Chapter 3
839 Words
Eve hurried back to her room. Anna, my former maid, followed behind her with a tray of tea, her face full of flattery.
"Congratulations, Miss. You managed to fool the Wolf King without a hitch."
Anna had been the only person in the werewolf territory I could talk to. She was also someone I had raised with my own hands. When we were children, I had secretly saved my own food just to give her enough to eat.
Only now did I realize the truth. Two years ago, my mother had sent Anna to my side on purpose. She had been planted there long before the plan began.
For two whole years, they studied every one of my habits. They learned everything about me. All so they could get rid of me.
Eve grabbed Anna's arm and pulled her closer. "Smell me carefully. Is there anything unusual about my scent?"
Anna lowered her head and took a careful sniff. Then she confidently replied, "Don't worry, Miss. All I can smell is evening primrose incense."
But Eve still looked uneasy. She bit her nail and paced back and forth.
"But the King only stayed close to me for a short while. He left before anything happened. Could it be that his sense of smell is too sharp?"
I couldn't understand it either. Raine had never cared about small details in daily life. So how did he notice something was different?
Anna poured a cup of tea and handed it to her. "As long as you keep using evening primrose incense for a few more days, the scent will completely cover anything else."
Eve thought that made sense. She immediately grabbed a handful of incense herbs and threw them into the burner.
Then she pulled something out from underneath her pillow. A voodoo doll covered in steel needles. The name written on it was Avery.
She removed a silver hairpin and viciously stabbed it into the doll's chest.
"Go to hell and rot there—no coming back, no mercy, nothing, Avery! Don't even think about coming back to haunt me!"
The witchcraft my mother taught her was clearly incomplete. I only felt a cold breeze pass through my soul.
It didn't hurt. But my spirit still felt a wave of freezing fear. Even after death, she still refused to let me go.
After stabbing the doll for a while, Eve began mocking it.
"My dear little sister, don't be upset. You should be grateful to me. I was the one who let you enjoy three years of affection from the Wolf King. Just now, when I was so close to him, I finally realized something. The Wolf King is far more impressive than those weak little nobles."
Back then, after I was forced to marry Raine in her place, Eve was quickly arranged to marry into a declining noble family to cover everything up.
Now that I thought about it, that poor fiancé of hers had probably been taken care of by my mother as well.
"Not just his appearance. The entire northern army bows before him. Only someone like me deserves to stand beside the Wolf King."
Eve's eyes burned with obsession. Her greed was impossible to hide.
She threw the doll aside and grabbed Anna. "Anna, how often did the King stay in her room before?"
Anna answered honestly, "Except when he was away fighting, His Majesty almost spent every night in Eve's room whenever he returned."
Eve glared at her. Jealousy flashed in her eyes.
"So what? His Majesty favored her for three whole years, and she still couldn't even give him a wolf cub. That only proves the King never truly valued her. To him, she was nothing more than a tool to satisfy his needs."
She wasn't completely wrong. Raine had once warned me that humans were not worthy of carrying his bloodline.
So, for the past three years, I secretly boiled stoneseed root every day to prevent myself from getting pregnant.
A human body could never easily endure carrying a werewolf child. And I didn't want to bring a child into this world only to watch it suffer a cruel fate.
Eve continued questioning Anna about the details of my relationship with the Wolf King.
The night grew deeper. The wind outside howled. But Raine never returned.
Eve eventually grew too tired to stay awake. She leaned against the headboard and fell asleep.
I drifted out of the room. From the highest point of the estate, I looked toward the Linton family manor in the distance.
When I was alive, I was a sacrifice, trapped there with no way out. And even after death, I still had to watch my murderer steal everything that belonged to me.
Morning arrived. Sunlight was burning my soul. I could only retreat into the shadows.
When I was alive, sunlight was the thing I loved most.
But now that I was nothing more than a wandering spirit, the sun had become the thing I feared the most.
- Writer
