The Bite That Saved Me: I'm His Lost Luna

Chapter XI: The Truth

Haugen's POV — The Truth

Twenty years ago, I planned to ambush the mighty Vanderbilt Lord—Alpha Magnus—because he stood as the strongest pillar behind my brother's empire. The De Vere empire. An empire that should have been mine.

I was meant to be the strong one. The Red Fire Wolf King, ruling through strength and conquest. But the title went to my brother instead. My father chose him—chose him because he loved his people, because he led with his heart. I had the strength. I had the power to conquer an entire pact if I wanted to. But strength was never what my father valued.

He chose to lead. I chose to fight.

My first attempt on Alpha Magnus failed—because my brother, ever the hero, saved him. And in saving him, they forged something stronger than I'd ever anticipated: an alliance neither of them would easily abandon. I had to stop it before it solidified any further.

So I changed my approach. If I couldn't kill Magnus outright, I would go with the current instead of against it. I studied every move they made, every plan they whispered to each other. When Henry's wife gave birth to a daughter, the covenant deepened—became something almost unbreakable. I studied every detail of it.

Except one. The blood covenant itself.

On the day they announced it—the day their children were meant to meet for the first time—I arranged Wyatt's "accident." He couldn't meet the princess that day. I had far better plans for him, later.

Everything fell into place exactly as I designed it.

On the princess's tenth birthday, I decided it was time to end her.

I lured her deep into the forest with a wounded rabbit, bleeding and pitiful, left where she'd be sure to find it. I knew her well by then—knew how much she loved animals, plants, anything small and helpless that needed saving. A dying rabbit was never going to stop her from running straight toward it.

It worked exactly as I planned.

Once she was deep enough in the forest, alone, I came for her myself. I drove my dagger into her chest—straight through the heart.

I watched her collapse. Watched her knees give out beneath her, her body melting slowly into the earth. Her golden eyes, blazing only moments before, dimmed and finally closed. Lifeless.

Then I heard it—voices, closing in, calling her name.

Someone was searching for her.

I slipped into the shadows just in time to see her Beta rush into the clearing, screaming when he found her lying there, unmoving. That was my cue to disappear. One obstacle, eliminated. And I knew, with enough patience, the rest would follow.

That's why I never believed she survived. I watched her die with my own two eyes.

That same night, I set the greater plan into motion. The plan I'd been nurturing for ten long years.

I orchestrated the ambush between two packs—De Vere and Vanderbilt—splitting my forces in two. My strongest Beta led the raid against the De Vere pack while I led the ambush against Vanderbilt myself.

Every detail had been perfected. For ten years after my failed attempt on Magnus, I stayed hidden. Vanished, completely, letting them believe I was gone for good—letting their guard fall, letting peace lull them into comfort. And once they finally believed they were safe, once the danger felt like nothing more than an old memory...

I struck.

I found my brother that night, in the chaos of his own falling pack. He looked at me like he still believed, even then, that blood meant something to me. I made sure it was quick. Quicker than he deserved, given everything he'd taken from me simply by being born first.

When the fires finally died down, there was no one left who could tell the difference between us. We'd always been identical—the one advantage he'd never known how to use, and the one I'd been waiting twenty years to.

When the sun rose the next morning, I didn't rise as Haugen, Alpha of the Dark Pack.

I rose as Alpha Henry. The righteous Red Fire Wolf of the De Vere pack.

No one ever questioned it. Why would they? They were looking at his face.

And Amira. My innocent little tool.

She's my daughter—born from an Omega I used whenever I wanted her, nothing more. Clara. A woman with nothing to offer the world but good cookies and a soft heart too foolish to protect itself.

When my first ambush on Magnus failed, and I learned about the marriage covenant sealing the two packs together, my fury nearly consumed me. I'd failed once already. I needed another way in—something that would let me tear my brother's alliance apart from the inside, since I could no longer do it from the outside.

My fury only deepened when the De Vere pack welcomed a daughter that same year, sealing the covenant further, validating everything I was trying to destroy. For a while, I thought I'd truly lost. But a year later, I learned Clara had given birth as well.

To my child.

A daughter of my own.

That's when the real plan took shape in my mind.

Clara tried to hide her from me—tried to keep her safe, tried to give her some kind of ordinary life. But once the child turned two, I took her anyway. Raised her like a princess, dressed her like one, taught her to believe she was one.

She would be useful. I knew that from the start.

Wyatt's "accident"—the one that kept him from ever meeting the true princess—wasn't only meant to delay that meeting.

It was meant to make sure that when he finally did see his future Luna, the girl standing in front of him would be Amira. Not Amelie.