In my previous life, my mate Jack left me surrounded by rogues in order to save his fragile human foster sister, Lily. He carried the pregnant Lily out of the encirclement and said to me coldly, “Lily is human, and she can’t hold on. You’re different, so hang in there a little longer. I’ll go find people to save you.” But until I was torn apart alive by the rogues, I never waited for him to come back and save me. When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the day of the formal mate ceremony. Lily arrived late, and I smelled the scent of a pup on her. This time, facing pressure from every member of Black Pack and Jack’s coercion, I gave a cold laugh and directly rejected the alliance marriage. 01 I opened my eyes. Moonlight spilled in through the banquet hall windows, and the air was filled with the scent of the fireplace and pinewood. I lowered my head, looked at the pure white ceremonial gown on my body, and suddenly dug my fingertips into my palm. It hurt. It was not the terrible pain of being torn apart by rogues, but a vivid, sharp sting. I was back. I had returned to the formal mate ceremony between Black Pack and Shadowfang Pack. A commotion came from the entrance of the banquet hall. I raised my head and, without the slightest surprise, saw my affectionate fiancé Jack quickly pass through the crowd and walk toward Lily, who had just arrived. He moved so fast that it was as if his life would vanish with hers if he were one second late. The guests from the surrounding packs instantly gathered around, and whispers and discussions rang out everywhere. “Isn’t Jack a little too concerned about this foster sister?” “After all, Lily’s parents died protecting the Alpha and Luna. Two brave humans left behind only one fragile daughter, so of course they have to protect her well.” “But today is the mate ceremony. Leaving the future Luna standing aside like this—what is that supposed to mean?” I stood in place and watched coldly as Jack led Lily to the front of the banquet hall as if he were protecting a priceless treasure. Lily wore a thin long dress, and under the moonlight, her originally flat lower abdomen actually showed a somewhat unusual swell. Jack took off his outer robe and wrapped her tightly in it, and even his voice was trembling. “Lily, don’t be scared. I’m here.” Lily leaned in his arms, her face as pale as paper, her lashes trembling slightly, but one hand instinctively protected her lower abdomen before she turned her head and suddenly retched. That movement was far too obvious. The discussions around us instantly quieted, and everyone’s gazes became subtle. Luna Sarah pushed through the crowd and rushed over, her face livid. “What are you standing around for! Hurry and help Lily to the lounge in the back!” On Shadowfang Pack’s side, my father David’s face also darkened, and he turned to look at the representatives sent by each pack. I followed his gaze and swept my eyes over those representatives without saying a word. It was still the same ugly faces. It had been the same in my previous life too: whenever a huge scandal happened, their first reaction was always to suppress it, then push me out as a shield. “Healer Miller.” I pushed through the crowd, and my cool voice was especially clear in the silent banquet hall. “Since she’s unwell, don’t trouble her by taking her to the back. Examine her right here.” The accompanying Healer Miller froze for a moment, then subconsciously looked at Luna Sarah. Luna Sarah’s expression turned ugly, and she lowered her voice to warn me. “Emma, today is your big day. Don’t make trouble.” I met her gaze without giving an inch. “It is precisely because this is my mate ceremony that we need to clarify everything. Lily is Black Pack’s foster daughter and has a special status. She retched on an occasion like this, so shouldn’t she give everyone an explanation in public? If something is wrong and the hall full of guests is startled, who can afford to take responsibility?” Jack supported Lily, his brows tightly furrowed. “Emma, Lily is already like this, and you still insist on pushing her?” I stared at him, my eyes without a trace of warmth. “Am I pushing her, or are you feeling guilty?” As soon as those words fell, the banquet hall became deathly silent. Healer Miller crouched down to examine her, and Lily’s lashes trembled violently as her fingers clutched Jack’s shirt tightly. I could see it clearly: she had woken up long ago and was only pretending to faint. After a while, Healer Miller moved his hand away from her wrist, his face turning deathly pale. Luna Sarah immediately reached out. “What exactly is going on? Did she catch a chill?” Sweat broke out on Healer Miller’s forehead, and he braced himself as he spoke. “Based on the examination results... Miss Lily should be carrying a pup.” Carrying a pup. Those two words exploded in the banquet hall like a thunderclap. I heard the sounds of people around us sucking in cold breaths. “Carrying a pup? Lily doesn’t even have a mate, so where did the child come from?” “Look at how nervous Jack is... It couldn’t be...” The discussions surged over like a tide and could not be suppressed at all. Luna Sarah panicked and shouted sharply, “Nonsense! The moonlight is wrong tonight, Healer Miller, you made a mistake! Hurry and take her away!” “Wait.” I took a step forward, and my boots stepped on the stone floor with a crisp sound. “Luna Sarah, since Lily is carrying a pup, we must make it clear who the father is. If someone deceived her, forced her, or deliberately hid a relationship, we will report it to the Werewolf Council right now. The ceremony is not over yet, so no one can run.” When she heard that it would be reported to the Werewolf Council, Lily finally could not keep pretending anymore. She suddenly opened her eyes, her eye sockets red, tears falling in large drops as she begged in a hoarse voice, “Emma, don’t report it... It’s my fault. It’s all my fault...” I looked down at her from above. “Tell us whose child it is.” She bit her lower lip, but she refused to say the key point and only kept shrinking into Jack’s arms, crying in such a pitiful way. “Jack... don’t say it... Please don’t say it...” Jack. She called him so intimately. I suddenly felt incomparably disgusted and pointed at Jack. “She is your foster sister in name, yet she’s carrying a child of unknown origin in her belly. Every word from you is ‘Lily’ and ‘don’t be scared.’ Jack, tell me, what are you afraid of?” 02 Jack’s Adam’s apple rolled violently. He looked at me, then lowered his head and looked at the trembling Lily in his arms. The next second, he did something that shocked the entire hall. In front of all the pack members, representatives from each pack, and allies, he knelt straight down before me. “Emma.” He raised his head, and his eyes were full of pleading. “Lily lost her parents when she was young, and her health has never been good. That night, I drank too much... I’m the one who wronged you.” With a boom, the people around us completely exploded into chaos. The representatives of each pack whispered to one another, and even though David’s people tried to stop them, they could not stop the spread of this earth-shattering scandal at all. “The child is mine.” Jack gritted his teeth and admitted it. “But the one I love is you. Emma, I’m begging you, let this child be born.” I looked at his humble figure kneeling on the ground and only felt that it was absurd to the extreme. The person he was kneeling to was me, but every word he said was protecting Lily. Lily cried and shook her head, struggling as if she also wanted to kneel. “No, Jack didn’t force me... It was only that one time. I didn’t do it on purpose...” Seeing this, Luna Sarah’s eyes shifted, and she immediately changed into a serious expression as she began calculating very quickly. “Emma, this matter has already become like this, but the pup is always innocent. After the child is born, register it under your name. You will still be Black Pack’s only Luna, and no one will ever surpass you!” I slowly turned my head and looked at Luna Sarah. “Register it under my name?” “Yes!” Luna Sarah seemed to have grabbed onto a life-saving straw. “Lily won’t fight with you. She only wants a place to settle down. After you marry in, Jack will live properly with you, and Black Pack will handle the rumors outside.” A few Black Pack elders beside her also came forward, talking over one another as they tried to persuade me. “What pack doesn’t have something like this? He’s an Alpha, so he was confused for a moment.” “If you want to be Luna, you must have the tolerance of a Luna.” “Jack has already knelt to you in public, so do you still want to force Lily to her death?” Listening to these disgusting remarks, I suddenly laughed. The sound of my laughter seemed especially abrupt under the moonlight. They did not think they had wronged me. They thought that since the matter had already happened, I should know my place and accept this mess. I should hide Lily’s shame, preserve Black Pack’s heir, and help Jack continue maintaining his devoted image. In the future, I would even have to raise this child for them and pretend that nothing had happened. In my previous life, I had believed their bullshit. In my previous life, for the greater picture of the alliance between Shadowfang Pack and Black Pack, I swallowed this insult. I thought that as long as I took one step back, Jack would settle down. After our marriage, he was indeed obedient to me in everything, caring and considerate, and he would become nervous for ages even if I frowned once. Until that fierce battle with the rogues. I was trapped in the encirclement, isolated and helpless. With my face covered in blood, I reached my hand toward him. “Jack, save me...” But he turned around, picked up Lily, who had only scraped a little skin, and rushed out of the encirclement. More and more rogues gathered, and the smell of blood choked me so badly that I could not breathe. I desperately swung my claws and looked at him in despair. He stood in the safe zone and looked coldly at me struggling in the encirclement, without the slightest warmth from the past in his eyes. “Emma, Lily is human, and she can’t hold on. You’re different, so hang in there a little longer. Reinforcements will arrive soon.” He held Lily just like that and watched helplessly as the rogues tore me apart. Before I died, through the moonlight, I saw Lily lying on his shoulder and showing me a smug, vicious smile. It turned out that all his kindness to me had only been to stabilize Shadowfang Pack and make me willingly become Lily’s shield. Pulling my thoughts back, I looked at Jack, who was still kneeling on the ground, and my eyes turned completely cold. “You want me to acknowledge the bastard child you had with your foster sister? You want me to enter your pack as the laughingstock of every pack?” I took a step forward and looked down at him from above. “Jack, what the hell do you think you are, that you deserve to have me serve as your cover?” Jack’s expression changed abruptly. “Emma! I’ve already knelt down and begged you, so what else do you want?!” “What do I want?” I turned around to face all the guests, and my voice rang through the entire banquet hall. “Everyone present today is a witness!” My voice echoed beneath the moonlight. “Black Pack clearly knew that Jack and his foster sister Lily were secretly involved and that she was pregnant, yet they still proceeded with the alliance marriage with Shadowfang Pack! After the matter was exposed, their first reaction was not to admit their fault, but to force me to swallow this insult and force me to be the mother of this child!” “In their eyes, I, Emma, have only one use, and that is to serve as a shield for this shameless couple!” 