短編Werewolf のストーリーと小説

I used to have the perfect life. My Alpha father and Luna mother treated me like treasure. My fated mate, Caleb, swore to protect me forever. But four years ago, my parents brought back a frail orphan, Freya. From that day on, my world was stolen. My parents' warm smiles were suddenly reserved only for Freya. If she coughed, the whole packhouse panicked. When I bled in training, they told me to stop being a jealous attention-seeker. Even Caleb shifted all his tender care to her. For four years, I endured the neglect. I thought our mate bond would eventually win. Until the night of our mating ceremony—the night I was meant to become the future Luna. In front of the whole pack, Caleb unclasped the sacred Luna heirloom necklace from my neck. He turned around and fastened it around that crying orphan. "She needs this Moonstone to heal her broken wolf more than you do. Sienna, be reasonable," Caleb said, avoiding my eyes. When I stood frozen, my parents shoved me away to protect Freya. "If you can't accept her, get out! Don't step foot in the main house!" That night, my heart finally died. I didn't scream or fight like I had for the past four years. I just packed my bags and left. They thought I was throwing a tantrum. They thought I'd come crawling back to the pack in a few days. They even took that orphan girl on a private jet to the pack's tropical island—the place I had always dreamed of for my honeymoon with Caleb. Days later, when they returned, they were shocked to find I had accepted a contract from the Alliance Healer's Guild. A 15-year, top-secret lockdown project for a silver poison antidote. No contact. No turning back. That night, they lost their minds.

My lifelong rival and I married into the Alpha family of the Silver Ridge Pack. I married the older brother, Adrian Black—the pack's brilliant healer, the cool-headed first heir everyone expected to become the next Alpha. Maya married the younger brother, Kane Black—the hot-tempered second heir who commanded border patrol and pack enforcement. Maya and I had spent our whole lives trying to beat each other. We fought for first place in training, and the top ranking at the werewolf academy. Even after we got pregnant four days apart, we secretly competed over whose pup would arrive first. Then, eight months into my pregnancy, I lay bleeding in the wreckage of a car crash—and my husband, the best emergency healer in the pack, decided I was lying. "Your vitals were stable this morning." "You're only making this up because you don't want me helping Vera. Stop using our pup and threatening to leave the pack just because you're jealous. Grow up." The only person who came for me was Maya. She carried our own unborn pup while she dragged me five miles through a snowstorm to the pack medical center. When I woke, she sat beside my bed with red-rimmed eyes and an empty belly. "You'd better not die," she snapped. "I haven't beaten you enough yet." I stared at her flattened stomach. "Where's your pup?" For once, Maya had no cutting answer. After a few seconds, she forced a smile that looked worse than tears. "Gone with yours." We looked at each other for a long time. "Let's leave them," I said. She wiped her eyes and gave a bitter laugh. "Look at that. We finally agree on something."

Word had it that the roses my mother-in-law Nancy and I planted on the back hill were in full bloom, so we decided on a whim to go see them. We never expected to be stopped at the entrance by a she-wolf caked in heavy makeup. "Do you even know where you are? This is no place for two low-ranking Omegas." "Look at you two — dressed like beggars. That's probably exactly what you are." Our good mood evaporated instantly. I shot her a look. "As far as I know, the back hill is public territory. Every member of the Silver Moon Pack is welcome here." "You have no right to block us." The she-wolf's eyes turned bloodshot with rage. "You pathetic little Omega — how dare you disrespect me!" "This mountain belongs to the Silver Moon Pack, and the Silver Moon Pack belongs to my mate." "If you know what's good for you, get on your knees and apologize. Then crawl out of my sight before I lose my patience." I glanced at Nancy. Her eyes burned with the same fury I felt. As the one and only Luna of the Silver Moon Pack's Alpha, I had no idea there was supposedly another Luna running around.

The ninety-ninth time my mate, Valeria, the pack's Alpha Female, blocked our mind-link, I dragged myself, ravaged by Soul-Decay, into the Hall of Covenants. The cold marble steps bit at my bare feet, each one sending a lancing pain through my chest. In the final stages of Soul-Decay, I'd lost my healing abilities. Even the simple act of walking was agony. "I'm here to request a severance of my mate bond." The covenant official took in my pale, gaunt frame, his gaze softening with pity. "Sir," he asked quietly, "don't you have a pack to support you?" I've been invisible to my parents ever since my father brought home my adoptive brother, Silas, when I was ten. And while Valeria was my mate, it was in name only. We had never held a public marking ceremony. She rarely brought me to pack gatherings. Most of the pack wouldn't even recognize me. I wiped away the blood welling at the corner of my mouth. "That doesn't matter anymore," I told the official. "A dying wolf needs no pack."

