Chapter 3

The crowd burst into applause. Nora looked up toward my private box, holding the moon-sapphire up so the light caught it, throwing me a sweet, victorious smile.

“I don't even know the Alpha of the Shadow Pack, yet he gave me something valuable. What could be his intention?” She said excitedly, her eyes shining with excitement.

Before our father could answer her, Lucian stepped up, not bothering to ask my permission before leaving. “Perhaps he likes you, Lady Nora.”

“Really?” She giggled. “And you, Lucian?”

“I won the bid against Isadora, yet you don't look sad for your mistress. Do you like me as well?” Her words were laced with mockery and pride towards me.

Lucian remained silent, but her muscles tightened. I could feel the answer already forming in his chest.

Of course he liked her. That was why he used his secret identity to help her win the bid despite making a promise to me.

I could not tolerate them flirting before my eyes. So, I turned to Lucian and said, “Since you like her so much. Stay with her. No need to follow me from now on.”

Throwing out these words, I turned to leave. But Nora chased after me. She grabbed my arms and said, feigning innocence, “Sister, I didn't mean to offend you. Please don't be so upset.”

“Don't call me sister!” I shoved her off. She almost fell. Lucian quickly grabbed her waist and helped her stand up.

“Isadora!” He yelled. His voice was still laced with discipline and respect, yet his eyes were ice-cold. “Why do you hate Nora so much?”

“You are asking me why?” I raised my eyebrows, a lump forming in my throat as I said in a hoarse voice, “You just helped her snatch my mother's pendant. She always snatches what's close to my heart, including you!”

“Isadora…” he whispered my name. For a flicker of a second, I felt no coldness in his voice as he seemed to come after me. But then Nora’s voice came from behind.

“Ah… my ankle!” She screamed, “It's been sprained.”

Without a single thought, Lucian turned back and grabbed Nora in his arms. He looked at me, his eyes turning back to ice-cold as he said, “I’ll be taking leave for a day, Lady Isadora.”

He then turned back and left with Nora in his arms. I stared at my bleeding arms. Nora had grabbed my arms so fiercely that her nails had dug in, causing me severe pain. But of course, he would not see that.

The deep crescent gashes left by Nora’s manicured nails burned, but the sting was nothing compared to the absolute clarity settling over my mind.

I didn't bandage the wounds. I let the blood dry, a crimson map of my foolishness.

Two hours past midnight, the sharp, distinct scent of burning silver and scorched ozone drifted through the open archway of my courtyard. It was coming from the secluded rose garden behind the eastern wing—Nora’s territory.

I walked toward the smoke, my slippers making no sound on the cobblestones.

Nora sat on a stone bench near the central fountain, a small, portable forge glowing with harsh orange heat beside her. In her right hand, she held heavy iron pliers. Clamped between the teeth of the tool was my mother’s moon-sapphire pendant.

She was dangling it directly over the white-hot coals.

"It really is a fragile thing," Nora mused aloud, her voice dripping with lazy satisfaction. "Just like your dead mother. A little heat, and the metal begins to melt away."

"Nora."

She didn't flinch. She simply turned her head, offering me a sly, triumphant smile in the firelight. "Oh, Isadora. Did I wake you? I was just testing the metal. They said it was made of pure platinum, but it seems so soft..."

With a deliberate flick of her wrist, she opened the pliers.

The pendant dropped into the heart of the coals. The metal filigree sizzled, blackening instantly as the Sapphire cracked into three dull, lifeless pieces.

Years of suppressed rage, of watching my mother wither away while this bastard child ate off our gold plate, exploded in my chest. My wolf, dormant and freezing, roared to life with terrifying force.

Before Nora could even pull her hand back, I closed the distance between us.

I grabbed her by the throat, slamming her backward onto the stone bench with enough force to crack the masonry. The forge overturned, spilling red-hot embers across the grass.

"Ah—! Isadora, let go—!" Nora choked out, her hands clawing wildly at my wrists.

"You take her place, you take my father's love, you take the jewels off her corpse," I hissed, my voice vibrating with an Alpha's bloodline command that forced her eyes to widen in genuine terror. "And now you burn the last piece of her?"

I didn't use a weapon. I pulled her up by her collar and delivered a hard, brutal backhand across her jaw.

I raised my hand to strike her again.

"GET OFF HER!"

A terrifying, suffocating pressure slammed into my back like a battering ram. I hit the ground hard, my elbows scraping against the gravel, reopening the claw marks Nora had left on my arm earlier tonight.

Lucian stood over Nora, his massive frame trembling with suppressed rage. His eyes burned a lethal, obsidian black, his wolf dangerously close to the surface. He dropped to one knee, wrapping a protective arm around Nora’s shaking shoulders as she dissolved into loud, hysterical sobs.

"Lucian... she tried to kill me!" Nora wailed, burying her face into his chest. She followed me here... she attacked me because of the pendant! I was just trying to clean it for her... to give it back..."

Lucian’s jaw worked, a muscle jumping violently in his cheek. Then, his eyes locked onto mine.

"Why do you hate her so much, Isadora?" Lucian spat, his voice dropping into a low, murderous growl.