Chapter 4

I had barely been laid on the purification altar inside the temple when someone kicked the heavy stone door open.

My mother burst in, eyes wide with fury and suspicion. She grabbed at the antidote needles and herbal infusion tubes the healers had inserted, trying to rip them out.

"Have you all lost your minds?! How dare you deceive your Luna?!" she shrieked, her voice echoing off the stone walls.

"It's just a little watered-down wolfsbane! 1,000 gold coins for ordinary antidote herbs like these?!"

Leo went white. His hands were shaking badly as he tried to pull her away. "Mother, that's enough! Let the healers save her! The money doesn't matter. Evelyn is dying!"

"You don't understand anything!" My mother shoved him away hard.

Leo slammed into a stone shelf full of medicine. Jars of herbs and vials crashed to the floor and shattered, scattering everywhere.

"I'm making sure we don't get taken for fools! Have you forgotten how those black-market dealers swindled people with cheap herbs last year?! These healers take weeds growing by the roadside, add a few simple magic circles, and trick the pack into paying a fortune!"

She gripped the edge of the stone slab, her eyes sharp and calculating.

"They want 1,000 gold coins from me for this junk? I'm going to check it myself! I'll go through those herbs one by one! If they aren't worth the price, they're not using them!"

Two young healers, frantic and close to tears, blocked the passage to the dispensary.

"She never awakened her wolf, so her body is too weak to withstand this! The poison is already attacking her heart! If you delay her treatment by even three minutes to inspect the herbs, we won't be able to save her!"

"Get out of my way!" my mother shrieked, unleashing her Luna aura at full force. "I'm her mother, and I'm the pack's Luna! You think you can rip me off right under my nose? Dream on!"

The whole altar room erupted into chaos. A few seconds later, my father burst in. He had only just been cleared at the checkpoint and had raced after us. When he saw that my mother was still insisting on checking the herbs, his self-control snapped.

His eyes burned blood-red, and his low roar echoed through the domed chamber. "Diana! If you delay her treatment one second longer to check the price of those damn herbs, I'll go straight to the Elder Council and have our mate bond broken, whether you agree or not. From this day on, you won't get to see either of our children, not even once. Never!"

The threat of breaking their bond hit her like a devastating blow. My mother froze, the color draining from her face as panic flashed in her eyes.

But even so, she wouldn't admit she was wrong. She stuck her chin up in the air.

"Fine! What are you yelling for?! I'll go with the healer right now and watch them mix the medicine myself! If I catch them misusing even one herb, I'm not paying a single coin!"

With that, she seized one of the healers by the collar and dragged them toward the dispensary.

My father and Leo panicked. They ran after her like madmen, trying to stop her.

Their furious shouting faded down the stone corridor until the altar room fell deathly silent. The only sound left was the faint, useless hum of the ritual circle.

Only a few young healers remained with me. They'd been shoved to the floor and were still sitting there, stunned.

The wolfsbane had eaten all the way into my heart. My eyelids felt heavy as lead, and the last of the warmth left my body.

My heart stopped. But at that very moment, I thought I heard a wolf's long howl deep inside me, echoing from the ancient past.

One of the healers took half a step back and glanced at the hourglass on the wall.

"Time of death: three minutes past moonrise."

...

When my vision cleared again, I was no longer on that cold stone slab.

I floated weightlessly beside the glowing circle on the domed ceiling, looking down at my young body on the slab below. It had already gone cold.

The heavy stone door was flung open again.

My mother came in first, waving several pages of the bill for the herbs. She wore the cold, smug smile of someone who had just exposed a massive scam.

"See?!" She laughed and waved the bill in the air like a trophy. "I told you they were ripping us off! Those herbs were only four years and nine months old, and they had the nerve to charge us for five-year-old herbs! I went over everything carefully and knocked a full 1,000 gold coins off the bill!"

My father stumbled in right behind her. When he saw the cloth covering my head, he let out a cry like a dying animal and lunged forward.

"Diana... look what you've done!" My father grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her wildly. His voice was hoarse and barely recognizable.

"Evelyn is dead! You wasted 12 minutes questioning that healer just to save 1,000 gold coins and prove no one was trying to cheat you! Those 12 minutes killed our daughter!"

My mother rolled her eyes, pulled his hands away impatiently, and let out a cold, mocking laugh. "Oh, please. Spare me the melodrama. You're all so clueless, you don't even realize when you're being swindled! Didn't Leo get ripped off at the black market two years ago because he didn't know the value of what he was buying? You people never learn!"

She crossed her arms, lifted her chin, and huffed in scorn. "I checked those herbs today to teach you both a lesson! Remember this: no matter what's happening, you keep a cool head. Never let outsiders manipulate you or con you out of your money! Maybe now the two of you will finally learn something!"

She couldn't even be bothered to glance at my body on the slab. She spun around in her leather boots and adjusted her sleeves with her nose in the air.

From beside the dome, I watched her smug, self-righteous face. The heartache I'd carried for so long was gone.

Behind me, the shadow of a huge black wolf quietly took shape. It was the same wolf that had just appeared deep in my soul. Its enormous crimson eyes fixed coldly on the selfish woman below as I stared down at her.

I gave a small, calm smile.

Go ahead, Mother. Keep teaching your lesson.

I said it only in my mind.