Chapter 8

Looking back on those years, I thought our love was unbreakable. As teens in the training camp, he'd shielded me from a berserk snow wolf, his arm ripped open to the bone by its fangs. He'd just grinned: "It's nothing. Just a scratch." On freezing nights, he'd given me the only sleeping bag, wrapping himself in a thin blanket by the fire to keep watch. Kneeling in the snow to propose, the frost-iron wolf fang gleaming under the moon: "Louisa, once I become Alpha, I'll make you the most revered Luna." For that promise, I'd gambled my entire youth. I'd knelt in my father's study for three days and nights, pledging the Frost Moon Pack's century-old honor to secure his final chance at becoming Alpha. Back then, moonlight seemed dipped in honey, the world holding only him and me. Until Elizabeth appeared. Everything changed. But those memories… held no pull for me now. Later, I heard Ronald stood outside that dinning hall for hours, deaf to Elizabeth's pleas and tears. He launched