After Stealing My Moon Mark, the Heiress Thought She Could Be Luna

In my last life, I died three days after Layla Vale became a "savior." Even as she injected concentrated wolfsbane into my IV, she practiced her funeral face in front of a photograph of Seraphina Blackwood. "Once she's dead, I'll be remembered as her savior. Adrian will fall for me sooner or later. Rowan, why did you have to call the police and ruin everything?" I tried to pull the needle out, but my wrist was pinned to the bed. The Vales reminded me that they had taken me in from an orphanage, paid my tuition, and given me a home. So writing Layla's fraudulent interview copy, covering up the wolf-luring resin, and finally dying in her place were all debts I owed her. When I opened my eyes again, I was back two hours before the charity night run began. Layla kicked her white boots over to my feet and ordered me to crouch down and tie the laces, then write the interview copy for her "heroic rescue." She had no idea that two hours later, she would deliberately release maddened wolves to play the hero on camera and leave Alpha Adrian Blackwood's wife critically injured. In my last life, I worked myself to the bone covering every crack in her plan, only for her to kill me to keep me quiet. This time, I warned her: "The east emergency door isn't locked. Something is going to happen tonight." Layla sent the order to the team chat, impatient. "We go as planned. Nobody changes anything." I saved a screenshot, started recording, and for the first time did not clean up after her. Later, her arrow wounded Seraphina. I pulled the child to safety, triggered the alarm, and staunched Seraphina's bleeding. When Adrian arrived, he gave Layla only one look. Yet she told me, her cheeks flushed, "Did you see that? He's fallen for me." I looked at the wolf-luring resin that hadn't been wiped clean off her glove, and I smiled. She had no idea Adrian wasn't looking at a woman he desired. He was watching the woman who had hurt his wife. Chapter 1 In my last life, I died three days after Layla became a "savior." She stood beside my hospital bed, still wearing the white rescue jacket stained with blood. In front of the cameras, that jacket had earned her millions of likes. Away from the cameras, she hated the smell of blood on the cuffs and sprayed them with perfume again and again. "Rowan, why do you always have to ruin things for me?" She fed concentrated wolfsbane into my IV, sounding like she was scolding an assistant who had forgotten to book her a salon appointment. "Once Seraphina dies, I'll be her savior. Even if Adrian doesn't love me yet, he'll remember me. And yet you had to call the police and hide the wolf-luring resin." I tried to pull the needle out, but Gregory Vale pinned my wrist to the bed. Mara Vale stood on the other side and reminded me coldly that the Vales had paid my tuition and given me a place to live. My life had stopped belonging to me long ago. Layla laughed at that. "A charity case who can die for me. That's the most useful she'll ever be." She pressed the injection button. As the black liquid entered my vein, the last thing I saw was Seraphina's photo on Layla's phone. Layla was using it to rehearse how she would take Adrian's hand at the funeral. When I opened my eyes again, I was back two hours before the charity night run began. The computer on the desk was still on. The interview copy contained only a title: "I Never Thought About the Danger, I Only Wanted to Save Someone." Layla threw a pair of white boots at my feet. "Tie these for me first, then finish the last two paragraphs. The reporters will ask why I ran out. Make it sound natural." I looked down at my own hands. No needle marks, no black patches from the wolfsbane. The date on my phone was exactly the same as in my last life. I really had come back. "What are you staring at?" Layla nudged my calf with the toe of her boot. "I pay you to work, not to stand there daydreaming." I didn't crouch down. I copied the files on the laptop to my private email and started recording. "The east emergency door isn't properly locked. There could be an accident tonight." That was the first warning I gave her. Layla looked at me as though I were a servant who had forgotten her place. "We go as planned, no changes. Once the event starts, stay away from the cameras. Don't let that sickly face of yours affect me." In case I hadn't understood, she sent the order to the team chat as well. I looked at the words on the screen and nodded slightly. In my last life, when I discovered that the emergency door wasn't locked, I fixed it for her immediately. I deleted the segment of Tessa's test footage that showed the wolf-luring resin, then rewrote Layla's timeline three times. She thought her plans were flawless only because I patched every hole before she noticed it. This time all I saved was her order. Before the run began, Blackpine Park was packed. Seraphina, the head of the charity fund, walked at the front. Ordinary onlookers knew her only as the wife of Blackwood Security owner Adrian Blackwood. Only a handful of wolves knew she was also the sole Luna Adrian had ever acknowledged. Tessa Gray positioned her phone in advance, then quietly smeared wolf-luring resin on the hem of Seraphina's cloak. She asked Layla, "When do we go out?" Layla watched the live feed. "When the red light comes on. Saving her is pointless without footage." A little boy chased a balloon toward the east side. I hit the security alarm anonymously first, then went and brought him back behind the barrier. A low growl