03 David finally could not bear it anymore. He rushed forward and lowered his voice in an angry roar. “Emma! Are you insane?! Do you know the value of an alliance between two packs? Isn’t it just one pup? Just raise it! Will you only be satisfied after you make this matter impossible to end?!” I turned my head and looked at this wonderful father of mine, and my heart was filled with desolation. This was my biological father. In his eyes, his daughter’s dignity and lifelong happiness could not compare to a pile of numbers on the territorial border. “Dad.” I looked at him coldly. “If I endure this today, then tomorrow Shadowfang Pack will become Black Pack’s subordinate. Do you think what they want is only the title of Luna? What they want is for the entire Shadowfang Pack to pave the way for this child!” David choked, his face livid, yet he could not say a single word for a long time. I no longer paid attention to him and picked up the alliance contract between the two packs from the table, then used both hands to apply force. “Rip—” In front of everyone, I tore the contract in half, and the fragments scattered over Jack’s face like falling snow. “From today on, the engagement between Jack and me is terminated!” I tossed the scraps of paper in my hand straight into the fireplace in the center of the banquet hall as if I were throwing away trash. “Jack, take your lover and your child and get out of my sight.” After saying that, I turned without looking back and strode out of the banquet hall under the shocked gazes of everyone present. The night wind lifted my long hair, and my back was straight. This was only the beginning. The pain of being abandoned that I suffered in my previous life—I would make them repay it a thousandfold and ten thousandfold. On the second day after the mate ceremony, the entire werewolf territory exploded. Rumors spread through every pack, and eight out of ten were about Black Pack’s scandal. Black Pack’s reputation crashed the moment the market opened, and resource allocation within the territory fell into chaos. David flew into a rage at the residence, smashed everything he could smash, pointed at my nose, and cursed me as an ignorant wastrel. “You will go to Black Pack immediately and apologize! Say that you lost your head last night! This alliance marriage must happen!” I sat on a stone chair and calmly drank herbal tea, not even lifting my eyelids. “If you want the marriage, you go marry them. I’m not marrying him anyway.” “You—!” David was so angry that he raised his hand to hit me. “Hit me.” I raised my head and looked at him coldly. “If this slap lands today, I will take all the cooperation channels my mother left behind and leave Shadowfang Pack tomorrow. Then you can see whether those packs will cooperate with you or with me.” David’s hand froze in midair, and his face alternated between blue and white. When my mother was alive, as Luna, she single-handedly established trade partnerships between Shadowfang Pack and several surrounding packs. The Alphas of those packs only acknowledged my mother’s favor. Before she died, she handed all these networks to me. This was also why David had always feared me, yet had no choice but to support me. “You think you don’t have to listen to me anymore, is that it?!” He gritted his teeth and lowered his hand. “Yes.” I stood up and straightened my robe. “Dad, I don’t care whether Shadowfang Pack lives or dies. But no one should even think about touching what my mother left me. Black Pack is a bottomless pit now, and if you insist on jumping in, I absolutely won’t accompany you.” After saying that, I directly left the main manor building of Shadowfang Pack and moved into an independent residence under my name. As soon as I settled in, my Gamma Kate—my mother’s capable assistant when she was alive, who had followed me ever since my mother passed away—sent me an encrypted record. “Emma, I found it. Over the past six months, large amounts of money have flowed abnormally out of Jack’s private accounts.” I opened the record and scanned through the transfer lists line by line. Sports cars, custom jewelry, overseas trust funds... and even a luxury villa by the sea. And the ultimate beneficiary of all these assets was Lily. Even more laughably, the funds used to purchase that villa had actually been public funds that Jack secretly misappropriated from a real estate project jointly advanced by Black Pack and Shadowfang Pack. I looked at the numbers on the screen and laughed coldly. Jack, oh Jack, you really are a hopeless romantic. You took my Shadowfang Pack’s money to support your lover. “Kate.” I looked at Gamma Kate. “Keep a close eye on the flow of this money. Also, investigate Lily’s records in Black Pack. I want the original files of every action she has taken since childhood.” In my previous life, Lily always occupied Jack’s time with all kinds of excuses, such as being weak and needing care. I wanted to see exactly how many lies were hidden inside that delicate body of hers. 04 That afternoon, Jack actually came to