Serena POV:
After the wedding, I settled into my life at the pack estate.
I spent my days in the massive library, studying ancient gene runes.
For months, he remained a creature of the night, returning to the estate only when he was sure I had retired, his presence a fleeting scent of ozone and paper in the morning air.
But slowly, things changed.
My White Wolf aura naturally calmed his restless spirit.
He started coming home early, sitting in the living room while I read.
I wanted to help him walk again.
I secretly read the ancient texts of the pack Healers.
I learned how to use mountain herbs and pressure points to draw out silver poison.
What I discovered, however, was that the silver in his legs could never be fully eradicated—only suppressed. My healing power acted as a constant filter, pushing the poison deeper into dormancy, but never destroying it entirely. As long as I stayed near him, the silver would remain dormant.
Every night, before bed, I offered to massage his legs.
"It will help with the muscle cramps," I told him softly.
He hesitated, but let me do it.
For half an hour every night, I pressed my hands into his cold skin.
I would channel the nascent warmth of my bloodline through my fingertips, a silent, secret transfusion into his chilled limbs.
One night, as my fingers pressed a spot behind his knee, a spark flared between us.
It was a jolt, sharp and clean as lightning, that shot from my fingertips into the core of his being.
Hunter gasped, a harsh, rattling sound in the quiet room, and a sudden surge of vitality flooded his veins.
He grabbed my wrist, his eyes dark with desire.
That night, our relationship shifted.
We became closer.
Under my daily care, the silver poison slowly receded into dormancy.
By our second year of marriage, Hunter stood up from his wheelchair.
His Inner Wolf woke from its coma.
We started walking together under the moonlight.
He would hold my hand as we patrolled the forest borders.
I was happy.
My own secret life was quiet but fulfilling. I submitted research papers on ancient rune sequences to academic journals under a pseudonym. My work caught the attention of Professor Vance at the Silvermoon Lycan Academy in Europe, who began mentoring me remotely. He had no idea I was the Luna of the Bloodmoon Pack—only that I was a brilliant, anonymous scholar.
My life felt full and complete.
Until our third year of marriage.
Selena came back.
My Beta parents called us to the main pack house for an urgent dinner.
I walked into the dining room and froze.
Selena was standing there, wearing a tight red dress.
She was swathed in a scent of synthetic rosewater and something cloying, the kind of cheap perfume sold in city drugstores.
As soon as she saw Hunter, she burst into loud tears.
She ran across the room and threw herself into his arms.
"Hunter! I was so scared out there!" she sobbed, burying her face in his chest.
My Beta parents wiped fake tears from their eyes.
"She has suffered so much, Alpha," my father said.
I waited for Hunter to push her away.
I waited for him to tell her she was a traitor.
But Hunter just stood there.
A flicker of confusion crossed his face as he caught her scent—it was faint, almost scoured away, but beneath the cheap perfume, he seemed to detect the harsh, metallic tang of old blood and damp earth. The scent of a desperate flight. The hesitation was but a moment, a breath, before the tide of his own guilt washed it away.
He slowly wrapped his arms around her waist and patted her back.
"It is okay now," he murmured.
My chest felt tight, like a heavy stone was crushing my lungs.
After that night, everything fell apart.
Hunter used the pack's resources to shower Selena with luxuries. New clothes, a penthouse in the city, a team of personal stylists. She walked into his top-floor office every day, acting like she owned the place.
Worse, he began dismissing my academic ambitions. When Professor Vance's invitation to join the Silvermoon Academy arrived, Hunter intercepted the letter. "You're the Luna," he said coldly, tossing it into the fire. "Your place is here, managing the estate, not gallivanting across Europe."
He took my research notes—the ones I had secretly submitted under my pseudonym—and gave them to Selena to present as her own at a pack symposium. She stood at the podium, stammering through my words, while Hunter beamed at her from the front row.
I confronted him in his study that evening.
"She is taking my work, Hunter. My research. Why are you letting her do this?" I asked, my voice shaking.
Hunter did not even look up from his paperwork.
"She had a hard time in the Rogue lands, Serena," he said casually.
"She is your sister. Think of this as compensation for her suffering. Don't be greedy."
I stared at him, and felt something vital within me begin to cool and harden, turning to stone.
He was compensating her for running away, by stealing my life's work.
That was the beginning of the end.
The end would come sooner than anyone expected — and it would start with a broken bridge and a lake full of silver.
