Chapter 2

I first learned what despair felt like when I was ten years old.

It happened on a moonless night. Three teen werewolves cornered me behind a storage shed.

They said a 'mute half-blood' like me didn't deserve to live in Royal City.

They wanted to throw me into a dry well to 'cleanse' my blood.

I couldn't scream for help. I could only struggle. My nails scraped bloody marks across the stone floor.

Just as they grabbed my ankle to drag me away, a dark figure leaped over the wall.

It was a teen werewolf. He looked only a few years older than me, but his eyes carried a coldness far beyond his age.

He said nothing. He simply shifted into wolf form and slammed the leader to the ground with his claw. He held the leader there until he cried and begged.

The other two ran out of fear.

He released the leader and turned around to leave.

I gathered the courage to grab his sleeve.

He looked back. His eyes glowed golden in the darkness.

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. I had to write the words on the ground.

[Thank you.]

He stared at the words for a long moment. It was long enough for me to think he would react like everyone else. They'd call me 'a disgusting mute' and leave.

But he didn't do that.

He crouched down and slowly wrote three words on my palm with his index finger.

[Don't give up.]

He then pulled off the necklace around his neck. It had a tiny wolf fang on it. That was the wolf fang a pup lost from shifting for the first time. It was the most treasured keepsake among pups in Silver Moon Werewolf Kingdom.

He placed it in my hand and folded my fingers around it.

Then he left.

Later, I found out his name was Jamie.

He was the orphaned pup of the former Alpha King. Every werewolf in Silver Moon Werewolf Kingdom isolated him for being 'the cursed pup.'

That day, he was punished with thirty lashes for getting into a fight. Jamie never said who he did it to protect.

It was the first time anyone had ever stood up for me. For the first time in my life, I saw a light of hope.

Since that day, I began searching for him in every crowd.

He was always alone. He stood far away from everyone else and kept himself wrapped in layers of coldness, but I knew there was something beneath that armor. He was willing to risk getting injured to protect a mute girl nobody cared about.

I paid attention to everything about him.

At fifteen, he hunted and killed his first rogue alone.

At sixteen, he defeated every challenger in the heir trials.

At seventeen, he became the youngest Alpha King in history.

He grew taller, more distant, and colder.

But I never forgot that moonless night. I still remembered those three words he had written on my palm.

[Don't give up.]

For sixteen years, I repeated those words silently in my heart every time I was mocked and wanted to give up.

It was also a secret I kept hidden deep inside my heart and feared letting anyone know.

I liked Jamie. I had liked him since I was ten.

And now, I was still the same unwanted mute girl everyone wished to discard.

Meanwhile, he had become the ruler who could decide whether I lived or died.

I looked up at him with a pleading gaze.

I hoped he would save me like he did back then.

But after a long time, he still didn't respond.

Time felt stretched out. I could hear my own heart beating.

Every beat was like a funeral bell counting down my final moments.

My eyes found him once more.

It looked like Carla had more to say. She wanted to perform her role as the grieving sister until the curtain fell.

Jamie finally moved.

He slowly raised one hand to end all chatter.

"Exile her."

His voice wasn't loud, but it echoed clearly through the hall.

There was no anger or pity. It sounded like he was talking about something that had nothing to do with him.

In that instant, every hope and fantasy I had was shattered.

I saw Carla's shoulders relax.

She lowered her head. Her smile was barely noticeable.

Two tall guards approached me. Their armor creaked from friction as they moved.

They grabbed my arms roughly on both sides. It felt as if I was nothing more than a lifeless object.

I didn't struggle because I knew any struggle before the Alpha King's judgment was pointless.

As the guards dragged me toward the exit, I caught something from the corner of my eye.

High up on the throne, Jamie's fists, which rested on the obsidian armrest, seemed to clench a little.

His knuckles turned pale from exerting force, and a faint cracking sound escaped from the tough armrest beneath his palm.

It was so soft that I almost thought it was my own desperate hallucination.

Was it only my imagination?