By the time Kaelen canceled our marking ceremony for the seventh time, I no longer asked him to stay. I simply watched him fasten his cloak and prepare to leave for Elara. “Elara’s wolf had lost control. She needs my Alpha aura to stabilize her. We can do it after she recovers.” He promised we would finish the ceremony once she was safe. He also promised this would be the last time. But I had already heard that promise six times before. Each time he broke the ceremony halfway through, our unfinished mate bond tore through me like a rejection. I was always the one left shaking on the floor while he rushed to hold another woman through the night. This time, I did not beg. Kaelen mistook my silence for understanding. Before leaving, he kissed my forehead and said, “Wait for me.” I smiled and nodded. Then I called the only witch who knew how to destroy a fated bond. Kaelen believed he was postponing our future for some time. He could never have imagined that the mate he had neglected again and again would be the one to sever their bond with her own hands.

Three years after my Alpha brother banished me from Blackwood Pack, he donated one dollar to my PackAid fundraiser. His public message read: [Let me know when you actually die. I’ll pop the champagne.] Three years earlier, Serena—the orphan Adrian had brought home from the border—accused me of stealing her silver-purification protocol that had earned Blackwood’s only nomination to the Royal Healer Academy. Adrian never let me explain. He revoked my nomination, cut off my Pack sponsorship, and ordered me out of Blackwood territory before sunrise. [Admit what you did. Apologize to Serena. Then I’ll let you come home.] Then he sealed me out of the Pack mindlink. Overnight, I went from protected Alpha blood to a rogue no Pack dared accept. Three years later, Serena slept in my old room at the Alpha House, wore my mother’s jewelry, and smiled whenever Pack members called her the Alpha’s sister. I dug through trash outside the territory and scavenged scrap in an abandoned industrial district until silver dust poisoned my lungs. By then, my wolf was fading and the healer called it terminal Silver Lung. After reading Adrian’s comment, I called Moonrest Memorial Park. “Hold the cheapest grave you have.” His one-dollar donation had pushed my fundraiser to PackAid’s minimum withdrawal amount. I decided to give him exactly what he wanted.

When I was eighteen, Kael pulled my sister and me out of a rogue auction ring on the northern border. From that day on, I fought for him, bled for him, and helped him carve out his place among the northern packs. By the time his name carried weight across the borderlands, everyone knew I was the one who stood closest to his power. I thought that one day, he might finally look at me and see more than a weapon at his side. Then he brought home a soft-spoken Omega named Liora. “Mira, look at you. Covered in blood again.” “Wash up before you frighten Liora.” After that, everything changed. The pack began calling her future Luna. Kael took my blades away, tied an apron around my waist, and made me responsible for her every need. Whenever she slipped into places she should not have been, got hurt, and claimed I had frightened her out of jealousy, Kael believed her. Every punishment came with a reason. Neat enough to sound fair. Sharp enough to hurt. I accepted all of it. Because years ago, when I asked how I could repay him for saving my sister and me, Kael had said: “You want to repay me?” “Then do one hundred things for me.” I lowered my eyes to the yellowing notebook in my hands. Only three were left. When I finished them, I would owe him nothing. And then I would leave.

During Frostpine Pack’s winter hunt, rogue scent crossed the northern border. Celia heard the warning, but she still cut off my retreat. She escaped with a rogue-tainted gash across her forearm. I fell into an ice ravine, and my wolf nearly died from cold and blood loss. My fated mate, Adrian Blackwood, Alpha of Frostpine Pack, carried Celia away and never looked back. I survived seven days in that ravine. When the patrol finally found me, my wolf was almost silent. Adrian stood over me, furious. “You should be grateful Celia’s arm can still heal. If her wolf had been damaged because of you, dying on the border wouldn’t have been enough.” “The bonding ceremony is suspended. Admit you broke formation and got Celia hurt, or I won’t mark you before the pack.” He thought I would cry and beg. I only nodded. “Fine.” He didn’t know the Moon Goddess had come to me while I was dying. When the next full moon rose, she would take the most precious things I had left. My love for Adrian. Every memory of him. After that, I would leave Frostpine Pack and begin again somewhere he did not exist. Whether he still wanted to mark me no longer mattered. By the time they found my body, the Elena who loved Adrian Blackwood had already died in that ravine with her wolf.

