Chapter 2
Fiona's POV
The images on the screen grew more lurid, more explicit by the second.
Caleb tore Emily's dress open, exposing the lace lingerie beneath. He left one crimson kiss-mark after another across her body, like a man stamping his seal, staking his claim.
"…Caleb, do you love her? Fiona—that dull little four-eyes—do you love her?"
Emily rocked her hips, panting out my name.
"Are you joking?" Caleb sneered, his movements turning rougher. "That cheap little half-breed—how could she ever compare to how sweet you are, my darling? Oh! You're incredible, baby, I can't hold on much longer!"
With one abandoned scream from Emily, their naked bodies convulsed together, tangled as one, reaching the peak at the very same moment.
A deathly silence fell over the conference room, broken only by the relentless sounds from the screen.
Every eye was fixed on Caleb up on the stage, brimming with shock, contempt, and disgust.
Caleb stood at the podium, his face shifting from its initial stupefaction to a ghastly white, and finally to a livid, purplish red. He trembled all over, the veins bulging at his temples as he glared at the remote in my hand.
"Fiona!" he roared, his voice thick with fury and shame. "Shut that video off! Turn it off!"
I rose slowly to my feet, removing the heavy round-framed glasses to reveal a pair of eyes that glimmered like amber—a grayish gold.
"Caleb," I said, watching him calmly, not a ripple of emotion in my tone. "I've already told you. Unless it's the remote in my hand, your only option is to smash the entire console to pieces by force."
"Wouldn't you like to try? For a noble, pure-blooded wolf like you, that should be effortless, shouldn't it?"
"Oh, I almost forgot—you're the most favored candidate for the next cabinet of the Coexistence Council for Humans and Werewolves. Surely, Professor Thorne, you wouldn't violate the terms of the treaty by baring your most primal, most violent wolf nature in front of all these human dignitaries?"
"That would make everything you possess today—your reputation, your standing, your academic achievements, your elegant attire, your refined taste—look so foolish and absurd!"
"Goodbye, you vile, self-righteous hypocrite!"
I pressed the loop-playback button on the remote and let a mysterious smile cross my lips.
Then I gathered up my skirt and vanished through a side door in a flash.
I raced down the long corridor of the library basement, shoved open the heavy fire door, and hid myself away in the place that was my tomb—
The Rare Manuscripts Cataloguing Room.
One hand pressed to my heart, I felt its wild, erratic pounding, and every breath carried the rusty taste of blood.
I leaned back against the cold iron door, slid slowly down its surface, and collapsed onto the dust-covered floor.
Trembling.
Trembling I could not stop.
"Fiona, you were too naive."
I peeled away the red hair I had worn as a disguise for so many years and faced the mirror, revealing hair of purest, flawless gold.
In the eyes of the world, it was the ultimate mark of nobility—yet now it served only to seal my wretched fate.
Once, I too had believed Caleb would be my angel, my light.
That was the third winter after my parents disappeared. The old Sterling manor was as cold and dank as an icehouse. My uncle Arthur had taken me in, but his eyes always held a glint of calculation and greed.
Back then, I was like a hedgehog stripped of all its spines, shivering in a world full of malice.
Then Caleb appeared.
He stood beneath the mistletoe in a clean white shirt, smiling as he said to me, "Fiona, your eyes are beautiful—like amber. Don't always keep your head down. You deserve to be seen."
I thought this gentle, cultured professor would be like a knight from a fairy tale, pulling me up out of the abyss.
For him, I sheathed all my sharp edges and learned to be a docile fiancée.
I endured the mockery of my cousin Victoria, endured my uncle's cold glances, even endured the flashes of impatience Caleb let slip now and then.
I thought that if I were only good enough, obedient enough, I might earn a little sliver of genuine feeling in return.
And what did it get me?
"Ugh…"
A violent spasm seized my heart, as though some invisible giant hand had clenched around it.
I curled up in agony, my right hand clawing at my chest.
This pain came not only from betrayal.
It came, even more, from this—
The awakening of a bloodline I could not yet control.
As my emotions surged violently—rage, grief, humiliation—the dormant power within me was stirring awake. My vision began to blaze red, and deep within my once-black pupils, a dazzling layer of gold began faintly to glow.
It was the power of my mother's people, the Golden Wolves—the most ancient and mighty healing blood of all.
The air around me grew thick, and the books on the shelves began to stir of their own accord, rustling though there was no wind.
I gritted my teeth, my nails sinking deep into my palms, and a call rose up in my mind—the last words my mother ever left me.
"Fiona, remember what your mother tells you."
"If those greedy ones ever learn that you carry the Sacred Healing Blood, the most powerful gift a half-blood child can possess, you will face endless calamity."
"You must hide this pure golden hair, wear the glasses, play the fool, conceal your gifts. Do it until you find the way to unlock the Forbidden Book of God and gain the power to protect yourself."
The blood of the Golden Wolves was rejecting my fragile human body; every heartbeat felt as if it were tearing my veins apart. If I couldn't calm it soon, I might go feral right here, on the spot, exposing those golden eyes.
"I have to get… to the Forbidden Section…"
Bracing myself against the wall, I struggled to my feet.
At the deepest corner of the cataloguing room stood an unremarkable bookshelf.
I stumbled over to it and keyed in a complex string of numbers.
With a click, the shelf slid apart to either side, revealing a dark staircase that led down into the depths.
That was the absolute forbidden zone of St. Mary's University Library—the Silver Moon Forbidden Section.
They said it housed every taboo piece of knowledge in the history of the wolf race, and that not even the university president held a key.
But I knew.
Because every time I lost control of my emotions, I could hear a call coming from there. It was a ward left behind by my mother's people—the only place that could soothe the golden beast within me.
I made my way down the stairs, one step at a time.
Sweat soaked through my clothes, and a film of white mist fogged my glasses.
At last, I reached the bottom.
There stood a massive stone door, carved all over with ancient runes.
I stretched out a trembling hand and pressed it to the stone.
"I am Fiona Sterling," I whispered weakly. "By the blood of the Golden Wolf, I ask for… sanctuary."
The runes on the door lit up in an instant, glowing with a soft golden light.
A cool current seeped out from the seams of the door and enveloped my whole body in a moment.
And at that very instant, from within the darkness deep inside the Forbidden Section, came a low, guttural wolf's howl.
It was no ordinary howl.
It was a roar from the arctic ice fields, the cry of an apex predator.
Then a tall figure stepped out from the shadows.
Behind me, the heavy runed stone door swung slowly shut, sealing away utterly both the clamor of the outside world and the feverish heat within me.
The air in the Forbidden Section was thick with a scent both ancient and dry—the smell of parchment thousands of years old, mingled with long-dried ink.
But now, that scent was rudely torn apart by another, far more overpowering and biting.
Cedar.
Cold, sharp cedar, carrying the chill of a Siberian gale—mingled with a trace of something that made my heart lurch… the smell of blood.
I clung to the shelf and turned my head with difficulty.
Beneath the dim, ever-burning lamps of the Forbidden Section, a tall man leaned against the shelf at the farthest end.
He looked terrible—yet his features were so damnably beautiful.
His black trench coat was torn open in one place, revealing beneath it a white shirt soaked through with blood.
Strands of silver hair fell in disarray across his forehead, hiding half of one eye—but they could not hide those irises, deep and blue as arctic glaciers.
At this moment, two clusters of pale blue wolf-fire burned within those eyes.
Wary, savage—yet the instant they fell upon me, a flicker of astonishment crossed them.
"You…"
His voice was hoarse, as if there were grit caught in his throat.
