Chapter 7

Luckily, I managed to save myself.

Alone back in my hut, I saw dozens of fake messages of concern from Lyra through our mental link. It just made me sick.

I replied with the shortest possible message: "I'm fine, don't worry."

Then, without hesitation, I unilaterally cut off all mental links with her.

From now on, we were done.

As for Damien...

I instinctively tried to sense the faint mental connection between us, the one from our fated bond.

Dead silence.

Not a single message of greeting, not a single thought of concern had come through.

It seemed he really, as he’d said, didn't care if I lived or died.

For the next full week, Damien didn't show up.

I didn't ask where he went or who he was with.

None of it mattered anymore.

I just quietly performed the final ritual to sever the fated bond.

The Moonstone, having absorbed my heart's blood and Damien's "agreement to separate" energy, was placed in the center of my hut, within an ancient ritual circle drawn with moon-grass and stardust.

I sat cross-legged, channeling all my remaining lunar energy, chanting over and over the forbidden spell from the ancient wolf chronicles to break a fated bond.

Every chant felt like a sharp blade cutting into my soul.

The pain, bone-deep, almost made me pass out.

But I gritted my teeth and endured.

Because I knew, only then could I completely escape this fate.

Occasionally, during breaks in the ritual, I'd subconsciously see Lyra and Damien's sweet interactions through the pack's internal wind-whisper stones.

Like Damien peeling a whole plate of her favorite flame shrimp for her.

Like Damien grooming Lyra's soft fur under the moonlight, like a true mate.

Like Lyra drawing two cuddling wolf cubs in the snow with her claws, carving her and Damien's names beside them...

My heart was already a still lake, no ripples disturbed its surface.

Days passed.

The Moonstone in the ritual circle, continuously absorbing my lunar energy and my will to separate, grew dimmer and dimmer, the cracks more numerous and deeper.

Finally, when I had almost exhausted the last of my lunar energy, the pack's wise woman contacted me through a mental link.

"Miss Selena, today is the last day before your fated bond with Alpha Damien breaks. According to ancient wolf law and the intentions both of you previously infused into the Moonstone, as long as you cast this Moonstone into the Blood Moon Pack's 'Abyss of Severed Fates' before moonrise tonight, the fated bond between you will be completely broken. Are you ready?"

I had waited too long for this day.

I immediately got up, picked up the nearly shattered Moonstone, and walked towards the pack's forbidden land—the Abyss of Severed Fates.

Returning from the forbidden land, I felt incredibly weak, yet an unprecedented lightness filled me.

Just as I was about to pack my last few belongings and leave this heartbreaking place for good, I unexpectedly received an urgent mental message from one of Damien's subordinates.

"Selena... uh, Miss Selena! The Alpha... the Alpha got drunk at the feast celebrating the successful hunt of a thousand-year-old Shadow Demon Wolf! He's very unstable right now. Would you be able to bring him back to the Alpha's cave?"

I asked for the location of the feast, hesitated for a moment, but eventually went.

Not because I still harbored any illusions about him, but because I didn't want him to become a laughingstock among other pack members while drunk and disorderly.

Reaching the entrance of the huge cave where the leaders gathered, I was about to lift the heavy curtain and go in when I heard Damien's drunken voice.

"Those few days hunting with Lyra in the Moon-shadow Valley... were the happiest time since I became Alpha... no, the happiest time of my entire life. Only she was by my side. We didn't have to care about those damn laws; we could express our desire and love for each other freely. I wish time could have frozen at that moment... Lyra could have been mine alone, forever..."

The bone-deep pain in his voice made the other Beta wolves in the cave, who were usually close to him, look uncomfortable.

"Alpha, please don't talk such drunken nonsense. Miss Selena might be here soon. She'd be heartbroken if she heard you say that. She loves you so much, she even cut ties with her own pack to stay with our Blood Moon Pack for you... She only has you now, you can't let her down," a young Beta wolf said, mustering his courage.

"Yeah, Alpha! Miss Selena even gave up the precious opportunity to awaken stronger lunar energy at the Moon Goddess's temple just to be with you! All these years, whenever you returned late from a hunt, she'd light a moonstone at the cave entrance waiting for you; when you were injured in battles with rival packs, she stayed up day and night, using her pure lunar energy to heal you, guarding you for a whole month; when you were patrolling the territory and accidentally ate poisonous berries, writhing in pain, she found out and immediately, regardless of the danger, crossed the entire forest to find an antidote for you..." another older Beta wolf couldn't help adding.

"We know you've only ever had Miss Lyra in your heart. But... but you and Miss Lyra, after all, aren't the mates originally designated by the Moon Goddess. Miss Selena, she's the mate the Moon Goddess gave you, the one who should truly belong to you. You'll regret hurting her!"

Hearing their advice, Damien chuckled self-deprecatingly.

"Regret? I've only ever regretted one thing in my life."

"Three years ago, I shouldn't have, in a moment of weakness, accepted this damn fated bond!"

"If, back then, I hadn't bonded with Selena... then, would Lyra and I still have had a chance to be together?"