Right after I hosted my first corporate gala as Sterling Corp's newly appointed COO, department manager Brenda Jenkins dragged me before the Pack Council court. She stood at the witness stand, sobbing her eyes out. She accused me, Vic Sterling, of raping her intern niece, Chloe Jenkins. "My Chloe just turned eighteen! She was ruined by Vic, this monster in a suit! Trash like him who abuses his power should be executed under pack law!" Her niece backed up the lie. "Vic said if I didn't strip, he'd snap my neck... I was so scared..." The Council members acting as the jury exploded with righteous fury. They demanded harsh punishment for this arrogant Alpha. "Animal! Vic is a shameless monster!" "Punish him! Don't let this beast in a suit get away with it!" The crowd howled for my death. Brenda and Chloe traded smug smirks. The judge raised his gavel to sentence me. Deadpan, I stripped off my jacket and ripped open my shirt, sneering at them. "As a female Alpha, please enlighten me... how exactly did I rape you?"

After discovering that my Alpha mate, Silas, still couldn't let go of his puphood sweetheart, Julia, I began teaching our pup, Luke, to address him as Alpha. When Luke was injured and admitted to the healer's den, one phone call from Julia was enough to make Silas leave. Holding Luke in my arms, I gently prompted him, "Say goodbye to Alpha." Silas had promised to spend Luke's birthday by taking him to Moonshadow Park to watch the fireflies, but then Julia called and said that her own pup had no father to accompany him while crying. Without the slightest hesitation, Silas grabbed his coat and left. I didn't cry or make a scene. Instead, I handed the phone to Luke. "Help Alpha cancel the park reservation." Every time, Luke would fight back tears and hesitate for a long while before doing it. It wasn't until one day when Silas finally realized how much he had neglected us and offered to take us to the movies. But just as we arrived at the theater, Julia called again. I could hear her voice trembling over the phone. "Silas, could you pick Aiden up from school right now? "The other pups keep teasing him for not having a father. They say he's a pup without a father to protect him." A look of pity appeared on Silas' face as he crouched down. He was getting ready to explain things to Luke. This time, without waiting for me to prompt him, Luke waved at Silas on his own. "It's okay, Alpha. "Go take care of your other pup. "This family can manage just fine without you."

Since I was little, I could see the souls of dead werewolves. I could even hear them speak. My parents believed a dark witch's prophecy. They thought I carried a vicious curse that would destroy the pack. They poured all their love into my adopted sister, Stella. They wouldn't even look at me. When Stella used her sweet disguise to secure a mating contract with Caleb Cross—the top Alpha heir of the Northern Territory—she became the absolute pride of the family. But right before the mating ceremony, Caleb was ambushed by enemies with silver poison and fell into a deep coma. The Cross family demanded Stella fulfill her contract. They wanted her to strip naked and enter his room every day to help clear the silver poison from his body. She backed away, trembling. "You want me to strip naked every day to hold a man dying of silver poison? Don't think I don't know! The silver poison has made his Alpha wolf completely feral! If he smells a stranger, he could go berserk in his sleep at any moment. I'm not risking my life for a crippled wolf who could go crazy at any second! The engagement is off!" Right at that moment, I saw Caleb's soul leave his body. His tall, wild figure was translucent. Those dominant, dark gold eyes glared at Stella. "I chose the wrong mate. The doctor said I'll wake up if a she-wolf is willing to soothe my feral wolf with her body heat and scent every day. She just has to help me sweat out the silver for the next six months. When I fully wake up, whoever stays by my side for these six months gets my multi-million dollar private island estate on the South Coast and five million dollars in cash. I want this selfish idiot to pay for her betrayal." My eyes instantly lit up. I raised my hand without hesitation. "What if... I sleep with him?" Becoming the almighty Luna didn't appeal to me at all. I just really wanted that estate and the five million dollars.

At Northwood Lycan Academy, I’m a Beta. One of the rare few without a fated mate. But I’ve never felt less than. I have raw strength. I have ambition that no one can match. I’m getting into the Lycan Alliance on my own damn merit. No one knows I already have a secret mate online. Alpha_X. The man I’ve never met. The man who flirts with me through the screen every night. [My Moon, I can’t control how much my wolf and I crave you.] [I want to pin you down and show you how hard I am for you.] My own wolf always howls for him. Even without meeting, I’ve already chosen him. He is my mate. My plan is to meet him after I get into the Alliance. I’ll kiss him and tell him my wolf craves him too. But just before graduation, Alpha_X sent me a photo. He was shirtless. Sweat drenched the rippling mountains of his back muscles. Savage scars only added to his wildness. But then my eyes scanned past him. To a weapon rack behind him. To an ancient sigil. My blood froze. Two silver wolf fangs crossed under a blood-red moon. The crest of the Bloodmoon Core. The most elite, most ancient, and most exclusive group at Northwood. Only the purest of purebloods can get in. I froze. My mind went blank. What kind of sick joke is this? The Alpha I’ve been talking to for a year… the one who wants to be my "chosen mate"… is someone right here?

