After I Faked My Death, They All Lost Their Minds

I was the lowest-ranked Omega in the Moen pack. However, my fiancé Silas Moen was the Alpha who stood above us all. I thought the bond the Moon Goddess had made between us could never be shaken. That certainty lasted until his long-lost childhood sweetheart returned. Brynn, the flawless, highborn werewolf with an ancient bloodline. In front of my parents and brothers, before more than a thousand members of our pack, he made his announcement. "I, Silas Moen, as Alpha, reject you. "Brynn and I were promised to each other long ago. She's back now, and you should step aside for her." The instant he finished, something inside my chest ripped apart. I collapsed onto my knees on the altar's frozen stone and tried to scramble toward him to demand an explanation. Nobody in that silent crowd stepped forward. My father looked away and said coldly, "Brynn has already suffered for years out there. You shouldn't fight her over this." My eldest brother, Rian Valentine, blocked my way. "Talia, it's time you saw yourself clearly. You're no match for Brynn. "If you insist on opposing this mating, I'll sever our family ties." The System detected that Silas's affection level for me had fallen to zero and activated automatically. [Talia, this assignment has failed. Your heart is predicted to stop in ten days, after which a new body will be created for you. Do you confirm that you wish to abandon this assignment?] Even as I lay facedown in the frozen mud, I couldn't help laughing. Failed? No. I could finally leave. I had no strength left to love, but death would set me free. Chapter 1 Rian dragged me down off the altar. He hauled me up by the arm and shoved me into the back of a sled at the edge of the territory. Afraid I would cause trouble if I stayed, the pack elders ordered Rian to take me away at once. Rian tugged his fur collar tighter before saying, "Go home. After Brynn's marking ceremony, apologize to Silas. Maybe he'll let this go." I looked at him. "What did I do wrong?" He frowned. "You humiliated him in public. Brynn has barely returned and you're already making a scene. Talia, you're not young anymore. Can't you show some sense?" I shook my head in bitter self-mockery. Ever since Brynn Viperis returned to the pack, my mate, my father, and my brother had fallen completely under her sway. They put her first in everything and treated me like a stranger. That was when the cold mechanical voice sounded in my head. [Talia. Assignment failure detected. Alpha Silas Moen's affection level for you has fallen to zero. The transfer channel will open in ten days. End your heartbeat at your discretion, and I will provide you with a new body.] I eased my nails out of my palm. Was the body that bore the name Talia Valentine really about to disappear? [Does the host confirm abandonment of this assignment?] [Confirmed.] [Recorded. Transfer channel opens in ten days.] I exhaled and began to look forward to the death that would set me free. Rian kept staring at me, clearly uneasy. "What are you plotting now? In ten days Silas will pray to the Moon Goddess again, and Brynn will formally become his Luna. I will not have you ruining their marking ceremony!" I lowered my head, unwilling to engage with him anymore. In my mind, I asked the System one last question. [In ten days all I have to do is kill myself?] [Correct. The death of the host's body triggers the transfer.] I couldn't bear to spend even one more day in that pack. So I reached for the sled's side door and pulled it open. Wind and snow burst inside, stinging my face raw. I planted one foot beneath me, ready to shift and escape. Rian lunged across and seized my arm with enough force to numb half my body. He bore down on me, one hand locked around my wrist while the other wrenched the door back and slammed it shut. "Talia Valentine, what the hell are you doing? Have you lost your mind?" His voice came out fast and hoarse. "All I did was warn you, and now you're throwing yourself out of a moving sled? Trying to die?" His claws bit painfully into my arm. I could feel his whole arm shaking against mine. "Let go," I said calmly, meeting his frightened gaze. My calm only made him angrier. He roared at me, "Let go so you can kill yourself? You're a grown she-wolf. You shouldn't be this reckless! "No, I see it now. Maybe you're doing it on purpose, to take our attention off Brynn. Don't you dare!" I ignored his shouting and tore myself out of his grip with all my strength. The next second, I caught him off guard, shot