Hermina Montgomery POV: My father, Ronald Mercer, slammed a marriage contract sealed with dark red wax onto the heavy oak desk. The parchment bounced from the force. As the greedy Lord of the Mercer pack who only cared about gold and titles, he glared at me with his goatee trembling in rage. "I raised you, after all!" Ronald roared, his palm slapping the wood. "Now the family needs you to take Brylee's place and fulfill the marriage alliance with the Carlisle territory!" I stood expressionless in the gloomy study, my fingers curling inside my sleeves. A cold laugh escaped my lips. "If marrying the supreme Pack Alpha is such a blessing, why not let your precious second daughter enjoy it herself?" Standing behind her mother in an expensive lace gown, my half-sister Brylee Mercer immediately shrank back. The mole beneath her left eye quivered as she faked a sob. She had spent months bragging about this royal engagement until news broke of the groom's crippling injuries. "Sister, Lord Andrae's legs are ruined and his inner wolf is dead," Brylee said, her sweet voice dripping with venom. "You have no wolf soul in your body at all. A wolfless outcast like you is the perfect match for a cripple." In our world, a wolfless person cannot shift, cannot use the mind-link, and cannot even sense a fated mate. To the nobles, I was trash. My stepmother, Glenda Mercer, stepped forward with huge emerald rings flashing on all ten fingers. She offered a fake, greedy smile. "We are all one pack, Hermina. Obey your father, and I will give you the clues about how your grandmother died in the Carlisle territory years ago." At the mention of my grandmother, my chest heaved. Murderous heat surged through my veins, and a faint flash of pure white light flickered deep within my pupils. I dug my fingernails into my palms. The sharp pain cleared my head. Seeing my silence, Ronald assumed I was cowed. He stomped toward me, his chest puffed out. "Wipe that dead look off your face! Tonight, you are getting into that carriage to Northwind Castle!" He raised his thick hand and swung a vicious slap toward my cheek to break my spine. I did not move my feet. I tilted my head half an inch. His palm sliced through the empty air beside my ear, and the missed momentum threw Ronald off balance. As he stumbled and looked back in shock, I raised my eyelids. The freezing stillness in my eyes made my cowardly father instinctively step back, his spine hitting the chair. Brylee clutched her skirt and shrieked. "How dare a wolfless piece of trash dodge Father's hand!" I straightened my back, my voice echoing through the room. "Deal. But if a single word of your clue is fake, I will tear the Mercer territory apart with my own hands." Glenda's jaw trembled at the bloodlust in my tone. Her eyes darted away, and she hurriedly pushed the contract toward me with a dry laugh. I snatched the quill, signed my name on the parchment, grabbed the scroll, and walked out the door. Walking past the perfumed hallways and down the muddy back path, I returned to my dilapidated hay loft. I bolted the rotting wooden door, walked to the stone table, and pulled a packet of dark powder from my inner lining. It was stink-vine ash roasted with secret herbs. Its bitter, rotting stench was the only barrier hiding my pure-blooded White Wolf scent—the supreme royal bloodline blessed by the Moon Goddess. I mixed the ash with cold water in a clay bowl and smeared the mud across my fair cheeks and neck. The paste dried into ugly, dark gray scabs, burying my true face beneath a withered mask. Taking a deep breath, I let the herbs force my White Wolf bloodline into a deep slumber. In the bronze mirror stood a hideous, wolfless servant girl. Reaching into a crack in the stone wall, I pulled out a heavy iron box. Inside lay rows of long, moonlight-tempered silver needles. Silver was fatal to werewolves, capable of burning their inner wolves to ash, yet in my hands, it was the ultimate tool of the realm's sole supreme Healer. I slid the needles into the lining of my leather wristbands. My grandmother had been a legendary elder of the White Wolf royal court; she never could have died from a mere drunken dire wolf stampede. Every clue pointed to Carlisle Castle, and the crippled tyrant Andrae was my way in. Heavy pounding echoed from downstairs, followed by iron wheels grinding over gravel. The black iron carriage had arrived. I wrapped myself in a ragged black hooded cloak, pulled the brim low, and walked down the narrow stone stairs. Under the main porch, Ronald and Glenda watched me with undisguised disgust, eager to rid themselves of baggage. A low-ranking werewolf guard driving the carriage sized me up like cheap cargo and yanked the iron door open. I stepped onto the cold pedal, climbed into the cramped carriage, and sat on the hard wooden bench. The whip cracked in the howling wind. As the carriage lurched forward into the dark wilderness, I looked through the iron bars at the fading castle, my fingers brushing the silver needles in my sleeve.

