Chapter 1

Just then, Alexander Gowling arrived, dew still clinging to his black cloak. He had just finished his morning training.

He said, "I told you not to make any mistakes before the heir is officially named. No matter what, Ivy raised him for nine years. She will still be his mother in name and the Luna of the Graystone pack in front of everyone tomorrow."

A chill ran through me when I heard Alexander call me a mother in name.

"I'm just worried about our pup, Alexander." Sophia Crow stepped forward, looping her arm through his, grievance wet in her eyes. "The real Child of Prophecy died the night he was born. If it weren't to secure your position, our Lucas wouldn't have to call another she-wolf his mother."

I stood frozen in place.

Suddenly, I recalled how Alexander used to stroke my pregnant belly, saying we would name the pup Lucas Gowling. He wanted to personally teach him how to hunt and vowed to raise him into the finest wolf of all.

It turned out the pup we had longed for was already long dead.

"I know." Alexander closed his eyes momentarily before continuing, "The moment that pup died, my position as Alpha was at risk. The Council of Elders, branch packs, and federations of the four borders—they were all waiting for the White Wolf royalty's prophecy to come true.

"I had no other choice that night. I had to switch our pup in and claim he was born to Ivy. To keep the lie going, I even had to lace her food with wolfsbane to suppress her bloodline instinct and dull her senses. I did her wrong."

"Don't think about it anymore, sweetheart." Sophia leaned against his chest, her voice soft and coaxing. "I'd like Lucas to wear the ceremonial robe I made for him myself at tomorrow's ceremony. It's the only thing I can do for him as his mother."

Alexander didn't stop her. His silence suffocated me.

At that moment, it suddenly dawned upon me. For the past nine years, the mate bond I had taken pride in and the love I had poured into being a mother were nothing but an absurd joke.

It turned out the mate I had shared a bed with for nine years had known the truth from the very start.

Alexander had coldly watched as I raised the pup of another she-wolf as my own flesh and blood.

All the tenderness he had shown me and all the fatherly devotion to Lucas that others had praised him for should've belonged to that poor pup who died the moment he was born.

I held my breath and waited until the sound of the footsteps of that family of three faded completely into the forest. Only then did I slowly rise from behind the bushes.

The morning sunlight finally broke through the heavy mist over the Graystone pack, stinging my eyes.

My tears had long since dried the moment I learned the truth. In their place was a cold, lethal intent to kill.

Alexander thought he could deceive me. He thought I would remain a blind fool and crown his mistress' pup with my own hands at the ceremony tomorrow.

Alexander was wrong.

I would make him pay in blood.