For seven grueling years, I was forced into a marriage with Alpha Ethan. To the world, I was a joke—the most pathetic Luna to ever draw breath. I washed his underwear soaked in his mistress's perfume, played free nanny to his four illegitimate children, and endured public humiliation from the entire pack. What they didn't know was that every humiliation was a transaction. Seven years ago, I struck a deal with his father. I traded my dignity for the life of my true mate. For seven long years, I numbed my wolf, forcing myself to see Ethan's face as nothing more than a shadow of someone else. Now, the clock has run out. I tore off the mask and ran toward the man etched into my very soul—the man Ethan resembles but could never hope to be. When Ethan finally chases me down, driven mad by the loss, he sneers, "What? You can't get me, so you decided you'd find a substitute?" I turn back with a cold, cutting smile. "A substitute? Ethan, from start to finish, you were nothing but a cheap counterfeit to me."

Ever since Alpha Silas lost control of his car and plunged off a cliff while racing home for my birthday, my life had been stuck on a brutal, agonizing pause. When the mate bond snapped, my wolf, Vivian, fell into a deep slumber along with it. I became a hollow shell—breathing, moving, but dead inside for all intents and purposes. The pack elders urged me to move to a different territory and start over. Even the Moon Goddess whispered in my dreams, pleading with me to find a new mate. I remained unmoved, a ghost haunting my own life. It wasn't until Crescent Reflection Day that I finally succumbed, agreeing to a chosen mate ceremony with Liam from the neighboring pack. Before the ritual, I intended to visit Silas's stone cenotaph one last time, to say a final, aching goodbye. But just as I reached the edge of Vyrn Wood, a notification chimed on my communicator: a new social media post. The caption read: Our third birthday together, and my true mate bought me another penthouse in Moonlit Haven! I stared at the photo, and the blood in my veins turned to ice. Deep in my chest, my long-dormant wolf let out a low, feral snarl of pure fury. In the picture, the man gazing tenderly at the woman across from him was the very same fated mate I had buried with my own hands—Silas. Driven by manic desperation, I tracked down the penthouse. I threw myself at the door and hammered on it. But when it swung open, I froze. The woman standing there was Elena—the Omega servant who had been publicly stripped of her status and banished three years ago for trying to seduce him.