Chapter 1

"Freya, this acquisition deal is incredibly important to our pack, so I'll leave it in your hands. You have to finish the risk assessment by tonight, okay?"

Irina Porter dumped a thick stack of documents on my table with a smile.

She had actually received these documents earlier this morning, but it was already nine at night now.

"Got it." I calmly pulled the documents closer.

Clearly not expecting that I would agree so easily, Irina blinked in surprise. In the next second, though, the smile on her face widened.

"Eric and I have to meet with the Alliance's ambassador tonight, so it's likely that we'll be coming back late. Once you're done with them, leave them in his office."

She had barely taken two steps when she stopped and turned back.

"Oh, right! The Moon Goddess statue on his desk is dusty. Give it a wipe when you're in there later."

With that, she left, the high heels of her boots clicking loudly against the marble floor.

Silence descended upon the office.

Several pack members eyed me with distinctly uncomfortable looks on their faces.

Everyone knew that I was Eric's Luna, while Irina was just his secretary. However, the way she gave out orders in the Frostclaw pack was as though she were Eric's mate and the pack's Luna, not me.

Six months ago, Eric had rescued Irina from a group of rogues who had attacked her, after which he brought her back to the pack for treatment.

In the short span of three months, she had gone from a new member of the pack to the Beta.

And now, she had set her sights on the authority I held.

Previously, in a bid to prove to the Council of Elders that I had what it took to be the pack's Luna, I had spent over a year learning everything I could about our territory—the resources we had, the trade situation, and the relationships between the various packs.

Because of that, I successfully managed to establish trade relations with those other packs. However, on the eve of signing the trade agreements, Eric announced that Irina would be taking over from then on. She would be following up with the proceedings, and she would be the one signing the agreements as well.

All seven of the Elders were against this decision, with only Eric himself voting for yes.

However, when the results of the voting came out, not only did Eric not reconsider his decision, but he even accused me of "instigating the Elders to ostracize a packmate due to personal feelings".

"Didn't you bring everyone over to your side because you were afraid that someone would compete with you?"

Hence, he curtailed my authority and kicked all those Elders who were against Irina out of the core governing council, replacing them with new people.

From then on, nobody dared to challenge his decisions again.

After the meeting, Eric came home and tried to "explain" to me.

"You're my Luna, so it's only natural that everyone would stand on your side. However, Irina doesn't have that foundation, and there's no one to speak up for her. As the Alpha, I'm just giving her a fair chance."

Staring into his earnest ash-blue eyes, I chose to believe in him.

Yet, what happened next was that within the first week of Irina taking over, she wanted to slash the contractually agreed payments to the other packs by half. This decision almost caused war to break out between the Frostclaw pack and the surrounding packs.

I spent several days and nights running on no sleep, negotiating back and forth, and finally managed to save the partnerships.

Despite that, Irina retained her position as Beta and received no punishment at all.

Apparently, to Eric, being fair was to allow Irina to get all the credit while I picked up the mess she left behind.

Back in the present, the sound of footsteps rang out in the corridor.

Upon raising my head, I spotted Eric exiting his office.

He was dressed in a black trench coat, a wolf-fang pendant hanging around his neck—a gift from Irina.

Once, I had also given him a pendant with the Frostclaw pack's sigil carved on it. He had barely worn it for three days before he took it off, complaining that it felt like he was being choked.

However, he had been wearing this pendant from Irina for three whole weeks by now.

Eric halted in his tracks as he passed by my desk, his gaze landing on the documents piled high on it.

He didn't ask why I still had so much work to do despite having my authority reduced. All he did was turn away to glance at the clock before he headed straight for the exit.

Several minutes later, Irina stepped out of a side corridor.

She had touched up her makeup and changed into a tight black dress. Her steps were light as she strutted over to my desk.

"Don't overwork yourself, Freya."

Eric, who was waiting for her by the exit, didn't even glance at me again.

He was well aware of what he was doing.

Everything had started three months ago, when I had accidentally discovered that he had saved Irina's house address in the "Frequently Visited" tab of his GPS system.

Out of 30 days in the month, he had been there 17 times.