Chapter 2
After Colby Cruz was imprisoned in the Silver Cage, I didn’t let my guard down. To rewrite my fate, I immediately announced the severance of our mate bond and publicly rejected him in the grand hall of the Lycan court, using the formal vow format. I even gave up the opportunity to join the pack run in the Forbidden Forest, a rare chance for Lycans to strengthen their bonds. My plan was to leave the Lycan realm with my mother and explore the human world.
But five days later, at the Moonlight Banquet, I saw him again.
It was my mother, the former Lycan Queen. She couldn’t bear to see Colby suffer in the Silver Cage and had intervened to release him. Despite her efforts, his presence at the banquet was met with disdain. Word of his attempt to steal from the Lycan royal vault had spread, and most of the guests regarded him with contempt.
I paid him no mind. He was no longer my concern.
Yet, when our eyes met briefly, I saw the deep-seated resentment and murderous intent in his gaze. It was then I realized—he remembered. Just like me, he had retained the memories of our past.
The banquet continued, with werewolves mingling and exchanging stories, the air filled with laughter and the scent of roasted meat and fresh herbs. But the atmosphere shifted when a commotion broke out at the edge of the crowd.
At my signal, two warriors from the Lycan guard dragged forward a strikingly beautiful woman.
“Princess Eleanora,” one of them said, bowing slightly. “We found this rogue lurking near the Lycan borders. She’s been causing trouble. We’ve brought her to you for judgment.”
The woman lifted her head, her eyes blazing with fury as they met mine.
“Eleanora Vasquez!” she spat. “You heartless wretch! Do you have no fear of the Moon Goddess’s wrath?!”
It was Laylah Jacobs, Colby’s so-called true love. A rogue who had once been a Delta in a distant pack, she had been living off Colby’s resources, barely scraping by.
I glanced at her coldly, refusing to let her provoke me. But out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Colby’s expression. His eyes were soft, filled with a warmth I had never seen directed at me.
In our past life, for three hundred years, he had treated me with nothing but cold indifference. No matter how much I sacrificed for him, he never looked at me with anything other than disdain. Even after our son Mylo was born, his eyes remained hard and resentful.
I had always thought his coldness was a result of his tragic past—the loss of his pack, the betrayal he had endured. I had tried everything to win his affection, even opening my mother’s vault to let him take whatever he wanted.
But his response had been the same.
“Just material possessions,” he had sneered. “Are you trying to flaunt your status?”
I remembered the look in his eyes—the contempt, the dismissal.
Now, Laylah continued to shout, her voice rising above the murmurs of the crowd.
“Eleanora! Answer me!”
She struggled against the guards, her face flushed with anger.
“You know Colby has struggled to regain his strength since he lost his pack! He only took from the vault because he didn’t want to be a burden to you! If you were so unwilling to share, you could have just taken it back! Why did you have to lock him up in the Silver Cage?!”
“He’s your mate! Everything in the vault would have been his eventually! He just took a little early! What’s the harm in that?!”
“You threw him into the Silver Cage and nearly destroyed him! Do you have no heart?!”
Her voice cracked, tears welling in her eyes.
Her words stirred whispers among the guests. Some looked sympathetic, others disapproving.
“I heard Alpha Colby was once a rogue,” one murmured. “His pack was destroyed by a rival, and he barely escaped with his life. His strength has never fully recovered.”
“Still, stealing from the royal vault is unforgivable.”
“But if he was doing it for Princess Eleanora, maybe he had good intentions…”
I ignored their whispers. They didn’t understand what I had been through. In my past life, I had pitied Colby for his suffering and tried to help him at every turn. But when I was gravely injured by rogues and left to die, I finally realized—not every pitiable soul deserves compassion.
I stepped forward, towering over Laylah as she knelt on the ground.
“If you’re so generous,” I said coldly, “why don’t you offer up your own pack’s treasures to redeem him?”
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