Chapter 1 The Night I Died

POV: ADELE

I used to believe that love was quiet. I thought it was the subtle way my husband, Tristan, stood guard over me during pack gatherings, or how his firm hand felt resting against the small of my back when we addressed our people. I mistook his distant, stone-cold nature for the heavy burden of his crown. I convinced myself that if I gave him enough time, enough devotion, and enough gentleness, the stoic Alpha of the Blackthorn Pack would eventually love me back.

What a pathetic fool I was.

Love wasn't quiet. Love didn't leave a woman bleeding onto the cold marble floor of her own bedchamber while her husband stood by and watched.

The metallic taste of copper bursts violently against the back of my throat. I try to gasp, to draw a single thread of air into my starving lungs, but my chest feels as though it is trapped under a collapsing stone wall. My whole body violently shudders, every muscle seizing as I slip off the edge of the mattress and crash onto my knees.

Beside my trembling hands, my silver goblet lies shattered across the floor. Dark, rich wine pools over the pristine white rug, spreading outward like a crimson pool of death.

Wolfsbane.

The realization strikes me with a horror far deeper than the burning agony tearing through my insides. I drank from that goblet only moments ago, expecting nothing more than sweet wine to help me sleep. Instead, my wolf screams inside my mind, a desperate, dying cry that grows weaker with every frantic heartbeat as the poison destroys us from within.

I clutch my chest, burning from the inside out, a deadening coldness crawling up my skin. I am dying.

A heavy shadow falls across the doorway of my marital chamber.

Through the red haze of my failing vision, I force my head up. Tristan stands at the threshold. Broad-shouldered, imposing, and regal, he blocks the silver moonlight streaming in from the terrace windows. His handsome face is completely still, a mask of carved marble, utterly stripped of any warmth or concern.

Lilith stands right behind him, her slender hand resting with quiet intimacy against his arm.

Lilith looks down at me writhing on the floor, her dark eyes sparkling without a single flicker of surprise. There is no horror on her face, no panic, no frantic call for the pack healers. Only deep, patient satisfaction.

"Look at her, Tristan," Lilith whispers, her smooth voice carrying across the silent room like a cruel lullaby. "So fragile. So pathetic."

I reach out a trembling, blood-stained hand toward the man I gave my heart and soul to.

"Tristan..." I choke out, the plea barely escaping my ruined throat. "Help... me..."

Lilith lets out a soft, mocking laugh that slices straight through my heart. "He isn't going to save you, Adele. Why would he? You’ve already served your purpose."

She steps around Tristan, her silk gown rustling softly as she stops just out of reach of my desperate fingers.

"Did you really believe he loved you?" Lilith asks, tilting her head with mock pity. "Did you truly think an Alpha like Tristan would choose a weak, quiet girl like you over his fated mate?"

My mind reeled from the agony tearing my flesh apart. Fated mate?

"Before he ever placed that ring on your finger," Lilith continues, her eyes bright with victory, "we made a pact. Tristan needed your family's land and your warriors. He needed to merge your Silver Crown Pack with his Blackthorn Pack to make himself invincible. But your elders would never hand over their territory without a marriage. So, he took you."

Every word feels like a physical blade sinking deep into my chest, far more painful than the poison ravaging my organs.

"He married you, took your lands, united our armies, and became the most powerful Alpha alive," Lilith sneers, looking down at me like trash under her shoe. "And now that he holds absolute control... you are nothing but an obstacle. Once you're gone, he will reject your memory, mark me, and make me his true Luna."

No. No, please Goddess, no.

Devastation crashes over me in suffocating waves. Tears burn my eyes, mixing with the blood spilling past my lips. I drag my gaze away from Lilith, turning desperately to Tristan. I search his dark eyes for a sign, a flicker of denial, a flash of anger at her words, anything to prove that our entire life together wasn't built on a foundation of wicked lies.

"Tristan..." I whimper, my voice cracking with unbearable heartbreak. "Tell me... she's lying..."

Tristan doesn't move. He doesn't say a single word. He stands there in cold, stony silence, watching me drown in my own blood. He doesn't deny it. His silence is the final blow, shattering whatever remained of my soul.

Lilith turns to him with a sweet, victorious smile. "The problem has finally been removed, my Alpha. It's over."

My vision begins to blur at the edges, darkness creeping in from all sides. Through the haze, a single, terrifying question echoes in my fading mind.

Who put the Wolfsbane in my cup?

Lilith had spoken the cruel truth, but was it her hand that slipped the powder into my drink? Was it Tristan, executing the final piece of his cold calculation? Or was it someone else hiding in the shadows of this castle?

I will never know.

My arms give out. My forehead hits the cold marble floor. The final breath leaves my lungs.

In my last second of consciousness, I see Tristan break his stillness. He drops to his knees beside my limp body, his large hands reaching out toward my face, but as the dark consumes me, I cannot tell if he is reaching out to save me or simply watching me draw my last breath.

Then, everything goes black.

The agonizing pain dissolves into weightlessness. I float in a vast, silent void, stripped of my body, left only with the crushing weight of my betrayal.

Suddenly, a brilliant silver light blooms in the darkness. It radiates a sacred warmth that wraps gently around my broken spirit. From within the light steps a divine figure draped in shimmering moonlight.

The Moon Goddess.

"My child," her voice echoes directly within my soul, gentle yet absolute. "Your life was stolen by cruelty and deceit. Your blood cries for justice."

I fall to my knees in the spiritual realm, tears spilling freely down my face.

"I grant you a second chance," the Moon Goddess declares. "You shall return to the world of the living, before the vows are spoken, before the trap is closed. You will remember every pain, every secret, and every truth."

Thank you, my soul cries out. Thank you.

The silver light swirls around me, pulling me backward through time at terrifying speed. The darkness shatters into blinding white light.

Just before my eyes open to the living world, the Moon Goddess’s whisper rings one last time in my mind:

“This time, Adele, you will know who truly killed you.”