Artemis Gifts

At the New Year's Eve dinner, my mom suddenly assigns some rules to me and my siblings. She claims that those who don't fit the criteria aren't allowed to eat at the table. Rule number one: One must have spent at least 50% of their time keeping Mom company at home last year. Rule number two: One must have gone shopping with Mom all the time. Rule number three: One must keep giving Mom allowance. But it appears that I, the oldest sibling, am the only one who doesn't meet the requirements. My little sister, Chelsea Cage, begins acting coquettish immediately. "All Cassidy cares about is her business, unlike me, Mom! I care about you!" Meanwhile, my younger brother, Cameron Cage, lectures me with a frown, "What's the point of you being able to earn more money than average people? No matter how good a breadwinner you are, the fact that you don't care about Mom completely nullifies it!" My mom tells my siblings to sit around her happily. Then, she criticizes me in a sarcastic tone. "As parents, when we become old, what we need is our children's company, not cold hard cash." I'm pissed off, to say the least. I'm the breadwinner of this family, and yet these freeloaders get to put on airs in front of me. The reason why I don't go shopping with my mom is that she's never satisfied with whatever gifts I've picked out for her during the times I did go out with her. That's why I gave her money straight away. I didn't give my mom any allowance at all because all the money is regularly deposited into the supplementary card, which she has. Since my long-term efforts are worth nothing compared to my siblings' sweet talk, I suppose I can quit being the ATM of this family.

The shewolves in Shadow Pack all said I was lucky. Alpha Erwin Keller had doted on me alone for eight years. However, the same werewolf who swore he would only ever want to be with me gave me two 'gifts' the day I brought him home to meet my mom, Katie Spencer, to discuss our marking ceremony. The first gift was tying Katie to a chair and having his Beta rip her clothes apart right in front of me. The second gift was deliberately opening the door and letting my dad, Felix Spencer, who had already lost his wolf spirit, run outside. There was pouring rain outside. Felix ran to the edge of a cliff and fell over. Katie was still tied to the chair. She watched Felix die right in front of her. She snapped the ropes like a mad wolf and jumped off the cliff to die with Felix. In a single night, I lost both my parents. I kneeled in a pool of blood and asked Erwin why he did all this. He pinched my chin and sneered. "Lara, did you really think I loved you? I came for revenge!" It turned out that during the territorial war ten years ago, his dad died saving mine, and his mom took her own life afterward. Erwin spent eight years carefully weaving a lie of love. It was all so I could experience what it felt like to lose my entire family. Later, Erwin kept me trapped by his side and tortured me. I tried to kill myself 99 times. He saved me all 99 times. He said we would torture each other until we grew old. What he didn't know was that ten years ago, when his wolf spirit was completely destroyed and he was barely alive, I was the one who begged an Alpha from another pack to place a curse on me so that he could live. In return, I only had eight years left to live. Now, I was seven days away from my own impending doom!

My mate, Alpha Alex, had a wolf cursed at birth by a witch—unable to catch the scent of any she-wolf, doomed never to find his true mate. He spent five long years searching for her, only to be met with nothing but disappointment. In the end, broken and exhausted, he gave up. That was when he claimed me. On the night of our bonding, he told me the truth. "Fiona," he said quietly, "I had no choice. If the pack knew their Alpha couldn't even find his true mate, I'd become a disgrace in their eyes. So I chose you. You are my selected mate—but I swear, no one will ever take your title. You are my Luna. Even if I one day find my true mate… that will never change." But then he added, his voice distant and heavy: "Even though I'm cursed… I must still try to find her. I need to search every corner of the pack." From that night onward, she-wolves began appearing at our den one after another—every day, without fail. Some were shy, some bold. Some came bearing gifts, others with longing in their eyes. But all of them came for one reason: to see if they were his mate. And I? I could only watch in silence—his Luna in name, but never truly in heart. Because I knew there was nothing I could do to change his behavior. I had lost count of how many times I cried and begged him to stop—but still, every night, he brought different young she-wolves into our den. I once thought he'd eventually grow tired of it, that he would stop one day. Until he brought home three young she-wolves from the werewolf club. He paid far more than other alphas for their first night. Why? Because a witch told him that only sharing a night with more than two virgin she-wolves from the same bloodline could awaken his wolf's dormant sense—and help him find his true mate. I let out a bitter smile because what he didn't know was— The true mate he had searched for all these years… was me. But I would never return to him again. And by the time he finally found out the truth— It was already too late.