Chapter 3 This Time, I Choose Myself

KATNISS

The future had already happened once. This time, I intended to rewrite it.

“Katniss, you cannot be serious!” Elara’s voice cracked with absolute panic as she stared at the crumpled invitation resting in the trash. “You’re talking about humiliating the most powerful allied pack in the territory. You can't just change your mind because of a bad feeling!”

“It isn’t a feeling, Elara. It’s a fact,” I said, my voice eerily calm as I walked over to my wardrobe.

To test my reality—to prove to my own fractured sanity that I truly held the blueprint of the future—I needed to see if the timeline was shifting. In my past life, my younger sister Mira had burst through my doors at exactly 9:15 AM, crying because she had spilled red wine all over her bridesmaid dress.

I checked the clock. 9:14 AM.

Three. Two. One.

The door burst open. Mira stood there, tears streaming down her flushed cheeks, clutching the silk of her ruined gown. “Katniss! Oh my god, I’m so sorry! The servant bumped into me and—and the wine went everywhere! I’ve ruined everything!”

Elara gasped, looking from Mira to me with wide, terrified eyes. I merely offered my sister a reassuring, knowing smile, the final shred of doubt evaporating from my mind. I was truly reborn.

“Take a breath, Mira,” I said softly, walking over to pat her shoulder. “Go to the third closet in the west wing. There is a spare silver dress that fits you perfectly. Tell the head maid I sent you.”

“R-really?” Mira sniffled, wiping her eyes. “You aren't mad?”

“Never. Go on,” I urged.

The moment she closed the door, Elara stepped into my space, her breath hitching. “How the fuck did you know that was going to happen? You didn't even look out the window.”

“Because I’ve lived this day before, Elara,” I said, turning to face her with a gaze so heavy with managed trauma that she actually took a step back. “And if I don't act now, everyone we love dies. I am going to the study to end this farce.”

Ten minutes later, I slammed the heavy oak doors of my father’s private study open.

Alpha Cedric Ashbourne was seated behind his massive mahogany desk, reviewing territorial maps with Orion Vale, our pack's sharpest legal advisor and strategist. Both men looked up in shock at my sudden, unannounced entrance.

“Katniss?” My father frowned, his deep voice rumbling with natural Alpha dominance. “What is the meaning of this? You should be finalizing your preparations. The Ravenscar convoy is already approaching our outer checkpoints.”

“Call them off, Father,” I demanded, walking straight up to the desk and slamming my palms down onto the wood. “Call off the convoy. Cancel the banquet. The wedding is officially over.”

The silence that followed was suffocating. Orion dropped his pen, his eyes darting between me and my father.

“Have you lost your goddamn mind?” Cedric roared, standing up so fast his leather chair threw itself backward. His dominant Alpha aura flared, heavy and suffocating, filling the room with the scent of angry ozone. “This alliance has been negotiated for a year! The Ravenscar pack provides the military shield we need against the western border threats. You signed the preliminary contract!”

“The contract is a death sentence!” I shot back, meeting his oppressive aura head-on without lowering my chin by a single millimeter. My silver-gray eyes flashed violently, my own inner wolf snapping awake to protect me. “Damien Ravenscar doesn’t want an alliance, Father. He wants a hostile takeover. The moment our enforcers integrate with his, he will isolate our packs and strip the Ashbourne name of all its power.”

“This is hysterical nonsense!” Cedric barked, his face flushing a dangerous shade of crimson. “Damien is an honorable Alpha! He rejected his own fated mate to secure this political union with you! Do you know the kind of sacrifice that takes in our society?”

“He didn't reject her, you blind fool! He’s hiding her!” I yelled, the raw, agonizing betrayal from my past life bleeding into my voice. Tears of fury burned my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. “He kept Selene Nightvale in the shadows. They are playing us. The moment the territory deeds are fully transferred, I am disposable. He will murder me, and he will take her as his true Luna!”

“Katniss, enough!” Cedric slammed his fist onto the desk, cracking the wood. “You have no proof of these wild accusations! I will not allow you to plunge our people into a political bloodbath because of pre-wedding paranoia.”

Orion cleared his throat softly, stepping forward to intervene before the family conflict turned physical. “Alpha Cedric, if I may… Lady Katniss’s sudden conviction is deeply unusual. But she is correct about one thing from a strategic standpoint. If we break this contract without a massive, viable alternative, the political vacuum will destroy us.”

I clenched my fists, my mind racing. Orion was right. The pack politics of this world were brutal. If I stripped Damien of his prize, his bruised ego would demand blood. He would align with our fiercest rivals, the Dreadmoor pack, and tear the Ashbourne territory apart from the outside. I needed a shield. A terrifying, untouchable shield.

“Orion is right,” I admitted, forcing my breathing to steady as I looked at our strategist. “I know the risks. If I drop Ravenscar, we become prey. So tell me, Orion… who can we turn to? Who has the power to make Damien think twice before launching a retaliatory war?”

Orion let out a grim, humorless sigh, adjusting his glasses as he looked down at the sprawling territory maps. He traced his finger away from the Ravenscar borders, moving it completely across the map to a massive, dark territory that everyone in the modern supernatural world feared to cross.

“To survive the political fallout of rejecting an Alpha Council-approved union, we would need someone who operates completely outside their rules,” Orion murmured, his voice dropping into a tense whisper. “There is only one Alpha powerful enough to stop him.”

“Name him,” I commanded, my heart hammering against my ribs.

“Alpha Hassan Blackthorn,” Orion stated.

The name sent a chilling shiver through the room. Hassan Blackthorn was a legend—ruthless, completely disciplined, and the commander of the most feared military force in the werewolf world. He dressed in tailored black suits, ruled his empire with cold logic, and had zero interest in love or political marriages.

“Blackthorn?” Cedric scoffed, throwing his hands up in despair. “He’s a goddamn monster! He hates the Ravenscar pack, yes, but he would never agree to a sudden alliance with us. He doesn't take sides in Council disputes.”

“Then I will make him take a side,” I said, a ruthless, desperate spark igniting in my chest. “I will offer him something he can't refuse.”

Before my father could roar another objection, the heavy double doors of the study suddenly clicked. The dense, suffocating aura of my father’s dominance was instantly obliterated, completely crushed by an incoming wave of raw, paralyzing, and lethal power.

The air grew freezing cold. The scent of dark cedarwood and ozone flooded my senses.

The doors swung open.

Standing in the threshold was a tall, incredibly broad figure. He wore a perfectly tailored black suit that accentuated his powerful, muscular build.

His sharp jawline was set in a hard, unreadable expression, and his dark, piercing gray eyes scanned the room, locking instantly onto mine.