to my feet, and rolled off the speeding sled. My mate's affection for me had fallen to zero. That betrayal had already left me bitterly disappointed. My family's betrayal was even more devastating. I didn't want another second in that pack. A heavy thud sounded behind me. Rian had thrown himself off the sled after me. Without even checking his own injuries, he lunged at me with bloodshot eyes. "Talia, has a witch put a curse on you? Have you gone rabid?" He looked me over anxiously. "Let me see. Tell me where you're hurt." He had caught up with me after all. I hadn't expected him to be so determined. I was lucky. I came off with only minor injuries. Something had happened to Rian's leg. If the Rian who used to care about me and protect me had been hurt, I'd have been at his side already. Now I only gave him a mocking smile. "Don't worry. I only want to be alone. I'm not going back to bully your precious Brynn." Chapter 2 His eyes went wide, as though he'd never expected to hear that from me. I turned to go. He caught up from behind and seized my arm again, his voice much gentler. "Talia, don't do anything rash. "Don't fight Brynn for the Luna's position. There are plenty of eligible males in the pack. Promise not to cause trouble, and Father and I will find you the best mate we can other than Silas. You won't be losing anything." The sheer absurdity made me turn back to face him. "All of you seem to have forgotten that Silas was my mate to begin with. "He betrayed me. Why should I be the one to step aside? Does the fact that I am a low-ranked Omega give him the right to break his oath to the Moon Goddess?" Rian's mouth opened and nothing came out. He lowered his head, and I couldn't tell whether what was on his face was guilt or something else. A memory from long ago surfaced. It was my second year in the Moen pack, and the pack held a winter hunt. I was too weak then. I couldn't keep pace or hold prey in my jaws. For three straight days, I caught nothing. On the fourth evening, I returned to camp empty-handed and found Rian by the fire with an entire skinned deer before him. He saw me, said nothing, cut off a haunch, and held it out to me. He was barely more than a boy himself that year, still half-grown and hungry. He went hungry through that entire hunt and gave me more than half of everything he caught. That lasted until Brynn arrived. Now every prime kill he made went straight to her. He no longer spared me a glance. "Nothing to say, Rian?" His throat bobbed. Then he caught my arm again and pulled me toward the sled. Once we were aboard, he looked at me as though he had finally made up his mind. "Ten days. Just ten days. Once Brynn gets what she wants, I'll restore your honor." The sled started again. I leaned back against the seat and looked out the window. The snowfield stretched white to the horizon, with moonlight glaring coldly across it. The intimate marks Silas had left on me the night before the ceremony were fading, each one a reminder that my mate had rejected me. I found myself thinking about my true origins. I came from a pack destroyed long ago. I was the sole remnant of its bloodline. The System found me when I was close to death and told me. [Talia, all you have to do is make the next Alpha of the Moen pack love you, and you'll live. You'll have a family, status, a mate, everything.] I said yes. So the System led Sterling Valentine to that snowfield. When my father picked me up, I was frostbitten all over and shaking in his arms. He said, "Don't be frightened. The Moen pack is your home now." He took me back to the Valentine home. My mother made me broth while Rian crouched beside the bed and stroked my hair. I ran fevers several times that winter, and every time somebody sat up with me all night. I thought I was the luckiest child alive. I had a home. I had a mother, a father, a brother, and later, Silas. I worked to complete my assignment and forge genuine bonds with them. In the process, I truly came to love them. But after Brynn returned, every trace of that warmth vanished overnight. She was the orphaned daughter of my father's old friend, and Silas and Rian had known her since childhood. They all agreed that Brynn had suffered through years of exile and deserved to be compensated. So she took my room the moment she arrived. I protested and questioned them, only to have my family and mate accuse me of being unreasonable. My father said, "Haven't we favored you for enough years already? Why can't you yield this one thing to poor Brynn?!" The tenth time I grew