My cousin stole my fiancé's suppressant on the night of the full moon — just to test how much he loved her. Then she locked me in a room with him while he was out of his mind with pain. Watching Adrian writhe in agony, I wrapped my trembling arms around him and let him mark me. My cousin was devastated. She married the brutal Alpha of the neighboring pack in a fit of spite. When Adrian found out I was pregnant, he had no choice but to make me his Luna. But in five years of marriage, he never once came to see me or our son. After rogues kidnapped us, I thought he'd finally let us go. Instead, he shifted and fought to bring us back — only to die alongside those rogue wolves. I held his bloodied body and watched the light drain from his eyes. With his last breath, he gripped my hand: "Stop saving me! I regret everything… I never needed you to save me…" My heart shattered. Cold wind tore through the hollow in my chest until I couldn't stop shaking, and the world went dark. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on that full moon night — five years in the past.

Ten years ago, my daughter died in Healing Grove after the poison spread through her body. I held her cold, lifeless body in my arms, and the grief seeped so deep it settled into my bones. Her Alpha father had personally taken the only vial of antidote in the entire Healing Grove. He did it to save the daughter of his childhood sweetheart. But the girl had only scraped her knee after a fall. That day, I severed my mate bond without looking back and threw myself into the Herbalist Guild. Ten years later, I became the only witch on the entire continent capable of curing the rare wolfsbane poison. One day, the Elder Council summoned me for an emergency. A little girl had been poisoned, and they offered a reward of a million gold coins if I could save her. I accepted. But the instant I saw the patient's portrait, everything inside me went cold. I ripped the healer's badge from my chest and tore the medical file into pieces. "I refuse to treat her."

On the night of the full moon, the Northern Wolf Pack held its annual honors ceremony. Alpha Rhys Ashbourne coldly handed out rewards to the elite wolf guards. My coworkers received bonuses. Spirit medicine. Weapons. When it was my turn, he suddenly stopped. “You don’t have enough seniority.” Low laughter spread through the hall. A black gift box was tossed into my arms. “So I prepared something else for you.” I opened the box. Inside lay a wolf fang collar. The floating comments exploded across my vision. 【Holy shit! The Alpha gave away his resonance collar?!】 【That’s basically like putting his manhood around her neck!】 【She doesn’t even know she’s a potential Mate yet!】 【If she touches it once, the Alpha over there is gonna lose his mind...】 I froze for a second. Then instinctively touched the wolf fang. The next second. The Alpha on the high platform stopped breathing. His hand clenched hard around the armrest of the throne. Meanwhile, I was only staring down at the collar in confusion. ...That sensitive? After hesitating for a moment, I obediently fastened the collar around my neck. High above the hall, the man closed his eyes. His throat bobbed slowly.

Before our bonding ceremony, my mate, Alpha Zarya, told me she had to temporarily mark an Omega from our pack, Soren. She claimed he had a fatal moon-fade sickness, that his wolf was dying. If she didn’t mark him, he would die. I fought her on it. The next day, she moved Soren straight into the pack house penthouse. The suite meant for the future Head Mate. My suite. To calm me down, she even bowed her head—a rare show of weakness. “I’ll remove the mark as soon as he’s stable,” she promised. “You are still my only Head Mate.” But then Soren found me. He handed me a magical diagnostic report. Permanent Mark & Deep Knotting: Three Weeks. They hadn't just slept together. They had formed a permanent, deep-knotted bond long before she ever “confessed” to me. My world turned to ash. My pen bit into the calendar, scratching a vicious X over the date that was supposed to be our bonding ceremony. Then, I opened my laptop. The email from the Laureate Healers Guild of Europe was waiting. I typed two words. "I accept."

