Chapter 1

My wolf soul hovered directly above the stone table.

The cold, white surgical lights were painful to look at for my wolf soul.

My body was on the table.

After soaking in the Blackwater River for three days, my face was bloated and rotting. Even I felt sick looking at it.

Ethan Earnhart stood in front of the table with a scalpel in hand.

A mask covered half his face, but the eyes above it looked cold. It was as if he was staring at a pile of decaying wolf feces.

Sara stood beside him while covering her nose. Her eyes were filled with tears, and her voice was trembling.

"Ethan, is this really Elina?

"How did she end up like this? It's horrifying."

Ethan didn't pause. He snorted and pressed the tip of the blade against my chest.

"Don't be fooled, Sara.

"Someone as rotten as Elina, what wouldn't she do to get away from a rogue loan shark?

"This body is just a stand-in she found somewhere. A dead rogue. You're the only one naive enough to fall for her lies."

I screamed with my mouth wide open.

"Ethan! Smell her scent! It's me! I'm Elina!

"That's my body! I'm your sister!"

But my voice passed right through him and dissolved into the air that was heavy with herbs. It stirred nothing.

Ethan peeled away my clothes with clear disgust. In doing so, he exposed the bruises covering my body.

Those were the bruises left when the rogues beat me with iron rods while I was still alive.

Every wound reminded me of the terror and pain I experienced right before I died.

But in Ethan's eyes, they were just props in a performance I had supposedly staged.

He pointed at the horrific bruising on my inner thigh and turned to the young healer behind him with a sneer.

"See that? This is Elina's trick.

"She deliberately picked a rogue wolf who was abused long-term and had a filthy private life to impersonate herself.

"She's using these disgusting wounds to hint that she'd been living a terrible life out there, and that she had no choice but to borrow money from loan sharks.

"A cheap pity play to dodge her debts. She sold herself and tried to drag the entire Shadow Pack's name through the mud with her.

"She deserved to die."

The trainee healer clutched her clipboard. She hesitated to speak.

"Alpha, these wounds look like blunt-force trauma, and–"

"Enough."

Ethan cut her off impatiently. His eyes filled with revulsion.

"I know exactly what kind of person Elina is.

"She could sell herself to three old hunters for gambling money. Of course she could find a disgusting corpse like this."

Sara wiped her tears away. Her body swayed slightly.

"How could Elina be so thoughtless? Even if she needed money, she shouldn't have gotten herself into this mess.

"Ethan, don't be too hard on her. Maybe she really had no choice."

Ethan supported Sara with a hurt look on his face. His voice was very gentle.

"Sara, you're too kind. You always see the best in people.

"Back when our parents were killed in a hunter ambush, the Pack was drowning in debt. If you hadn't dropped out to work at a human restaurant so I could finish my management courses, the Shadow Pack would've been done for.

"Meanwhile, Elina, that ungrateful traitor, ran off with the compensation money our parents left behind. All these years, other than begging us for money to pay off her gambling debts, has she ever cared whether the pack lived or died?

"A leech like that doesn't deserve to be your sister. She doesn't even deserve to step foot inside Shadow Pack territory."

My soul felt like it was being torn apart while I watched this scene unfold.

So this was why.

In Ethan's memory, Sara was the one who dropped out to work, and I was the one who stole the money and ran.

However, the truth was that Sara stole the compensation money to buy designer bags. I was the one washing dishes through the night and handing out flyers day after day to scrape together the money that let him rebuild the pack.

Sara took credit for all the nights I stayed awake and all the blood I bled for this family.

Meanwhile, I became a traitor.

Ethan was the only family I had left in this world.

When I sold my blood to pay his tuition, he bought Sara a limited-edition handbag.

When I searched scrapyards for three consecutive days to recover his lost Alpha heirloom ring, he was throwing Sara a birthday party.

Now, I was dead.

I was killed by the very rogues he despised most.

Yet he stood here with a scalpel, ready to cut my chest open and decimate what little dignity I had left.

Ethan, if you realized the body on this table was really me one day, would you lose your mind?