came from the shrubs. A wolf driven mad by wolfsbane burst out of the trees and went straight at Seraphina. Although Layla had a moonsilver bow in her hands, she deliberately held back for two full steps so Tessa could capture her face. The arrow she loosed went wide as well. The arrowhead shattered a signpost, and moonsilver fragments cut across Seraphina's shoulder. She staggered and fell, and a second maddened wolf was already charging the crowd. I pushed the boy into his mother's care, hauled a barrier into the wolf's path, ran to Seraphina, and pressed a first-aid blanket over the wound. "Don't touch the moonsilver fragments!" I shouted at the staff rushing over. "Protect the wound first, and have the medical unit prepare the wolfsbane antidote." The alarm went off three minutes earlier than it had in my last life. When the black convoy swept into the park, Adrian was the first one out. He didn't look at the cameras or at Layla in her white jacket. He seized the maddened wolf by the throat with his bare hands and slammed it into the pavement. The crack of bone against stone made every wolf nearby retreat on instinct. Once the wolf was down, he turned and went to his wife. The color had already gone out of Seraphina's face. Adrian went down on one knee beside her, his palm stopping just above the wound, and though he wasn't touching her, his fingertips were shaking. "Seraphina, can you hear me?" Layla pushed in front of him. "Mr. Blackwood, I'm the one who saved her. When I ran out I never thought about whether I might be hurt." Adrian finally looked at her. His eyes went to Layla's gloves. There was resin on them, the same as on the cloak. That look made Tessa step back, but Layla flushed. While Adrian turned and lifted his wife, she said quietly to me, "Did you see that? He couldn't take his eyes off me." "He was smelling your hands." Layla's smile froze for a beat, then sharpened into a sneer. "You don't understand men at all. That was him holding himself back." In the medical unit, Seraphina went into shock from the combined effects of wolfsbane and moonsilver. The on-site blood bank had no compatible blood in stock, so I volunteered to be tested. After the needle went into my vein, a silver light flickered along the transfusion line. The readings on the monitor gradually steadied. At that same moment Layla's silver eyes faded to an ordinary brown. She didn't care whether Seraphina lived, and she didn't ask whether donating blood had taken a toll on me. She dragged me into a corner and ordered in a low voice, "One more treatment tonight. I want the color back before I see Adrian." I pulled my hand away. "I'm not going to the clinic today." Before Layla could lose her temper, the medics carried Seraphina past. The moonstone necklace slipped off the edge of the stretcher. Layla bent to retrieve it. During the scramble to save Seraphina, she slipped the necklace inside her collar. "That's Seraphina's anniversary gift," I said. "She's practically dead. What difference does it make whether she has it on?" Layla pulled the necklace out and adjusted the angle for Tessa's camera. "Adrian will give me her other jewelry soon enough." The moonstone glowed faintly between her fingers and recorded that sentence without a sound. When Adrian turned back, he saw the necklace on her chest. In that moment his eyes were colder than when he had pinned the maddened wolf. Layla only straightened her back and deliberately copied the way Seraphina used to adjust that necklace. In the car on the way back she pushed the laptop onto my lap. "Write the press release tonight. Call it 'Adrian Can't Forget His Wife's Savior.'" I closed the laptop. "No." Layla stared at me for a few seconds and then laughed. "You think I can't do anything to you if you won't help me?" She looked down and messaged Tessa. I saw a line come up on the screen. "Take her to the old training hall. I want her to learn to keep her mouth shut whenever she sees me." Chapter 2 The next morning Layla did a television interview alone. Without the script I'd prepared, she couldn't even keep the order of the rescue straight. A reporter asked who had triggered the alarm, and she claimed she had. The reporter then asked how much blood she had donated to Seraphina. Layla paused and looked toward me off camera. "Rowan, explain it." In the past, all she had to do was say my name and I would have the answer ready at once. This time I stayed where I was. "The hospital has an official record." The smile nearly slipped off Layla's face. When the interview ended, she swept a bottle of water off the table. "You made me look like a fool on purpose." "You said you did all of it. I assumed you knew the details." She raised her hand, but remembered the reporters outside and stopped herself before striking me. My phone rang. Caleb Mercer of Blackwood Security confirmed my blood-donation details and told me they would provide whatever protection I needed until the investigation into the attack was over. Layla heard the word protection and her eyes lit up at once. "Did Adrian ask about me?" "Caleb only confirmed who gave Seraphina blood." "Of course he can't ask about me directly. Seraphina isn't dead yet. He has his reputation to consider." She ordered me to tell Adrian he could thank her privately that evening. I reminded her, "All he cares about right now is his wife's treatment." Layla's face went cold. "You keep insisting he loves his wife because you want me to back off, don't you? Rowan, you've never met a real man. The more self-control they show, the more it proves