Before the start of the marking ceremony, my mate's childhood sweetheart, Gracie Green, almost drowns in the swimming pool. Simon Lloyd is bent on thinking that I was the one who pushed Gracie into the pool with the intent to murder her. So, he has me tied up in the bathtub as a punishment. "One year ago, you pushed Gracie down the stairs and cost her her pup! Now, you even intend to drown her! Why are you such a vile and selfish she-wolf? "Anyway, the marking ceremony shall only be held once you've finally acknowledged your mistakes!" When I'm in the middle of getting corroded by silver nitrate, Simon is busy celebrating Gracie's birthday with her. When Gracie pretends to be all gracious by suggesting to Simon that I should be released, he replies instantly, "Hmph! I'll only let Juliette out when she finally apologizes for her mistakes! This is what she gets for bullying you all the time, anyway!" After that, he gives my favorite moonstone necklace to Gracie as her birthday gift. One week later, Simon receives the prenatal vitamins that I've bought beforehand. He's finally willing to release me from the bathroom. The news of my pregnancy delights him so much that he keeps telling everyone he meets that he's about to become a father. But what he doesn't know is that the water running from the bathtub's tap has been changed to silver nitrate. My body has gotten corroded to the point that I'm now a pile of bones.

At a college alumni gathering for werewolves, someone jokingly asks my Alpha mate, Ian Glover, a question. "Ian, who is the she-wolf you wanted to mark the most back in college?" Ian takes a sip of his blood wine and looks past me toward Sherry Lark, the most beautiful she-wolf in college back then. He answers bluntly, "Sherry." Sherry is stunned for a moment, and disbelief fills her eyes. "Me? But... When I gave you the scarf carrying my scent and hinted that I wanted to be your mate, why didn't you respond?" Now it's Ian's turn to be stunned. "Didn't you give your scarf to Archer Grant?" It turns out Sherry placed the scarf in the wrong spot back then, causing them to miss out on each other. Her eyes redden instantly, while Ian has a longing and regretful look on his face. Our classmates begin teasing them. One wolf suddenly chuckles and says meaningfully, "How can there be such a perfect coincidence? It's not likely for one to mistakenly give such an important gift to the wrong wolf. Think about it, everyone. Could someone have deliberately intervened?" The moment those words fall, every wolf's gaze turns toward me. Ian and I have formed a mate bond, but we never make it public. So, everyone only remembers how shamelessly I chased after him back in college. But none of them know that Ian is the one who first approached me and sent out signals that he wanted to be my mate. Now, he says nothing. He doesn't even spare me a glance and is just gazing deeply at Sherry. At that moment, I know our mate bond is over.

A woman showed up at my cabin door, claiming to be a Beta's mate. She said she wanted to rent my herb field for three hundred dollars a month, to grow medicine for her injured mate. Three hundred? Seriously? That land is the only one in the entire pack—blessed ground that drinks in the Moon Goddess's power. Herbs grown there could pull a dying wolf back from the dead. I turned her down. But she wouldn't let it go. So Sun, my dog, barked and chased her off. Figured that'd be the end of it. Wrong. The next day she came back with two Gammas, busting right through my door. They screamed at me, called me a worthless human who had no business touching pack land. Then they tied me up and made me watch as they burned my herb books, beat Sun, and tore out every single plant I'd grown. What they didn't know? I'm human, yeah. But I'm the adopted human daughter of the Bloodmoon Alpha and Luna. That herb field? Their gift to me on my eighteenth birthday. And those herbs they burned? The only cure for her mate's dying breath.

Adrian Blackwood’s dominant Alpha scent still clung to the room. My legs hadn’t stopped trembling, and the wolf inside me was letting out soft whimpers after the intimacy we’d just lost control of. The next second, Adrian caught my chin in his hand and pressed a white pill onto the back of my tongue. “Swallow.” I didn’t fight him. Once he was satisfied, he picked up his phone and called another she-wolf right in front of me. “Vivian, get ready.” “I’m taking you to the Moon Goddess Gala tonight.” When the door shut behind him, the mate mark over my heart felt as though it had been torn open. I was the fated mate chosen for Adrian by the Moon Goddess when he turned eighteen. I was also the Luna of the Silverpine Pack—at least in name. Yet my own Alpha had spent years making sure I would never bear his heir. All because, eight years ago, he discovered the agreement the former Luna had forced me to sign. If I gave birth to an heir within one year, I would receive a one-hundred-million-dollar family trust. If I gave birth within three years, the trust would be reduced to fifty million. If I still failed to produce an heir after seven years, I would no longer have the right to interfere with the Alpha’s public involvement with other she-wolves. With bloodshot eyes, Adrian had demanded, “Elena Vale, when you accepted my mate mark, was it because you loved me—or because you wanted the Blackwood fortune?” From that day on, he began parading different she-wolves in front of me. He forced me to feel jealous. Forced me to admit that I loved him. What he never knew was that the agreement had a second page. If we remained childless at the end of eight years, either party could terminate both the legal marriage and the Luna bond. Today marked exactly eight years.