Collette Cooley POV: Rain lashed against the leaded glass of Morgan Keep as I forced my eyes open, every bone aching as if shattered and reset. Shreds of my silk gown and crushed pearls from my haircomb littered the rug. Over the faint haze of myrrh, the tangled sheets reeked of something far more lethal: cedar, crushed pine, and raw, suffocating dominance. The unmistakable mark of a warrior Alpha. Memories flooded my mind like freezing water. Today was the royal return banquet for my only close friend, Kaiya Morgan, the legitimate daughter of Morgan Keep, celebrating her union with the royal line. I had traveled here with my lawful husband, Cooper Ortiz, to offer our congratulations. During the feast, Cooper, always so gentle and attentive, had urged me to drink several goblets of snow-ridge fruit wine to celebrate my friend's joy. That wine had been laced with a potent secret draught designed to artificially trigger the Heat—the primal, scorching biological cycle where a werewolf is completely ruled by mating instincts. Once the wine hit my stomach, a suffocating fever burned away my reason and strength. Through my blurred vision, someone had dragged me into this west guest room, followed by the heavy iron clank of the oak door locking from the outside. Then I was shoved onto the cushions. A towering shadow, built like a giant Dire Wolf, stepped out from behind the screen, radiating the crushing bloodline pressure of a pure-blooded Alpha. In the dim light, I could not see his face, but my stinging eyes caught the relief carved into the black iron breastplate on his chest. It was the Frostwolf Grand Commander's Platinum Crest—an emblem reserved solely for the supreme war god of the kingdom. My blood turned to ice. A supreme warlord. Cooper was merely a junior functionary of the Civil Secretariat, wearing the modest dark wool of a clerk adorned with a simple bronze quills-pin. Who was this formidable male claiming my body in the middle of my drugged Heat? Before I could process the shock, heavy military boots kicked the oak doors open, splintering the wood. The angry shouts of castle guards and noble guests tore through the room. Cooper rushed in at the very front, his face livid as he pointed a trembling finger at the bed. "Arther Morgan!" Cooper roared. "You dare trample the royal laws and use your high-ranking Alpha strength to violate my wife!" Torchlight spilled across the bedside, illuminating a face as cold and sharp as northern ice. It was Kaiya's older brother, the Grand Warlord commanding the Frostwolf Legion—Arther Morgan. Looking at me with open disgust, Cooper lunged forward and yanked me roughly from the bed. He threw a heavy gray wolf-pelt cloak over my head, cutting off my pale face from the sneering crowd as suffocation and shame pulled me into darkness. --- A few days later, and my vision focused on the canopy of my four-poster bed in the Maiden's Wing of Cooley Manor in the capital. For days, my body had been terribly weak, my dormant wolf aching in strange, violent pulses. When my maid summoned the manor's Pack Healer, he placed a palm over my abdomen—and froze in absolute dread. Beneath my skin thrummed the volatile, aggressive seed of an apex warrior wolf, taking root with unstoppable vitality. Cooper had kept his distance for half a year, and even had he touched me, a lowborn Beta could never spark such violent biological alchemy. This child was conceived in the blinding madness of a forced Heat—sown by the pure-blooded Grand Warlord, Arther Morgan. I pressed my cold hands over my face, my shoulders shaking uncontrollably as the memory of that scorching grip and low growl echoed in my ears. Outside the door, a servant's voice rang out. "My Lord, you are here? My Lady is waiting inside." The wooden door creaked open, and I lowered my hands to watch Cooper walk across the threshold into my inner chamber. Now standing before me, he wore the lavish obsidian velvet tunic of a High Minister, the silver-chased raven insignia of the Privy Council gleaming prominently at his breast. He carried a dark stone bowl reeking of bitter herbs, looking nothing like the impoverished commoner who had begged for my hand three years ago. Back then, an ambush had left a deep, hideous scar from a poisoned silver blade across half my face and scorched my inner wolf into a state of permanent dormancy. In the eyes of the court, I had fallen from a prized noble daughter into a damaged, wolfless pariah. Only Cooper, a low-born Beta, had sworn never to abandon me, prompting me to pour my entire dowry and my family's noble connections into carving out his political ascendance. Yet to help the ambitious Third Prince bring down his rival Arther, Cooper had used my body as bait. My dry lips trembled as I forced out a hoarse whisper. "Why? Why did you do this to me?" Cooper held a polished obsidian spoon, stirring the dark liquid slowly with a faint, self-satisfied smile on his lips. The surface of the draught shimmered with the faint, deadly glint of crushed silver dust. "Lottie, this matter is vital to my future," he said, his voice so soft it made my skin crawl. "Arther is always guarded and stays away from women, yet he lowers his defenses only around you. Was that not a golden opportunity gifted to me by the Moon Goddess?" His eyes gleamed with the triumph of a schemer who had finally climbed into the ranks of the High Council. "Now, secret letters from the pack Elders impeaching Arther for abusing his Alpha privileges are flying to the council like snow," Cooper continued smoothly. "Even if the Alpha King favors him, he cannot silence the entire realm. Did you not always wish to see me enter the royal core? The Third Prince has kept his word—with Arther brought down, my promotion to High Minister is sealed, and once the northern military power is fully crippled, I will be the first among the new court nobles!" He stepped closer to the edge of my bed, his smile widening. "When the new king is crowned, I will stand above ten thousand men. Lottie, you are my lawful wife. Should you not be happy for me?" He leaned down and pressed the spoon, reeking of death and bitter metal, right against my lips. My chest heaved with rage as a bone-deep chill spread through my limbs.