angry over the intimacy between him and Brynn, Silas said with weary resignation, "Talia, don't you think you're worrying over nothing?" Even when Brynn took the first gift Rian had ever given me, he said, "She's suffered enough out there. You have other gifts." They looked at her as if she were a treasure they had thought lost forever. From the day she came back I lived in fear. Sure enough, at my own mating ceremony with Silas, Brynn finished stealing everyone who mattered to me. Each new disappointment added to the last until all I wanted was to flee the pack that had once given me such warmth. The sled stopped in front of the Valentine house. I got down and went straight in without looking back. Warm yellow firelight spilled through the windows, carrying voices from inside. Rian called after me with a wounded edge to his voice. "Talia." I didn't stop. His voice roughened. "I hurt my leg for you. You're the best one here with herbs. Don't you want to treat it?" I stopped and turned around. He was standing in the snow with the blood on his trouser leg frozen hard, holding on to the sled. His face wore an aggrieved expression I had never seen before. I gave a scornful laugh. "You jumped after me because you were afraid I'd run away and go after Brynn. I didn't ask you to jump. That was your choice." I turned and pushed the door open. My father sat beside the fireplace, writing in its glow. As his pen scratched across the page, he murmured, "...the gown in moon-white, to suit her bloodline. The ceremony on the east side of the altar, out of the wind. Extra offerings of berries and honey." He was writing to Silas. As one of the elders, he fussed over every detail of the marking ceremony, terrified that Brynn and her noble bloodline might be slighted. "The gown should be formal. Something that flatters her figure." He added that line underneath. I stood in the doorway a long time. The roaring fire stung my eyes until they turned red. I turned and escaped into my own room. Chapter 3 I sat against the door all night, reliving every memory I shared with them. Even though I had decided to leave, part of me still ached to let them go. Late that night something struck me as wrong. Brynn's scent was too strong. A true descendant of an ancient bloodline would have no need to flood an entire room with her scent just to announce her presence. I hurriedly pulled my mother's old tomes and herbal guides from the shelf, then searched them line by line in the moonlight seeping through the window. Some tinctures could temporarily elevate the scent of a low-ranked wolf to mimic a higher rank. Certain herbs, mixed together, could counterfeit the scent of a bloodline. I seemed to have uncovered a staggering secret. I wrote down the names of several ingredients, rummaged through the corner until I found them all, and mixed a small vial of reversing agent. Once the patrol's footsteps faded, I threw on a cloak and climbed out the window. Brynn's window wasn't locked. I pushed it open and climbed in. She was deeply asleep and breathing evenly. I picked up one of her hairs and touched a drop of the liquid to it. The overpowering golden scent dissolved at once. From beneath it rose the sour smell of old leather, tainted by something rank. I took half a step back, my heart pounding wildly. Fake. It was all fake. That noble bloodline was only a shell. Beneath it lay the sour rot unique to a mongrel wolf. For a second my knuckles went white around the vial. I desperately wanted to expose her, but I didn't have complete proof. She could invent any excuse, and they would believe her because they always did. I stepped back and the floorboard creaked under me. Brynn rolled over. I froze, holding my breath. Only when her breathing settled again did I move. ... The next morning, someone pounding on my door woke me. Silas was standing at my bed with a face like a storm. Brynn sobbed beside him, her shoulders shaking and her eyes swollen. My father was in the doorway, and Rian had pushed in behind him, still limping. "You went into Brynn's room last night," Silas said as the crushing weight of his Alpha dominance bore down on me. My heart had gone numb with hurt. I didn't hide anything. "So what if I did?" "What did you give her to drink?" "I took a single strand of her hair." I lifted my chin at the corner of the table. "I was curious about what a noble ancient bloodline smelled like. I did nothing else." Fury filled my father's face, sharpened by intense disappointment. "Talia, you're lying. I never imagined the daughter