Hermina Montgomery POV: The carriage jerked to a violent halt amidst the driver's harsh shouts, throwing my torso slightly forward before I steadied myself against the wooden wall and stood up. The driver wrenched the iron door open from the outside. Freezing rain blew into the cabin, soaking the hem of my coarse cloak. Keeping my head down, I stepped out. My boots landed on obsidian flagstones slick with mud and rainwater. Before me towered Carlisle Castle, its jagged black spires piercing the thunderclouds like a giant beast crouching in the storm. Under the high stone archway stood a tall old man with neatly combed gray hair. He held his hands folded over his stomach in spotless white cotton gloves. As I walked up the wet steps, the old man tilted his dark gray eyes downward, scanning my tattered cloak with open disdain. He stopped three paces away without bowing his head or placing a hand over his chest as court etiquette demanded for a bride. "You must be the substitute bride sent by the Mercer family," he said, his voice flat and cold. Rain dripped from the brim of my hood. I did not answer, my gaze fixed on the sharp light hidden in his eyes. Seeing my silence, a faint sneer curved his lips. He stiffened his spine. "I am Ab Mckay, the head butler of this castle, waiting here by order of the old Lord." He deliberately stressed the words "old Lord." Immediately, the heavy spiritual pressure of a high-ranking warrior rolled off his body, crashing toward me like a tidal wave to force this wolfless bride to her knees. Any ordinary wolfless girl would have collapsed on the spot. Yet I stood motionless in the howling rain. My breathing did not even hitch as my ice-blue eyes locked onto the center of his brow from beneath my hood. Two young guards standing by the pillars snickered under their breath. "A hideous wolfless freak doesn't even deserve the butler's gaze," one whispered. I raised an eyebrow. Inside my sleeve, my left fingers twitched, releasing a thread of pure, lethal bloodlust honed from years as the underworld's top assassin, Cold Wolf. The freezing killing intent locked directly onto Ab Mckay's carotid artery without leaking a single drop to the guards. Ab Mckay's body stiffened. His gray pupils shrank to pinpricks, and an old, narrow scar on the back of his left hand twitched violently. Terror flashed across his eyes—the instinctive reaction of a battlefield veteran staring straight into the jaws of death. I took one step forward onto the dry flagstones of the porch. "Lead the way. I don't like wasting time on pointless staring." I retracted my aura instantly, as if the fatal threat had been an illusion. Cold sweat beaded on Ab Mckay's forehead. Taking a sharp breath, he lowered his eyelids to avoid my gaze, pressed his right hand to his chest, and bowed his back. "Right this way, Madam." The two guards froze, their mocking grins dying on their faces as the arrogant head butler bowed to a wolfless peasant. I strode into the gloomy main hall, the heavy ironwood doors booming shut behind me. Huge iron fireplaces burned with orange flames, yet the air remained thick and suffocating. Walking half a step ahead, Ab Mckay no longer moved with his earlier arrogance, his eyes darting toward the escape corners of the hall. I watched his feet. His steps were completely silent, his weight kept on the front third of his soles. That was no servant's walk; it was the stance of an elite vanguard scout. Twenty years ago, the vanguard units had patrolled the very ancient road where my grandmother was slaughtered. Pushing down the cold fire in my chest, I followed him up the winding stone staircase. Huge portraits of past Pack Alphas hung on the walls. The higher we climbed toward the top floor, the stranger the air smelled. Beneath the bitter scent of boiled herbs lurked the foul stench of rotting metal. It was silver poison eating away at bone marrow. Ordinary wolves could not smell it, but as a Healer, I knew it instantly. Ab Mckay stopped before a pair of black oak doors carved with snarling twin wolves. He turned around, lowering his voice. "The Alpha Lord is inside. His temper has been violent lately. I wish you luck, Madam." Ignoring his fake warning, I raised my hand and pressed it against the cold brass handle. With a dull groan of the hinges, I pushed the heavy door open a crack. A suffocating wave of blood and the berserk pressure of a giant black wolf surged through the gap. Deep in the darkness, a pair of freezing dark-gold eyes locked onto me.

