The Man of Shade Manor

(Evelyn’s POV)

“Sorry... If you use your healing ability one more time, I will have to leave you,” my wolf Ariella whispers weakly in my mind.

My heart shattered into a million pieces. I sobbed and pleaded with her, "Please, Ariella, don't."

To treat my husband's fated mate, my wolf has been drained of the last drop of our shared healing ability. She is too weak and can no longer stay with me.

But my husband's voice in mindlink is sharp, impatient, “Hurry up, she needs treatment!”

...She, Emma.

His fated mate. His true love. While I'm just his second chance, and a wife he doesn't like.

Always ignored, always used.

I am a werewolf blessed by the goddess, with unique healing abilities. I can heal many ailments at once. This is why we have such a strange entanglement. I don't mind being his second chance, marrying him with all the passion and love I had. I always believed I could win his heart, until I saw that woman.

I heave open the door to Emma's bedroom. Logan sits on the edge of Emma’s bed, his broad shoulders curved protectively as he holds Emma's hand.

Logan's dark hair falls across his forehead. Those emerable eyes—usually so cold when looking at me—now so soft with concern. He's wearing the same clothes from this morning's pack meeting—he dropped everything when she called.

The mansion is quiet tonight except for the distant sound of rain tapping against windows, the polished wooden floors gleaming under the soft chandelier light.

The space is lavish—silk sheets, plush pillows, expensive furnishings—a room designed for the true Luna, not the substitute standing in her doorway.

Emma lies against silk pillows, her golden hair artfully arranged around her face. Even “sick,” she looks beautiful. Her eyes, the color of quartz crystal, find mine; a flash of triumph in them before she puts on a pained expression once more.

The servants all focused on her, as if she were the future lady of the pack. And despite being Alpha Logan's wife, not a single pair of eyes cared about me.

Not even his.

I stand at the foot of her bed, assessing Emma's condition with trained eyes. The wolfbane fever should have responded to my first treatment days ago. There's no medical reason for her continued symptoms, no explanation except the obvious one that no one will acknowledge.

“There you are,” Logan says, not bothering to look at me fully. “She's getting worse. Treat her now.”

There's no warmth in it, no concern for me—only urgency for her.

“Logan,” I say quietly, “I've already treated her three times this week. It drained me.”

The room feels suddenly colder as his attention shifts fully to me.

The weight of his gaze is heavy, expectant.

Outside, the rain intensifies, drumming against the windows like impatient fingers.

The truth is evident in my pale skin. Dark circles have formed under my eyes, and my normally vibrant hair has dulled now to a lifeless brown.

Each healing session with Emma takes more than the last, as if she's become a bottomless well that consumes my power without end.

Once, my wolf Ariella was strong and fierce, a constant companion. Now she's barely a whisper, a fading echo of what we once were together.

Logan's jaw tightens. “You've never complained before.”

“I'm not complaining. I'm stating a fact. I'm exhausted. I can't continue like this.”

Emma lets out a soft whimper, drawing his attention back to her immediately. She clutches her chest dramatically, her eyes fluttering. “The pain... It's getting worse, Logan.”

His response is immediate, his hand tightening around hers.

The intimacy between them slices through me, sharper than any knife. He reaches for the drawer in the nightstand without looking away from her face. From it, he produces a checkbook and pen.

The scratching of his pen against paper fills the silence as he writes a check for one million dollars. He tears it from the book and holds it out to me, not meeting my eyes.

“Heal her first.”

The check hangs between us, a symbolic representation of our marriage.

A transaction.

A business arrangement.

He is my mate, and the one who saved my life.

Over ten years ago, he saved me when I was kidnapped by rogues; more than a decade later, I recognized him in the same place, which had been attacked by rogues again. The emerald eyes I recognized immediately. I fell in love with him.

The moment our eyes met across that chaotic battlefield, recognition flared between us—the mate bond awakening after years of dormancy.

Since then, I have been devoted to him. I've poured my very life, drained my wolf's strength to heal a woman who means nothing to me—

I abandoned my family and came to his pack.

Every ounce of it, merely to touch his heart.

My fingers tremble slightly as I look at the check, but I make no move to take it.

For the past three years, every time I treated her, he left me a check, but not a word.

He doesn't care about me, just as I have no position in this house. I am nothing more than a rogue who married in.

Logan made sure of that when he brought me here.

Emma's eyes narrow at my hesitation. She lets out another dramatic cough, clutching her chest with delicate fingers. “Is it because we're first mates that you won't treat me?Are you that petty?”

The words hover in the air like poison.

She's lying in there bed, pretending to be sick and at the mercy of my healing hand.

She should have been healed when I treated her the first time, but she keeps making me treat her endlessly.

Wolfbane fever isn't a serious illness—it's simply poisoning from accidental toxin ingestion.

But over these years, she has drained my energy. Healing ability isn't unlimited, and every time, I've had to give it my all.

I have always been suspicious that she's deliberately playing the victim in front of him. She coughs hard, clutching her chest, but wolfbane fever doesn't cause coughing—it only causes fever. As a healer, I know the symptoms intimately.

Ariella's voice growing fainter, I need to tell him the consequences of saving her.

Somewhere underneath it all, I believe he's still a reasonable person.

Somewhere beneath the cold exterior beats the heart of the man who once risked everything to save me.

I say, trembling, “If I heal her, my wolf will completely disconnect, and our mate bond will be severed. Do you still want me to heal her? Are you willing to give up our mate bond for the woman who once rejected you?”

No wolf would want their bond severed; it's as painful as being rejected. After a second chance, he'll have a hard time finding another mate. An alpha without a mate will go mad...

Would he be willing to go that far for her?

Thunder crashes outside.

He is handsome but indifferent, his features carved from stone. “The condition for our marriage was that you heal her. Or have you forgotten your place?”

He writes another check, adding ten million, and hands it to me. “Now, Evelyn. This is more than enough. Do as you’re told, heal her.”

The amount is staggering—enough money to start a new life somewhere far away.

But what good is money when my soul is being bargained away?

What value does currency have when compared to the sacred bond between wolves, between mates chosen by the Moon Goddess herself?

I stare at the check and can't help but laugh at the absurdity.

The sound is foreign even to my ears—hollow and bitter. I take the check from his outstretched hand, feeling the expensive paper between my fingers.

With deliberate slowness, I tear it in half.

The pieces flutter to the floor like confetti, an end of my submission.

Logan is stunned, "What are you doing?!"