I raised would brew a tincture using dark magic." His accusation cut deep, but I forced myself to answer. "I don't know what you're talking about. I took one hair and did nothing else." I looked at Brynn. Her eyes were wet, but the smug challenge in her gaze was impossible to hide. So I understood. This was Brynn hitting back. "Talia, I know you're jealous of me, but I haven't done anything wrong. I only came back to my own pack. If you want to be Luna, I can give the position back to you. Would that be enough?" Her wounded, obedient little act made my father, my brother, and Silas even angrier. Silas stood over the bed and looked down at me without a trace of warmth. "Talia, stop fantasizing about becoming Luna. Since you refuse to behave, you can patrol the border." Rian's head snapped up. "Alpha, border patrol is staffed entirely by males. Talia is too weak!" Silas glanced sideways at him. "Are you defying me?" Rian's clenched fist loosened, then tightened again. At last, he lowered his head. "...I wouldn't dare." I leaned against the headboard, almost laughing at their blindness even as it broke my heart. I stared into Silas's eyes, the ones that had once mesmerized me, and said steadily, "If you insist on forcing me to the border... then I would rather leave the pack." Chapter 4 My father's stern expression vanished beneath disbelief. "Talia. Is that what you actually want?" "Yes. You should never have picked me up." His beard trembled with rage; grief and fury filled his eyes. "Fine. Fine. Talia, Rian and I spoiled you. It's time you learned a lesson. With a temper like yours, Silas wouldn't choose you as Luna even if you truly had a noble bloodline!" Rian took his arm. "Father, don't say things you don't mean." My father shook him off, took several breaths, and looked at me again. "Are you sure? You won't take back what you just said?" "I'm certain." My father's face darkened at once. He summoned the patrol leader. "Take her to the border. She starts patrolling immediately and is not to miss a single day." They marched me out of the house. The System spoke again. [Host, the transfer channel opens in ten days. Why provoke your family now and get yourself sent to the border?] I was quiet for a moment and didn't look up. [I can't stay in that house. Every extra day in it hurts.] [Only that?] [...No. A lot of rogues pass through the border, and they hear things. I want to know what Brynn actually did while she was out there.] The System was quiet for a moment. [...Understood. As long as it doesn't affect the transfer, I won't interfere.] The snow along the border lay far deeper than it did in the heart of the territory. I had to wrench each boot free with every step. The wind came across the low hills and numbed my whole face. I patrolled for several days and nearly walked into a trap another pack had set. On the fourth evening, as I skirted a hollow in the snow, I heard movement below. A woman in a worn cloak was trapped in the pit, a trap made from animal bone pinning one leg. I pulled her out and dressed the wound. I had just pressed the cloth to her wound when she seized my sleeve and sniffed twice. Her expression changed. "You're from the Moen pack." "I am. Why?" "Then why do you smell of..." She stopped halfway, pulled her hand back and looked at me warily. "Did she send you to silence me?" Sensing that the witch knew something, I pressed her to explain. The witch didn't answer. She braced herself against the wall of snow, edged back half a step, and grimaced in pain. Only after I swore by the Moon Goddess that I meant her no harm did she lean in to smell my sleeve again. Her brows knotted with disgust. "You've been near Brynn, that oathbreaker." I stared at her. "She's the new Luna my fiancé chose." Most of the guardedness went out of her eyes. "Then we have an enemy in common." She reached beneath her cloak, produced a small wooden vial with only a little liquid left inside, and held it out to me. "Smell it. Is it familiar?" I barely breathed it in before an overwhelming presence bore down on me. It was the scent of an ancient bloodline, identical to Brynn's! "She stole from me," the witch said harshly. "Thirty years. I spent thirty years learning how to make the scent of a low-ranked bloodline pass for an ancient wolf's. I let her shelter with me for one night out of kindness, and by morning my entire cabinet was empty!" Chapter 5 On the day of the marking ceremony I was on border patrol. Just after dawn the pack's patrol found me and said the Alpha had ordered every member