Collette Cooley POV: Refusing to part my lips for his abortive brew, I clamped my jaws shut so hard my teeth bit clean through my lower lip. The metallic warmth of fresh blood welled up, trickling down my chin. Instead of striking me, Cooper merely raised a pale thumb and smoothed away the scarlet drop with the nauseating tenderness of a doting lover. "Lottie, rest assured," he whispered against my ear, smooth as poison. "Even though your body has been stained by that beast's scent, I will never despise you." His chilly fingertips slid across my cheek, calluses dragging over the raised, blackened scar that snaked across my skin—a wound that had never faded because of the lingering silver poison. "Just as no one in this world besides me would tolerate your ruined face and your crippled, silent inner wolf, I will still treat you as before," Cooper murmured, his tone turning venomously sweet. "However, that tolerance does not include the bastard warrior blood taking root in your womb." His gentle mask fractured entirely into vicious cruelty. Before I could twist away, his hand clamped around my jaw, forcing my bloody teeth apart as he poured the freezing, metallic draught straight down my throat. The moment the liquid struck my stomach, it burned like molten iron. Ground silver—the one lethal bane capable of destroying a werewolf's rapid healing and violently severing the soul from the flesh. I clawed wildly at his lavish velvet tunic, ripping the fine fabric, but Cooper pinned me against the mattress with an iron grip. "Stripping away a high-ranking bloodline will hurt a little," he breathed against my temple, holding me trapped against his chest. "Do not be afraid. Your husband will stay right here with you. Do you know, from the first moment I saw you, I decided you belonged to me? Yet how could a common-born Beta like me ever reach a noble legitimate daughter?" He let out a cold, quiet sigh against my hair. "Thankfully, you were ambushed back then. Your face was slashed by a silver blade, and your wolf went dormant, forcing the Hewitt heir, Firman, to break off your betrothal. Only then did heaven drop you into my hands..." Before I could grasp the horrifying truth behind his confession, a tearing agony detonated in my lower belly and my soul at the same time. The silver poison raced through my veins like boiling acid, dissolving my body's natural resilience and severing the fledgling soul-thread binding the apex pup to my womb. A sudden, violent convulsion tore through my core, followed by a hot rush of blood soaking through my linen nightgown, dyeing the bedding dark crimson. My pup... Deep within my consciousness, my fragile inner wolf let out one last despairing howl as the silver rot devoured her essence, before sinking into the icy abyss of an endless, suffocating slumber. Staring at the expanding pool of blood, Cooper curved his lips into a relieved, sickening smile and gathered me tighter against him. "Do not be afraid, Lottie. I am right here." Summoning the last dregs of my strength from sheer hatred, I drove both hands against his chest and shoved the monster away with all my might. "Get out!" I screamed, the sound tearing ragged from my throat. "You lunatic!" The words barely left my mouth before a mouthful of thick black blood mixed with silver residue sprayed from my lips. My strength shattered, and my body collapsed backward onto the stained pillows. My limbs twitched uncontrollably on the mattress, tangled dark hair sticking to the black gore on my chin. Closing my eyes, I let out a wet, rattling laugh. I should have known. Now that he had used my body to frame Arther and secured his glorious path at court, keeping a ruined wife who knew his filthy secret was a liability he could never afford. "A high office, a stolen fortune, and a dead wife," I choked out through the red froth bubbling in my throat, glaring into his widening pupils. "You really did play a flawless game, Cooper Ortiz..." Seeing the black blood pouring from my lips as my heartbeat stuttered to a halt, the cold smugness on Cooper's face cracked into sudden, unvarnished panic. "Lottie? Lottie!" he shouted, grabbing my limp shoulders. "I didn't mean to—it wasn't meant to kill you! Don't die! Don't you dare die!" He stumbled backward, lunging toward the oak door and roaring wildly into the courtyard for a Pack Healer, screaming for the High Alchemists. Too late. Not even the rarest divine healing magic of the High Court could mend a soul whose flesh had been shredded by pure silver. The cold seeped into my marrow. My pulse sputtered out, and my vision dissolved into absolute dark. A strange weightlessness pulled at me. Bound by some ancient, unseen tether of the Moon Goddess, I did not vanish into the void; instead, I floated upward as a translucent spirit hovering beneath the ceiling rafters. Looking down, I watched Cooper throw himself over my cooling corpse, weeping and wailing as if his very