they feel something." She turned and went into the dressing room. Ten minutes later, Tessa emailed a schedule change to my work account. She asked me to meet her at the old training hall, claiming she needed to return the credentials I'd left at the event. I forwarded the location and the time to Caleb and clipped a recorder inside my cuff. The training hall had stood empty for six months. Once the door shut, the sound of traffic outside disappeared completely. Tessa hadn't brought my credentials. She had brought two lackeys to film me. "On your knees." She opened her phone camera. "Read out what Layla gave you." On the screen was a fake confession. It said that because I was infatuated with Adrian and jealous that he had noticed Layla, I had planted the wolf-luring resin, staged the attack, and then framed the person who had actually saved Seraphina. I didn't take the phone. Tessa raised a hand and slapped me. My ears rang, and there was blood in my mouth at once. "Don't act so high-minded. You eat on the Vales' dime and live under their roof. What's wrong with Layla asking you to admit to one thing?" I stepped back, and the two hangers-on took hold of my arms on either side. Tessa kicked the back of my knee. As I went down she brought a training baton across my ribs. "Read it." Layla's voice came out of the phone. "Get the camera closer. Don't ruin her face. She still has to give me moonlight tomorrow night." Tessa did as she was told and slapped me again. I looked at the camera and suddenly smiled. "Do you really believe she'll keep her promise?" "Don't try to turn me against her." "She wouldn't even show her face here. When this comes out, she'll say you were jealous of me and lured me here on your own." Tessa's face changed, and then, to prove how much she was trusted, she played the full voice message Layla had sent. "Listen carefully. The place, the lines, how to hit her, Layla told me all of it herself. Once she's Luna I'll be her personal photographer." The device inside my cuff captured every word. I picked up the fake confession and stopped at the line "I opened the east door myself." "Only Layla knows the code for the east door. How are you going to explain that?" Tessa raised the baton. "She sent me the code last night. Keep stalling, and I really will break your bones." The baton had barely struck my shoulder when the training hall alarm went off. Caleb and his men broke through the east door. The two lackeys let go at once. Tessa grabbed my phone and, in her panic, deleted the visible recording. She never found the device inside my cuff. I was taken to the hospital and diagnosed with soft-tissue damage to my face, a sprained knee, and bruised ribs. Layla didn't come to see me. She only called. "Why did you drag a quarrel between friends into the Blackwoods' business?" "Tessa abducted me and beat me. That isn't an argument between friends." "She just has a quick temper. Drop the charges and I'll let the clinic go on treating you. Otherwise your wolf will never wake up as long as you live." I pressed record. "Send your terms to my work email." Layla thought she had frightened me, and she actually sent it. That afternoon Tessa uploaded the edited fake confession to MoonNet. Layla went live right after it, weeping that she had been framed by an ungrateful assistant. "I never kept Rowan anywhere. The east door of the old training hall was open the whole time. She could have walked out whenever she liked." The comments went quiet for a few seconds. Someone asked why she knew it was the old training hall when the location wasn't in the video. Someone else asked how she knew whether the east door was open. Layla's eyes flickered and she raised her voice at once. "Because Adrian keeps me informed about the investigation! What Adrian and I have is no one else's business." To plug one hole, she had manufactured a rumor that a married man shared his secrets with her. At the other end of the ward, Seraphina woke briefly. She recognized me as the person who had pulled her away from the wolf, and she remembered that Layla had stood off camera waiting for the live light to come on. After hearing her out, Adrian asked only one thing: "Are you tired?" When Seraphina nodded, he pulled the blanket higher, turned, and had the lawyers preserve a full archive of Layla's stream. I completed my discharge paperwork and returned to the Vale house to pack. Layla leaned in the doorway watching me. "Stop the act. Without me, you couldn't even find a job." "Then don't trouble yourself about it." "You'll come back and beg me." She was certain she controlled where I lived, what I earned, and what medical treatment I received. She didn't know that the drug samples, the contracts, and nineteen years of medical records were already with my lawyer. As I wheeled my case out the front door, a screenshot came in on my phone. Layla had just messaged a brand: "If the training hall incident gets out of hand, we'll say Tessa acted on her own out of jealousy." The screenshot came from Tessa. She had finally worked out that the next person pushed forward to take the blame would be her. Chapter 3 On my first day after quitting, Layla missed two brand meetings. On the second day she got two sponsors' names the wrong way round. On the third day she sent a voice message from the work account. "Even if Seraphina wakes up, she has no value left. Is Adrian supposed to spend his whole life looking after an invalid?" In the past, an error like that would never have stayed online for more than ten seconds. I would have withdrawn it, contacted