The acrid stench of wolfsbane mixed with a sharp, metallic odor hit my nose instantly. In the center of the grand room, my adoptive mother, High Luna Josephine, lay pale and frail against the pillows. Standing over her was the loyal Omega maid, Kortney, holding a porcelain bowl filled with a steaming, pitch-black liquid to Josephine's lips.

"Stop!" I screamed, lunging forward.

I slapped the bowl out of Kortney's hands. It shattered against the polished oak floor. The moment the black liquid touched the wood, it hissed violently, sending up plumes of stinging white smoke.

Kortney shrieked, stumbling back. "Miss Ivy! What are you doing? That's the Luna's medicine!"

"That is high-grade liquid silver," I snarled, my eyes locked on the burning floor. If Josephine had swallowed that, it would have permanently blinded her and completely destroyed her already weakened Inner Wolf.

I didn't waste another second. I grabbed a pair of heavy shears from the vanity and climbed onto the bed.

"Ivy, my sweet girl..." Josephine whispered, her voice trembling with exhaustion.

"Trust me, Mother," I said softly, before driving the shears into her luxurious velvet quilt. I ripped the fabric open, pulling apart the pristine white cotton.

Kortney gasped, covering her mouth.

Crawling blindly through the stuffing were over a dozen mutated leeches. They were thick, black, and grotesquely bloated with Luna blood. These parasites had been slowly draining Josephine, injecting micro-doses of silver toxin into her system to keep her Inner Wolf dormant. It wasn't a rare wasting disease. It was a calculated assassination.

I grabbed the remaining shards of the broken bowl and poured the last dregs of the liquid silver directly onto the nest of parasites. They writhed and stiffened, dying instantly in the toxic puddle.

"Gather these disgusting corpses," I ordered Kortney, my voice cold and authoritative. "Bury them deep under The Ancient Pear Tree in the courtyard. Tell no one."

As Kortney scrambled to obey, I knelt beside the bed and took Josephine's freezing hands. Tears welled in her beautiful eyes as the horrifying truth dawned on her.

She thought I was the illegitimate daughter of her Alpha husband, Carlton, and his vicious mistress, Jackie. She didn't know the dark truth I had carried since my past life: Jackie, a terrified wolfless woman, had stolen me as an infant to replace her own stillborn, hiring Rogues to slaughter my true parents-Northern Lycan guards. Jackie had no maternal bond with me. When I was six, she deliberately abandoned me in the rotting, Rogue-infested borders of The Dead Lands.

It was Josephine who had tracked my scent. Josephine who had brought me back from the brink of death. She was the only mother my soul recognized.

"Jackie did this," Josephine breathed, her voice hardening as she stared at the dead leeches. The submission that had clouded her eyes for months vanished, replaced by the fierce, undeniable aura of a High Luna.

"Where is Falon?" I asked suddenly, scanning the room.

"She asked for the afternoon off," Josephine replied, her brow furrowing.

A chilling realization washed over me. Falon, the Omega maid in charge of the bedding. In my past life, shortly after Josephine's death, Falon's bloated body was found floating in The Moon Lake. Jackie had silenced her to cover up the leeches.

"Falon isn't coming back," I said quietly, squeezing Josephine's hands. "Jackie bought her, and now Jackie will dispose of her. Mother, you have to fight back. Use your Luna authority. I won't let her hurt you ever again."

Josephine nodded slowly, her grip on my hands tightening with newfound resolve.

I left the Luna's Suite as the afternoon sun began to dip, casting long, bloody shadows across the estate. The first battle was won, but the war was just beginning.

I walked back to my bedroom, my mind calculating the next strike. Tonight, Alpha Derrick Mason and his wife were arriving for a grand banquet to celebrate my engagement to their third son, Denver.

I stood by my window, staring out at the darkening courtyard. I knew exactly what was coming. Denver Mason, fresh from his first shift and arrogant with his new Dire Wolf power, despised the idea of mating a "wolfless" girl like me. Tonight, he and my malicious half-sister, Denisse, would execute their trap. They planned to pump wolfsbane gas into my room, drag my unconscious body out to the Ancient Pear Tree in the courtyard, toss a filthy, stinking servant on top of me in the dirt, and frame me for infidelity right there in the open where every guest could witness my shame.

In my past life, that night had ruined me.

But this time, I was ready. I traced the faint, invisible outline of the pear blossom birthmark on my forehead. Let them come. I was going to tear their arrogant little plot to shreds.

Chapter 3

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