my door. There were dark circles under his eyes, so it was obvious he had not slept all night, and he was holding a large bouquet of my favorite white lilies. “Emma.” He stood outside the door, his voice hoarse and carrying a trace of coaxing. “Are you still angry?” Looking at his affectionate appearance, I only felt my stomach churn. “Jack, do you need something?” I leaned against the doorframe and had no intention of letting him in. “Emma, I handled what happened last night badly. Lily’s emotions were unstable, so I could only comfort her first at the time.” He sighed, took a check from inside his clothes, and handed it to me. “This is a check for thirty million, as my apology to you.” I lowered my head and glanced at the check. Thirty million. To stabilize me, he really had spent a lot of money. In my previous life, he had also used this kind of seemingly unreserved compensation to gradually lower my guard. I took the check, flicked it twice casually, and suddenly smiled. “Jack, do you think I’m short of these thirty million?” He froze for a moment, and his eyes became somewhat panicked. “Emma, I know you feel wronged. I’ve already made arrangements for Lily. She will move out of Black Pack and go to a foreign sanatorium to wait for the birth. In the future, she will never appear in front of you again.” “Is that so?” I looked at him with a half-smile. “A foreign sanatorium? Or is she going to the seaside villa you bought for her with Shadowfang Pack project funds and become its mistress?” Jack’s expression changed instantly, and his pupils suddenly contracted. “You... you investigated me?” “Things that have been done will always be discovered.” I smashed the check hard into his face. “Jack, you used my Shadowfang Pack’s money and took someone else’s things to buy favors. Did you really think I was blind?” The sharp edge of the paper cut his cheek and left a thin trace of blood. He did not even bother to wipe it and stepped forward, wanting to grab my hand. “Emma, listen to my explanation. That money was only temporarily misappropriated, and I’ll make it up! My feelings for you are real!” “Real?” I suddenly shook off his hand, and my eyes were as cold as ice. “Your real feelings mean making me raise your child? Your real feelings mean holding a mate ceremony with me while buying another woman a villa? Jack, take your fake affection and get out!” “Bang!” I slammed the stone door shut, completely shutting out his hypocritical face. Outside the door, it was quiet for a moment before his voice came, suppressing anger. “Emma, don’t be too ruthless! Without Black Pack, do you think David will let you go? We’ll see!” I leaned against the back of the door, listening to the sound of his footsteps gradually fading away, and a bloodthirsty cold smile curved my lips. Then we would see. In this life, if I did not strip a layer of skin off you and Black Pack, then my name would not be Emma. Over the next few days, Black Pack had a very hard time. Its reputation kept falling, and several important partnerships were forced to stop because the funding chain had broken. Although David was angry with me, after seeing Black Pack’s mess, he did not dare mention the alliance marriage so easily again. As for me, I secretly sped up the closing of the net. “Emma.” Kate placed a thick file bag on my stone table, and her eyes carried a bit of disbelief. “You guessed right. All of Lily’s past records were fabricated by herself.” I pulled out the documents and quickly flipped through them. “Her so-called weak health and need for care were all fake. There is one more thing—her parents’ deaths were not an accident at all. That fire five years ago was deliberately designed by her. She tampered with things in advance so that her parents would be trapped in the fire, right when Jack’s parents happened to see them. Her parents ‘sacrificed themselves’ to save Jack’s parents, and she was then naturally adopted by Black Pack.” I looked at Lily’s gentle smile in the photo, and my eyes gradually turned cold. What a perfect image of weakness and harmlessness. In my previous life, for the sake of such a ruthless woman, Jack left me surrounded by rogues and let me be torn apart alive. “There is one more thing.” Kate lowered her voice. “About the pup in Lily’s belly...” “Speak.” “I found that she secretly went to a human hospital in the city for a prenatal checkup three months ago. I used some connections and got her medical records, and there is a DNA test report inside.” Kate pushed a report in front of me. “That pup is not Jack’s at all.” I suddenly raised my head, and my pupils shrank slightly. Not Jack’s? “Whose is it?” Kate took a deep breath. “It belongs to Derek’s younger brother, that notorious playboy, Tom.” Derek was the Alpha of Ironclaw Pack. Black Pack’s biggest rival in the territorial dispute. Looking at that DNA report, I suddenly could not help laughing loudly. I laughed until tears almost came out. Jack, oh Jack, you pride yourself on being extremely clever, and for one woman you could even abandon the life of your future Luna, but in the end, not only are you raising someone else’s child, you are also cleaning up your mortal enemy’s mess! This was simply the biggest joke in the world! “Emma, should we release this report now?” Kate asked. “No rush.” I put away my smile, and icy killing intent flickered in my eyes. “If we release it just like this, it would be too easy on them. I want them to fall completely from their highest moment.”
? Continue the story here ?? ? Download the "NovelMaster" app ? search for "467151", and watch the full series ✨! #NovelMaster