of the pack to witness it. They marched me back to the territory. Pack members crowded every inch of ground around the altar. Brynn stood beside Silas in a moon-white robe, her golden hair falling loose. She looked every inch the highborn beauty. I stood unsteadily off to one side. I had barely eaten in days, and almost none of my strength remained. Rian looked up at me. His gaze swept over my face, and the indifference in his eyes faltered. Silas saw me too. His gaze flickered over my gaunt, sallow face. It lasted only a heartbeat. Brynn leaned into him and whispered, "Silas, Talia looks frightening. Does she still hate me?" Silas looked away and gave the order coldly. "Talia, don't get any ideas. You are not ruining this ceremony. I'll have people watching you." A desolate laugh slipped out of me. "Don't worry. I came bearing a gift for the two of you." I stepped aside, and the witch came up through the crowd. She had changed into a clean, dark-gray cloak. A rune chain circled her wrist, and the sigil at her waist blazed in the firelight. It was the sigil of the Witch of the Sacred Spring. Her rank stood two levels above even that of our pack's finest herbalist. The moment Brynn saw her, her face changed and she shrank back. The witch stopped below the altar and looked up at Brynn. "Daughter of House Viperis. It's been a long time. Don't you think it's time to return what you stole?" The crowd fell silent as every gaze shifted between the Witch of the Sacred Spring and Brynn. Brynn forced tears into her eyes. "I don't know you..." The witch pulled the wooden vial out of her sleeve and held it up. "The night you slept in my hut, you took my tincture. Do I have to say what for?" Brynn shook her head in panic, tears streaming as she clung to Silas's arm for protection. "No... I never did..." Before Silas could issue an order, the Witch of the Sacred Spring poured a second liquid into the wooden vial. A bitter odor drifted over the altar. The golden light around Brynn began to flicker violently as the faint sour scent of a low-ranked wolf tainted her noble aura. The pack broke into an uproar. The witch fixed Brynn with a razor-sharp stare. "A stolen noble bloodline cannot last forever. One dose of reversing agent will reveal your true nature. Dare to try it, Brynn?" My father and Rian frowned, their gazes shifting from the vial in her hand to me. My nails bit into my palms. I refused to admit that a sliver of hope still lived inside me. Then my father shouted, "Talia, you joined forces with an outsider to slander the Luna. You've lost your mind!" Silas was silent for only a moment before saying, "A she-wolf banished from this territory and a witch of unknown origin have no right to speak at this altar. Take them away." I unclenched my hand, a bitter smile curving my lips. Of course. My father pointed at me furiously. "Talia refuses to repent. We cannot go easy on her this time." Silas turned his face away as though he didn't want to see me. "Five lashes. Then the dungeon until the ceremony is over." Rian's head snapped up. He stepped forward with his fists clenched, but the crushing weight of Silas's Alpha dominance stopped him cold. He looked away, his clenched fists whitening at the knuckles, and said nothing more. The witch tried to stop them, but with her wound still unhealed, all she could do was watch as they brought out the whip. I didn't cry out once as the lashes fell. After the fifth lash, my back burned as if it were on fire. Compared with the pain inside my chest, it was almost nothing. They dragged me into the dungeon, and the iron door shut and locked. A horn sounded outside. The ceremony on the altar had begun. When the hymn to the Moon Goddess began, I leaned against the frozen wall. My lash wounds pressed into the rough stone, and every breath set my back burning. [Host, it's time. You may prepare to transfer.] The System's electronic voice sounded in my head, and I exhaled in relief. The ceremony hymn seeped through the gap beneath the door. I closed my eyes, pressed my wolf claws to my chest, and slowly bore down. Warm blood ran down between my fingers, and my heart stopped for good. On the altar, Silas was sinking his fangs into the back of Brynn's neck. The instant his bite left its mark, he should have felt elated. Instead, something seemed to rip his chest open from within. His strength vanished, and he dropped to his knees on the altar as his own wolf screamed inside his head. A scent he knew intimately, mingled with blood, drifted from the direction of the dungeon.