Chapter 1
Monthly gatherings of the Crescent Pack had always been pure hell for low-born wolves.
Sylvia Ashby huddled in the shadow of the farthest pillar inside the council hall. She clutched a cleaning rag tight in her hand, pretending to wipe dust that was never there at all.
All around her stood nobles with awakened wolf forms. Some chatted quietly in small groups, while others held their heads high and sized up the pack's financial reports on the projection screen.
She wasn't even allowed to lift her gaze.
Sylvia was one of the lowest-ranked low-borns in the Crescent Pack. She was eighteen but hadn't awakened her wolf.
In the werewolf world, most folks unlocked their shifting power by sixteen.
Anyone with no sign of it by eighteen would be written off as wolfless: a good-for-nothing born to be pushed around, looked down on, and stuck at the bottom.
She had long gotten used to this kind of life.
"Next matter: territory patrol shifts for the next month," Edward Stone, the Royal Advisor, spoke up from the front of the hall. "Awaiting orders from the Alpha."
Sylvia didn't look up.
Kaelen Nightshade, the Alpha, sat high up on the obsidian throne.
Thirty-seven rows of seats lay between them, not to mention the huge class divide and all the inferiority she'd built up over eighteen years.
Sylvia only dared to imagine what he looked like in her mind.
Word had it that twenty-eight-year-old Kaelen was the youngest Alpha the Crescent Pack had seen in a hundred years.
He had silver-gray hair, icy eyes, a tall, sturdy build, and an old crescent-shaped scar on the back of his hand.
Folks said it was a badge he earned back when he wiped out the remaining vampire forces on his own.
He was in a whole different league from a low-born like her, who only cleaned pillars.
Sylvia fished her phone out of her apron pocket, dimming the screen as low as it would go.
There was also half a piece of hard candy, melted and then solidified again, stuck to the fabric.
She texted: [Darling, show me your abs.]
Then she added a leering face emoji.
The moment the message was sent, the front of the hall went dead silent.
It was no ordinary hush. One could barely hear anyone breathe, and the air felt downright creepy.
Sylvia instinctively looked up, only to see her WhatsApp chat suddenly pop up on the massive projection screen that had been showing the financial reports.
There was the text: [Darling, show me your abs.]
A leering face emoji followed the text.
The sender's profile pic was a tiny silver wolf curled up by the moon.
Sylvia's mind went blank, and her blood ran cold in an instant.
She knew that profile pic, that tone, and that emoji all too well.
Then, Kaelen, who was sitting on the throne, picked up his phone. His long fingers tapped lightly across the screen.
A faint smile tugged at his lips. That soft look broke through his usual cold, stern demeanor, like ice cracking open to reveal burning hot lava underneath.
Everyone in the hall gasped in shock.
Kaelen lifted his eyes and glanced over the crowd below. His voice was low and lazy, echoing across the hall. "Sweetheart, I'll show you later."
*****
He turned off the screen cast and spoke calmly as if nothing had happened. "Carry on."
The presenter started to speak, stammering, his voice shaking.
Sylvia looked down at her phone, and a new message popped up at the top of the screen: [Sweetheart, I'll show you later.]
It was the same text, the same punctuation, and the same loving tone.
He was her online boyfriend, the man she had chatted with for half a year. She acted cute and clingy with him, asked for his shirtless selfie, called him darling, and shared every little thing about her life.
He was the only one who replied to her late at night after she got bullied. And that man turned out to be Kaelen.
Kaelen was the Alpha of the Crescent Pack, the man sitting thirty-seven rows away, and someone she never dared make eye contact with in her whole life.
Sylvia's fingers started to shake, and her phone nearly slipped from her grasp. She clenched it so hard her knuckles turned bloodless.
"Sylvia, hey Sylvia!" Her fellow low-born workmate, Mia Lane, tugged her sleeve hard.
Mia spoke in a hushed yet super excited voice. "Did you see that? The Alpha's got a girlfriend. That sweet pet name is too much. I'm totally jealous. This romance is straight out of a dream."
Sylvia opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
Her mind instantly flashed the photo she got last night.
The man was shirtless, broad-shouldered with a slim waist. His abs were perfectly shaped, and his V-line dipped down right above his loose pajama pants.
Right at the corner of the picture was his well-defined hand, marked clearly with that crescent scar.
She had stared at that photo nonstop and saved it.
Now the same man sat on the highest throne in the hall, texting her with that same hand.
There were several messages: [Honey, I really wasn't ignoring you on purpose. I'm in a meeting.]
[Are you mad at me, huh?]
[Don't ignore me, okay?]
He also Venmoed her huge sums of pack coins, with the amount representing "I love you forever" and signs showing his willingness to do so.