Stella

On the night my husband’s assistant staged her 99th suicide threat, he hung my grandmother from a helicopter.
“Selena, apologize to Shirley publicly—across every platform—or I’ll drop her into the sea.”
Watching my grandmother’s terrified face suspended in midair, my voice trembled with pain:
“Elvis, just because I called her a homewrecker… you’d threaten Grandma’s life?”
Elvis smiled, his tone dripping with indulgence. “Shirley isn’t like you. She’s sensitive.”
“Besides, I’m only asking you to apologize. It doesn’t mean I’ve stopped loving you.”
Loving me?
I stared at the 999 intimate photos of him and Shirley on my phone, feeling as if my heart had been brutally stabbed.
If that was his idea of love, then I wanted no part of it.
I texted my mentor: “I accept the offer. I’ll go abroad for the design competition in seven days.”
In seven days, I’ll stage my death and disappear—where he can never find me again.

On my wedding day, my entire family received Iris’s desperate plea for help.
“Mom, Dad, Brother! I’ve been kidnapped, come save me, quick!”
Everyone panicked—including my fiancé, Theodore.
They interrupted the wedding ceremony to rush to Iris.
I begged them through tears not to go. I said it was a trick, something Iris had staged herself.
“The ceremony would have been over in ten more minutes. Can’t you just wait ten minutes?”
My parents called me a heartless, ungrateful wretch. My brother, Ron, pried my fingers from his tuxedo lapel.
“Chloe, stop being so selfish! Even if Iris isn’t your blood sister, how can you be so cruel?!”
“All you care about is your own wedding! Do you really want to see her die?!”
My fiancé looked at me with disappointment. “Let’s cancel the wedding for now.”
“I just realized… the one I care about more… is Iris.”
Watching their hurried figures disappear, I picked up a knife and locked myself in the bridal suite.

On our third wedding anniversary, the Alpha werewolf had to accompany his northern allies on a border patrol and couldn’t be with me.
So I went for my prenatal check-up alone, choosing a hospital under the Alpha’s name.
“I’m Luna to Alpha Kael, here for my prenatal appointment.”
The receptionist looked at me with confusion. “You are… who?”
I’d spent the last three years since our wedding mostly at home, focusing on my health to prepare for pregnancy, so it wasn’t surprising that Kael’s subordinates didn’t recognize me.
I was about to pull out our mate agreement as proof when a female wolf suddenly charged over and slapped me hard across the face—twice.
She was holding the bison-leather briefcase I had custom-made for Kael. Pointing a finger at my nose, she snarled:
“I’ve seen plenty of shameless strays like you, but none bold enough to come here and harass my Alpha!”
“Why don’t you go ask around—who really rules the Blackwood Forest? Get out of here now if you don’t want to die!”
A sharp, wrenching pain shot through my abdomen. I clutched my belly, forcing myself to explain through the discomfort: “This is mine and Kael’s hospital. I am Kael’s Luna…”
The woman let out a shrill, mocking laugh, then lifted her foot and kicked me brutally in the stomach.
“What a joke! Kael already told me his useless mate died long ago!”
“Where did you crawl out from, you stray? How dare you impersonate the Luna!”
That kick severed the last thread of life for my pup.
This foolish she-wolf had no idea—Kael was nothing but a stray my father picked up from the wilderness.
Every deed to this entire pack, and every asset Kael appears to own, bears only one name: mine, Alina.
Since Kael has betrayed me… I’ll grant you exactly what you wish for.

For the third time, Kael fled before the wedding—this time to deliver medicine to the neighbor girl he grew up with.
As compensation, the pack elders offered me two chests of rare ore and the deed to an island.
Someone, still hopeful, called Kael on speakerphone.
His careless voice echoed through the hall:
“Why bother with compensation? Ella loves me so much; she’ll come around as soon as I go back and sweet-talk her a little.”
“Sophia’s health is what matters now. Once she recovers, I’ll just hold another ceremony for Ella.”
The elders tried to explain, but the surrounding werewolves were all waiting to see the show—waiting to see how much humiliation I would swallow.
Just like the first two times.
But I’d had enough. And I’d lost all interest in Kael.
I kicked over the chest of ore and let my gaze fall on Kael’s uncle.
Then, I smiled.
“I heard the old Alpha left a will: whoever can claim me… becomes the next Alpha.”