You're too weak. Lie down and rest. I'll deal with them."

But the instant she turned toward the door, a crushing wave of dominance swept through the entire hall.

Several figures in black robes strode in. The man at the front fixed his gaze on me like a blade. "Evelyn, you are suspected of unauthorized use of dark magic and harming members of Frost Fang. Come with us!"

"Absurd!" Vera planted herself in front of me, her voice sharp. "She only just arrived here. She hasn't even gotten out of bed! And she is not the one who used that dark magic. This is slander!"

The lead Arbiter held up a bone tablet pulsing with faint, eerie light. "This evidence was extracted from Frost Fang territory. The dark magic residue matches her energy signature perfectly! The proof is irrefutable. Anyone who obstructs us will be charged as an accomplice!"

Facing the Arbiters' absolute authority, I knew that resisting would only drag Silver Moon into this. I stopped Vera and let them haul me out of the Moon Hall by force.

In the dank, frigid cells beneath the Arbiter's keep, there were not even a few hours left before my trial.

The footsteps outside the iron door went still, and a familiar figure stepped out of the shadows.

It was Sera.

She looked at me hanging from the wall in chains, her lips curling into an undisguised smile of triumph. "Evelyn, how does it feel?"

I lifted my gaze and stared at her coldly. "You drained my wolf. And you planted forged evidence to frame me before the Arbiters."

"I did. So what?" Sera laughed softly, her eyes brimming with vicious delight. "I've rigged the Soul Devourer's source so it's bound to your body. No one will believe the word of a banished criminal. They'll only see you as a murderer who used forbidden magic to prey on her own kind!"

The moment the words left her mouth, Sera raised her hand. A blinding sphere of black light gathered at her fingertips, and she slammed it into my chest.

A wet, choking sound tore out of me.

Blood came up out of me, and I felt it clearly: the last trace of my wolf was being devoured by that dark light.

With my wolf gone, all I could do was lie in the cold, damp cell like a hollow shell.

But that night, something I never expected happened. I dreamed of the Moon Goddess.

Her ethereal form hovered over me, her voice resonant and commanding. "Child, you have suffered an injustice. Today, I shall reforge your wolf's foundation and summon a new wolf for you."

A sacred, warm power engulfed me in an instant, purging every trace of the darkness.

The next morning, I was woken by boots kicking the cell door open.

Two guards hauled me roughly to my feet and dragged me toward the trial chamber.

When I was brought into the great hall, I found that the Alphas of every major pack had come — every single one of them.

Caine stood at the center, looking down at me with nothing but disgust and anguish.

"Evelyn, you shameless wretch!" Caine's voice thundered before every Alpha present. "You posed as my mate, tried to seize Frost Fang's secrets, and after I exposed you, you resorted to dark magic out of spite, trying to drain the wolf power of the entire pack!"

To cement the charges, Caine had the Arbiters present a piece of evidence. "This is a Soul Devourer formation disc I dug out from beneath the Moon Altar in Frost Fang. Not only is Evelyn's name carved into it, it's stained with her blood."

He looked at me. "Now, with witnesses and evidence laid before you, what do you have to say?!"

Just as I was about to speak, a Frost Fang pack member came stumbling in.

"Alpha, something's wrong. The seal... the seal has collapsed!"