Chapter 6
Leaving the arena, I didn’t spare Ethan a single glance.
All the love, hate, and disappointment had turned to ash the moment I discovered the fake mark.
All I wanted now was to leave this suffocating place.
“Sophia, where are you going?” Ethan jumped off the stretcher.
He started after me, a hint of panic in his voice.
I stopped but didn’t turn around.
“Anywhere you’re not.” My voice was as still and dead as a frozen lake.
Just then, Gabriel came to my side.
He spoke to me with a tone of respect and equality. “Sophia, perhaps you remember. Three years ago, at the Continental Alpha Summit, the Shadowmoon Pack’s territory was challenged. You were the one who stood up and defused the entire dispute with your intelligence and diplomacy. I’ve remembered you ever since. A light like yours shouldn’t be dimmed by such foolish plots and betrayal.”
He paused, his deep eyes looking at me with genuine sincerity.
“My pack, the Northern Spire, will always be open to you. I ask for nothing in return, only to offer you a safe haven until you find your own path.”
I finally turned, truly looking at this man for the first time.
As my gaze met his, a powerful sense of destiny resonated deep in my wolf’s soul.
It was a strange resonance, like two long-lost pieces of a puzzle finally clicking into place.
I thought of the torment I had just endured in the trial, of my ridiculous, fabricated role as Luna.
The pack I had given everything for, the mate I had loved, the duties I had fulfilled…
It was all a sham.
Enough.
I was done.
I decided to leave it all behind.
“Thank you, Gabriel. I accept your offer.” I had made my choice.
We turned to leave.
Bella, meanwhile, was as repulsive as ever.
She ran to Ethan, sobbing as she grabbed his arm.
With a victor’s tone, she said, “Ethan, forget her, let her go! I’m the one who truly loves you, I can be your Luna! Didn’t you always say she was too strong-willed, that she wasn’t worthy of you? This is perfect!”
Ethan’s POV
Ethan watched Sophia’s retreating back.
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Chapter 6
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Her silhouette, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Gabriel, looked painfully right.
As if they were always meant to be together.
An invisible hand squeezed his heart.
The mark was fake. The truth left him shocked, ashamed, and terrified.
They had performed a real mating ceremony.
So why did the mark turn out to be fake?
His Luna wasn’t his at all.
He wanted to run after her, to drag her back no matter the cost.
But Bella’s words clung to him like a curse.
He thought of Sophia’s cold, empty eyes, of her “perfect” synchronicity with Gabriel in the arena.
Most of all, the image of Bella’s dead mother was seared into his mind.
And Bella’s heart-wrenching accusation echoed in his ears: “You let her die!”
He stopped. He didn’t follow.
Back in the Alpha’s citadel, Ethan was a wreck.
He locked himself in his study, trying to convince himself that Sophia’s betrayal and coldness had caused all of this.
Just then, his Beta, Eric, walked in, his expression grim. He held an encrypted data drive.
“Alpha, this is the data recovered from the arena’s main console… It’s the operational log from before Bella hit the emergency button. And… there’s an audio file she tried to delete.”
Ethan took the drive and plugged it in.
An audio waveform appeared on the screen. He hit play.
It was a recording of Bella and her mother.
“Mom, just do it for me! All you have to do is go to Ethan and tell him Sophia threatened you…”
“Bella! Are you insane? I will never help you hurt an innocent Luna!”
“Then you leave me no choice…”
The recording captured a brief struggle, her mother’s terrified screams, and then… chilling silence.
The recording ended with Bella’s cold voice: “A mother who won’t help me is no use at all.”
BOOM.
Ethan’s mind went blank.
He froze, a chill seeping into his bones.
It wasn’t that Sophia was too late. It was that Bella… had murdered her own mother and framed Sophia for it.
He hadn’t just trusted a liar. He had trusted a matricidal monster.
And for her, he had pushed his true mate to the brink of death.
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Chapter 6
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“Goddess… what have I done?” Ethan buried his face in his hands, letting out a pained, animalistic howl.
He suddenly remembered the fake mark and Sophia’s look of utter disillusionment.
He shot up and stormed toward Bella’s chambers.
He tore the room apart until he found a hidden compartment under the floorboards. Inside was a locked iron box.
He smashed it open with brute force.
Inside, alongside a diary filled with obsessive fantasies, were several dark magic artifacts and a blood-signed contract with a witch from the Dark Forest.
Bella’s name was signed in blood.
It was a deal she’d made, paying a fortune for a forbidden spell.
On the day he was supposed to mark Sophia, the witch used black magic to interfere.
They had replaced the true soul-deep mate bond with a worthless, yet convincing, illusionary scar.
So that was it.
It all started three years ago.
The shallow “bond” he’d felt was nothing but a fraud concocted by Bella and a witch.
He stormed down to the dungeons.
In the damp, dark cell, Ethan looked at Bella chained to the wall, his eyes devoid of any warmth.
“Why?” His voice was a raw, grating whisper.
Seeing him, Bella’s face immediately crumpled into a look of pitiful obsession.
“Ethan! You finally came! I knew you still cared about me! I did it all for you! I would do anything to have you! My mother stood in our way, so she had to die! Sophia stole you from me, so she had to die too!”
“Shut up!” Ethan couldn’t listen anymore. He felt physically sick.
This was the woman he had defended for three years?
A psychopath. A monster.
“For me?” He laughed, a sound colder than the dungeon’s chill. “Your ‘love’ cost me everything.”
He turned to the jailer. “Whip her daily with silver-laced lashes. Keep her alive, but only just. Let her repent for her sins in endless agony.”
Walking out of the dungeon, Ethan felt no satisfaction, only a vast, crushing emptiness.
He had lost Sophia, the only warmth in his life, and he had pushed her away with his own hands.
The citadel, the pack-it was all meaningless now.
He returned to his empty study and, with a trembling hand, called his most trusted tracker-a private investigator known for finding anyone.
“Find her,” he commanded, his voice hoarse. “Whatever it takes, I have to find Sophia.”
A week passed with no news. The tracker had nothing. Sophia and Gabriel seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth.
Ethan was tormented by regret and longing, each day an eternity.
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Just then, the dungeon guard burst in, frantic,
“Alphal It’s terrible! Bella… Bella has escaped!”
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