Hermina Montgomery POV: I stepped into the pitch-black bedchamber, and the heavy oak door swung shut behind me with a dull thud. No candles burned in the room. A flash of white lightning outside the window lit up a tall, solitary figure by the bed. The fireplace was cold, and chaotic spiritual waves from a manic inner wolf pricked at my skin. Sitting in a wide carved redwood wheelchair was a broad-shouldered man with cropped black hair. Andrae Carlisle, the feared Pack Alpha of this territory, slowly turned a wolf-head signet ring on his right middle finger. His dark-gold eyes rested on me without a trace of warmth. "Get out," he rasped, his voice grinding from deep within his chest with absolute authority. I did not retreat. Instead, I walked five paces forward against his suffocating pressure, my boot heels clicking on the stone floor. The veins on the backs of Andrae's hands bulged against the armrests. "A wolfless discard sent by the Mercers to die? The old man is getting more ridiculous by the day." I pulled back my hood, exposing my-streaked, ugly face to the dim light. "Since I came, I have no intention of leaving empty-handed." Andrae let out a cruel laugh. "What, you think that hideous face can buy you the glory of a Luna from a cripple?" "Your legs weren't ruined by severed meridians," I interrupted, my tone flat. "You have chronic, freezing melted-silver poison flowing through your veins." Andrae's fingers froze on his signet ring. The air in the room turned to ice. He stared at me, his dark-gold pupils contracting as the giant black wolf dormant inside him let out a low, guarded growl. Every doctor in the kingdom believed his wolf bones had died from battle wounds; no outsider could possibly know about the melted silver unless they were the poisoner. "Who sent you?" he leaned forward, his massive frame radiating lethal danger. Unfazed, I took two more steps and stood directly in front of his wheelchair, looking down at him. "I am the one who can save your life." I flipped my right hand, revealing three long silver needles gleaming between my fingers. At the sight of silver—the ultimate bane of his kind—Andrae moved with blinding speed. His large, calloused hand shot out and clamped around my throat like an iron vise. His fingers tightened with terrifying strength, pulling me down until our breaths tangled. Through the bitter stink-vine ash on my skin, a faint, crisp scent brushed past his nose. For a split second, the berserk aura tearing at the room paused, and my own heart skipped a erratic beat against my ribs. My throat ached under his grip, yet I did not blink. Lowering my wrist, I pressed the sharp tip of a silver needle directly against the pulsing artery on his neck. "I had three chances to pierce your fatal point before your hand touched me," I said evenly, meeting his murderous gaze. "I came to make a deal." Andrae's dark-gold eyes searched my face, shock and fierce wildness clashing in their depths. "What deal?" His grip did not loosen, though the killing intent shifted into dark scrutiny. "I cure your legs, draw the silver poison from your marrow, and put you back on your throne," I said. "In exchange, I want full access to the Carlisle intelligence network to find the truth behind my grandmother's death." Andrae scoffed, his chest vibrating. "You think silver poison can be cured by some country girl's parlor tricks?" "One needle won't kill you, and it will prove whether I am lying." I twisted my wrist, pricking the surface of his skin. His gaze moved between my scarred cheeks and my calm eyes. After a long silence, he slowly released my throat and rested his arms back on the wheelchair. "Play a single trick, and I will crush every bone in your body." Rubbing my bruised neck, I sneered. "You won't get the chance." I dropped to one knee, lifted the hem of his black robe, and exposed his pale, lifeless legs. The instant my fingertips brushed his cold calf muscle, a sharp jolt of static electricity snapped through both our nerves. Andrae's breath hitched, and my fingers tingled. Shaking off the strange sensation, I channeled warm energy into my fingertips and drove the first moonlight silver needle deep into the acupoint above his right knee. A dark purple bruise immediately bloomed around the needle. Seconds later, a drop of foul-smelling black blood oozed from the pinhole. Deep within his dead marrow, a sharp, burning pain exploded for the first time in three years. Andrae's pupils shrank, his fingers digging into the wooden armrests as he stared down at his own leg in disbelief.