Chapter 4

The patrol team soon expanded the search area to the outskirts of the territory.

Three days later, a patrol warrior stumbled into Chad's residence. "Mr. Senna! We discovered female remains downstream of a river on the edge of the territory."

The warrior's face was as pale as a sheet, and his voice trembled in his throat. "The body parts were cut very finely, but we found something special on them."

When Chad arrived at the scene where the body was found, his legs could hardly support his body.

Several white cloths were laid on the stone platform, stained with blackish blood.

He stood there, hesitating to walk over.

The warriors exchanged uneasy glances.

Finally, one of the werewolves lifted the white cloths.

The body parts had been dismembered and thrown into the river. They had swelled, turned white from being soaked for so long, and emitted a foul stench of decay. They were scattered there. They would never be able to be pieced together as they once were.

The coroner's voice was strained. "The dismembered body parts have been soaked for too long and cannot be identified by smell, but we found a tattoo on the inside of the left wrist."

My soul floated beside Chad, watching him approach step by step.

I knew what it was. It was the tattoo I had painstakingly pierced with a needle the day I awakened my inner wolf as an adult.

It was Timothy's initials.

Back then, I thought it was proof of love. Now, it seemed like nothing more than me being silly and sentimental.

"The tattoo is faded and a little blurry from the skin being soaked in water for so long, but the outline is still discernible." The coroner carefully turned the wrist over.

Timothy's initials were right there.

Chad's body swayed violently. He was the only one who knew this secret.

One year at the full moon festival, I got drunk. I hugged him and cried, rolling up my sleeve to show him the tattoo. "Chad, look! I tattooed his name here. Does that mean we'll never be apart?"

He called me stupid, saying he would find a chemical solution to remove it.

I clutched my wrist, shaking my head desperately and saying I wanted to protect my secret. No one was allowed to touch it. Now, this secret had become the only evidence he could use to identify me within this pile of rotten flesh.

The coroner cautiously broke the silence. "Mr. Senna, do you recognize this tattoo?"

Chad opened his mouth but could not utter a single word. He reached out to touch the severed wrist, but his fingertips trembled uncontrollably in mid-air, unable to close the distance.

Meanwhile, Timothy was lying on the bed receiving treatment in the treatment room. Without warning, the blood-patterned markings on his tongue exuded a blinding red glow.

Extreme suffocation instantly overwhelmed him. Ignoring the pain in his chest, he sprang from the bed, clutched his neck with both hands, and let out a terrifying scream.

The icy chill of the river and the stench of the mud frantically rushed into his mouth and nose. He felt as if he were drowning.

"He can't breathe! Get him on the ventilator!"

The healer panicked, while Rochell screamed as she rushed over. "Timothy, what's come over you?"

Timothy could not hear anything. His mind went blank as his consciousness rapidly plummeted into an abyss.

In that abyss, he saw the murky, icy river water, the light receding into the distance, and endless, chilling darkness...

That was how I felt when I was dismembered and thrown to the bottom of the river.

Now, Timothy felt it all too.

"Leah..." He mustered his last ounce of strength to wheeze out my name.

At the scene of the body recovery on the riverbank, the coroner's face contorted with reluctance as he whispered again, "Mr. Senna, is this tattoo... Leah's?"

Chad uttered dryly, "Yes."

After saying that, his back slumped limply as if all the blood had been drained from his body.

Thus, the future Luna who had gone missing, Leah Senna, was officially declared dead.

When the news reached home, Timothy had just been pulled back from the brink of death with a healing spell.

Chad pushed aside the guards in the treatment room and strode to the bedside. He did not yell or hit him. He simply stood there, looking condescendingly at Timothy with a chilling calm, and uttered, "Timothy, Leah is dead."