heart had been torn in two. My ghostly stomach churned with pure disgust. He was the butcher who had poured the silver down my throat, yet he put on this pathetic spectacle of grief for the household servants. Several days later, my spirit followed my body as it was moved to the Great Hall of Mourning in the center of the manor. Black silk drapes hung from the vaulted stone pillars, and hundreds of white beeswax candles illuminated the bower of pale winter roses. Cooper held a grand Wake that stirred the entire capital, receiving mournful condolences from noble colleagues who praised him as the most devoted, tragic widower in the realm. Bound by an unseen spiritual tether, I could not drift more than five paces away from my corpse, forcing me to hover idly above the stone catafalque. My lifeless body lay encased within a carved limestone sarcophagus fitted with a heavy frost-glass viewing lid. Through the crystal, my gray skin made that blackened silver-blade scar look even more hideous—twisted like a dead centipede across pale marble. When midnight arrived, the mourning guests finally departed, leaving the vast stone hall in hollow, echoing silence. Dying with such monstrous grievances yet unable to take vengeance filled my phantom chest with suffocating despair. Suddenly, the candle flames whipped violently to the side. The ambient air grew impossibly heavy, thrumming with the crushing, suffocating bloodline pressure of a supreme predator. Outside the hall, the night had gone eerily dead. No wind rustled; no nightjars cried. An ancient suppression aura had descended over the grounds like an iron bell—an apex predator's presence so terrifying that every sentry and patrol hound across the perimeter had collapsed in silent, breathless paralysis. The heavy oak doors parted without a sound. A tall figure wrapped in a soot-black cloak stepped out from the stormy shadows into the hall, radiating the lethal Alpha warrior scent of bloodied cedar, wet snow, and cold steel. Cooper, who had been kneeling drowsily before the catafalque, snapped his head up. The instant he caught that terrifying scent, his bloodshot eyes bulged with venomous shock. He lunged forward across the stone floor, his fist swinging wildly through the air.

Collette Cooley POV: The cloaked man merely raised one leather-clad forearm to parry, and the raw, bone-crushing force behind the strike sent Cooper—a mere Beta—staggering backward before crashing heavily onto the cold granite floor. The black hood slipped back, revealing Arther Morgan's chiseled, ice-cold features. He radiated a murderous aura so dense it seemed he had just carved his way out from a mountain of corpses. Floating in midair, I stared at him. In truth, he was ten times more striking and commanding in presence than Cooper, though the ancient warrior wolf sealed inside his veins was so terrifying that in life, it had always made me shrink back in fear. Because he doted fiercely on his younger sister Kaiya, he had occasionally extended a protective hand toward me as her closest friend—a kindness Cooper had twisted into a fatal snare. Cooper scrambled up onto his elbows, his eyes bulging with red veins. "You dare show your face here? The council and the Alpha King didn't execute you for treason? Arther, by what right do you always walk away unscathed! You are the one who murdered Lottie!" Arther did not even spare him a glance. Walking straight past him toward the stone altar, he dropped to one knee beside the Brazier of Lunar Flame. Beneath his cloak, he drew a ribbon-bound packet of the northern frontier's ancient vigil vows, their parchment inked in elder runes, and cast it reverently into the sacred hearth. Those warrior hands, calloused from commanding legions and wielding heavy steel across a hundred battlefields, were trembling with an agonizing, barely suppressed tremor. He kept his gaze locked strictly onto the dancing embers, not daring to lift his eyes toward the frost-glass bier resting only paces away—as if looking at the shell of the female inside would shatter whatever remained of his restraint. Golden-red flames licked upward, consuming the vows until gray ash spiraled toward the vaulted rafters. Instinctively, I reached out my translucent hand, but the smoke drifted straight through my palm. "An empty vigil..." I murmured with a bitter smile, despising how thoroughly my past self had been blinded by Cooper's poisoned gentleness, reduced to a tethered phantom. Arther rose slowly to his full height. Like a rabid cur, Cooper charged up behind him again, spitting venom. "Get out! You are not welcome in this hall! Lottie's soul will curse you from the heavens!" Arther turned his head, his gaze colder than the northern glaciers. "The newly appointed Minister Ortiz knows the truth in his own black heart. Tell me, does that grand title taste sweet when bought with your own lawful wife's life?" Cooper bared his teeth in a twisted sneer. "Power