Chapter 1

Faye's POV:

I went to the pawnshop in town and set the silver pendant Sebastian had given me five years ago down on the counter.

Werewolves had an instinctive aversion to silver. When he first gave it to me, he had wrapped it in layers of black velvet before placing it in my hands. He'd said it was his mother's keepsake and told me to take good care of it.

Now, it had been exchanged for seven crisp hundred-dollar bills. That would be enough to buy me a Silverhound Lines ticket to the West Coast and start a new life in some quiet seaside town where no one knew me.

As I pushed open the pawnshop door, I ran into Mrs. Higgins coming out of the convenience store by the gas station at the edge of town.

She carried a bag of household supplies and smiled the moment she saw me, her tone teasing. "I heard the Silverfang Pack's territory is as luxurious as some grand estate. You'll be moving there with Sebastian soon, won't you? So, why are you at the pawnshop?"

The Sebastian she spoke of was my husband, one of the most formidable Alpha werewolves in all of North Arcton.

…

Three days ago, the ancient bloodline within him had fully awakened. A convoy from the Silverfang Pack had rolled into town in a grand procession, coming to welcome their Alpha home.

Sebastian had publicly announced that he would be taking two people back to the territory with him. However, he needed to settle the last of his affairs in the human world before he departed.

Everyone assumed those two people would be me and our son, Leo. Alas, that wasn't the case. In both my past life and this one, he had never intended to take me with him.

I smiled faintly, my tone as casual as if we were talking about the weather. "Sebastian is a powerful werewolf, but I can't even shift. This money isn't for some werewolf estate. It's my fare out of here."

Mrs. Higgins opened her mouth as if to say something more, but I had already turned away from her to head down the muddy road toward home.

Before I even reached the front yard, I heard laughter spilling out from inside.

Leo was practicing how to control the wolf claws that had just awakened within him in the middle of the lawn.

His tiny hands struggled to shift between human skin and sharp talons. Every so often, he would call out, "Papa, I can't control it!"

"Take a deep breath. Feel the call of the wild inside you. You're a born Alpha."

The man he called Papa spoke in a low, magnetic voice.

He wore a simple black T-shirt, the lines of his muscles clearly defined. Even before his awakening, he had carried an overwhelming presence. Now that his bloodline was fully awakened, there was an aura about him that could make ordinary people's knees buckle in fear.

That was my husband, Sebastian.

Five years ago, he had wandered into this remote town in Oceira. We met in the forest under the moonlight. He had been gravely injured, covered in blood, collapsed in a bed of pine needles.

I had followed the heavy metallic scent to find him, pressing my shirt against the torn wound in his abdomen as blood continued to pour out.

At that moment, the wolf within him had recognized me, but not with its eyes. It felt like wandering alone in the dark for hundreds of years, only to suddenly hear another heartbeat.

He had marked me right then.

After he recovered, he never revealed his identity as a werewolf. Instead, he put on an old flannel shirt like any ordinary lumberjack, knocked on my door, and asked if I could spare him a glass of water.

Only later did I learn that he was the sole heir to the most powerful pack in all of North Arcton.

He hadn't taken me by force as an Alpha. Instead, he pursued me as a human man.

He courted me, proposed to me, and swore he wanted to give me everything I deserved.

At the time, I believed him.