Chapter 4

In the memory, I didn't hesitate for even a second.

"I accept."

"You agree so easily! But what if I told you the antidote only works if someone else feeds it to him? Will you still agree?"

The witch leaned closer and warned in a voice dripping with malice, "You'll save his life, yet he'll never know it was you. He'll thank the one who hands him the antidote instead.

"Even so, will you still make the trade?"

When I lifted my head, there wasn't a trace of hesitation in my eyes. "As long as he lives, I'll do it. It doesn't matter who gets the credit."

A wave of shocked gasps rippled through the wolves in the square. To trade a lifetime of health for another's life without even seeking recognition was an act of madness they couldn't comprehend.

Lorcan's body went entirely rigid. He kept his eyes locked on the screen, and his breath hitched in his throat.

After he was poisoned, he remembered waking up to find Sienna by his side, day and night. She had come to him in tears, carrying a bowl of antidote with a strange fragrance.

After drinking it, he had miraculously recovered.

When he asked where it came from, she told him, through her sobs, that she'd risked her life in Black Marsh while he was unconscious. She claimed she'd traded three years of her own lifespan to the witch for the cure.

He'd believed her, and from that moment on, he was convinced Sienna was his fated Luna. He showered her with affection, placed her on a pedestal, and gave her every honor the pack could offer.

As for me, the mate he'd once vowed to mark, he'd slowly grown distant. He resented me for disappearing and not showing concern during the time he'd been poisoned.

After his health returned, mine suddenly failed. I became frail and constantly ill and struggled with even the simplest shifts. To him, I'd turned into a burden unworthy of standing beside an Alpha.

He started loathing me, scolding me, and even calling me cowardly and lazy.

Now, the memory crystal told him the truth that he was the reason for what I'd become today. I'd traded my healthy body for his life.

In the memory, the witch handed me a bottle filled with a deep purple antidote. "Drink it. Once you do, the deal is sealed."

Without hesitation, I threw my head back and drank it all in one gulp.

Agony immediately racked my body. I collapsed to the ground, convulsing violently as the strength in me was siphoned away.

My wolf shrieked and cried in confusion as if it could barely understand what I'd done.

Biting back the pain, I took the antidote from the witch.

The vision shifted again.

I dragged my broken body toward Sienna's tent. After placing the antidote at her doorstep, I hid in the darkness and watched until she found the bottle and took it inside with a gasp of delight. Only then did I turn and drag my weathered body away.

In the square, Lorcan grew so livid that his eyes turned bloodshot. He violently shoved Sienna away from him.

"Y-You lied to me!"

She fell to the ground and wailed, "No! Lorcan! It's not true!

"She's framing me! These memories are fake!"

But the memory crystal was a creation of the Moon Goddess. Nothing could ever go wrong.

Lorcan looked up at me on the execution platform. My skin was now paler than before, and my life force could slip away at any moment.

Now, he finally understood why my health had kept deteriorating. All this time, I'd been bearing the weight of the curse for him.

"Ah!"

He threw his head back and howled in anguish.

When he tried to rush toward the execution platform and stop the punishment, the elders held him back.

"Alpha Lorcan, the trial cannot be stopped once it begins, unless every memory is shown, or the condemned dies!"

…

The memory crystal flared with a blinding light for the third time. This time, it fixed on Maverick among the crowd.

Colors immediately drained from his face.