demands sacrifice! Lottie loved me to the bone—she would have gladly bled to see me crowned with glory!" "Are you worthy?" Arther's low growl froze the very air in the hall. The terrifying pressure of his Alpha aura slammed outward, causing hairline cracks to spiderweb across the stone pillars. "How you tricked her into this union—do you truly believe no one under the heavens knows?" Shock struck my spirit like lightning. I drifted right between their faces. What did Arther mean? Cooper clenched his fists at his sides. Beneath his manic mask, a flicker of raw panic cracked through his eyes. "Do you think your scheme was flawless?" Arther mocked, his voice laced with venom. "Did you think that just because no Clan Elder stood forward to investigate on her behalf, your crimes would stay buried in the dirt? Years ago, you secretly conspired with Kiya to slash Collette's face with a poisoned silver blade, burning her inner wolf into dormancy and forcing the Hewitt family to break their betrothal so she would have no choice but to marry down to you—did you honestly think that secret would die with her?" A bitter, metallic tang seemed to surge into my phantom throat. My furious hatred nearly ripped through the five-pace tether binding my soul! Kiya? It was Kiya! The baseborn cousin from the Second Branch whom I had treated like my own flesh and blood, sharing every secret in my bedchamber, had conspired with Cooper all along to carve away my face and silence my wolf with silver poison! Cooper's face turned the color of ash, though he bared his teeth stubbornly. "Vicious slander! Standing before this sacred altar, what proof do you possess?" Arther did not waste another breath. His right hand dropped to his hip, slowly unsheathing the heavy royal broadsword, its runic steel humming with raw, judgment-dealing Alpha fury. "What are you doing?" Cooper's voice cracked into a terrified shriek as he stumbled backward. "Guards! Protect the Minister!" A low, subterranean roar from Arther's ancient battle-wolf rattled the stone floor. Before Cooper could retreat another step, a brutal crescent of cold steel severed the air. The heavy royal broadsword swept across with crushing kinetic force, cleaving through flesh and splintering kneecaps before Cooper's Beta reflexes could even register the motion. A guttural, agonizing shriek tore from Cooper's throat as his severed legs gave out beneath him. Hot crimson blood sprayed across the white mourning banners hanging from the ceiling, splashing against the flagstones in an ever-widening pool of gore. Despite his ear-splitting screams, the entire estate outside remained in absolute, enchanted hush. Not a single guard crossed the threshold; the perimeter had been locked tight in the iron grip of Arther's elite Shadow-Night wolf knights. "Blame yourself for choosing the wrong prey," Arther said, heavy boots splashing through the dark puddle as he stalked forward, broadsword dripping. "She was never someone a maggot like you could touch." Dragging his bleeding stumps across the slick stone, Cooper hauled himself backward, his fingers clawing frantically at the flags as sheer agony stripped away his sanity. Arther came to a halt over him, looking down as if at roadkill. "Did you truly believe your meager, common wits allowed you to rise so high in three short years?" Cooper's bloody fingers froze on the floor. His head jerked up, horror and disbelief warring in his eyes. "What... what are you talking about? It was the Third Prince... what other reason could there be?!" "If it were not for who she truly is..." Arther's voice was a low death knell. Before Cooper could wrap his mind around it, Arther reversed his grip and drove the heavy runic broadsword down with executioner's weight, running him clean through the back and pinning his treacherous heart to the stone floor. Cooper's body arched violently, heels drumming the red-stained granite, until the frenzied light in his bulging eyes finally flickered out. Arther leaned down, watching the final shudder leave his enemy's twitching mouth, and whispered the final cut into the dead man's ear: "However, filth like you does not deserve to know." With a smooth, practiced pull, Arther wrenched the broadsword from the corpse. He drew a linen cloth from his belt, wiping the blade clean of Cooper's tainted blood, and sheathed the steel without sparing the dead man another glance. As the sound of the locking scabbard echoed through the hollow chamber, the suffocating, bloodthirsty Alpha aura around him suddenly receded like a falling tide. Arther stepped out of the bloody pool and walked slowly back to the foot of the limestone catafalque. When he raised his head to face the viewing lid, all the savage, predatory fury in his golden wolf-eyes was gone—replaced entirely by a fragile, unbearable agony, and a look of tender, shattered remorse that left him standing almost breath to breath with my floating soul.