the platform, and written an apology for her. Now there was nobody to handle it. The message was forwarded tens of thousands of times. Layla didn't apologize. Instead, she berated me in the team chat, claiming that quitting didn't excuse me from staying on call. She had forgotten the group had already been made public, so that message spread with the rest. A brand manager called and demanded she put out a clarification within half an hour. Out of habit, Layla held her phone toward the chair where I used to sit. Her hand was halfway there before she remembered no one was in it. She wrote three lines herself. The first said the voice message had been fabricated. The second called it a joke among friends. The third admitted that she really was worried Adrian was wearing himself out caring for his sick wife. The brand manager read it and suspended the partnership outright. Layla never noticed that the three explanations contradicted one another. She decided the brand was only trying to lowball her before she married into the Blackwoods. To salvage her image, she announced she would go live to pray for Seraphina. Working from old photographs of Seraphina, she bought the same silver dress and the same perfume, and even did her hair the same way. The only difference was the stolen moonstone necklace on her chest. Before the stream began, I sent her another warning. Don't imitate his wife. It will only make him more wary of you. Layla made the screenshot public with the caption: Some people simply can't stand that I'd make a better Luna. During the stream, she first said a dying Seraphina had given her the necklace. Five minutes later, she claimed she had found it by the roadside. When a reporter pressed her on why she hadn't returned it, she lifted her chin. "Adrian has tacitly allowed me to keep it." Someone asked why, if this was a prayer, she was dressed as though for an engagement party. Layla threw the questioner out of the stream on the spot. "A woman making herself beautiful is also a way of respecting a patient. If Seraphina were awake she would only thank me for taking care of her husband." For once, Tessa didn't echo her from behind the camera. She stared at the necklace on Layla's chest and asked quietly, "Are you sure she won't wake up?" Layla switched off the microphone, impatient. "Awake or not, it's the same. How is someone who needs help walking going to compete with me?" She didn't notice that although the stream was muted, Tessa's own camera was still recording sound. That evening Blackwood Security sent a formal invitation. They would thank those who took part in the rescue at a private dinner, and at the same time verify the clothing from that night, the original footage and the moonstone necklace. All Layla saw were the words "attend in person." "He finally couldn't stay away." She had a tailor send over a low-cut silver dress and booked the most expensive hotel near the estate. "After tonight I may not be coming back to the Vale house." Tessa looked at the evidence list in the attachment. "This looks more like an investigation." Layla gave her an unhappy look. "Have you been infected by Rowan too? If Adrian suspected me, wouldn't he send the police to arrest me instead of inviting me to dinner?" When I got the same invitation, all I said was, "Asking you to bring the original footage and the necklace isn't a date." Layla sent me a four-minute voice message. She went from how she had set up her shots to how she made Tessa wait for the live light, and then boasted that the moonstone necklace looked better on her than it ever had on Seraphina. Finally, she ordered me to write a declaration of love overnight, centered on the line "I'll go on loving you in her place." I saved the message and didn't reply. She waited ten minutes, then sent me the demand letter the Vales' lawyer had drafted. If I failed to deliver the piece, they threatened to collect every cent they had spent on me since taking me from the orphanage. In my last life a bill like that would have had me apologizing immediately. This time, I forwarded the bill and my pay records to an employment attorney. He read two pages and asked whether the Vales had ever paid me overtime. I said they hadn't. The demand letter Layla had meant to use against me became written proof of the Vales' years of coercion. Before dinner, Tessa again asked for the brand partnership Layla had promised her. Layla told her outright, "If dinner goes well, keep filming for me. If the investigation becomes a problem, I'll say you acted alone in both the maddened-wolf incident and the training-hall attack. Rowan doesn't have the complete original footage anyway." Tessa asked, "What about your voice messages?" Layla replied with a smiling emoji. "Who's going to believe a photographer who'll do anything for money?" Tessa forwarded the conversation to me. When we reached the Blackwood estate, the press Layla had called were already waiting outside. She pulled a suitcase monogrammed with an A and an L and explained that the L stood for Layla, not Luna. She planned to have reporters photograph her leaving the estate the next morning, proving that she had spent the night. The estate's security made the press withdraw to the road and refused to carry her luggage. Layla wrote down the guard's name on the spot and declared that once she became the lady of the estate, firing him would be her first act. The guard didn't argue. He simply filed that sentence along with the gate camera footage. I went in through the witnesses' side entrance. Layla saw the invitation in my hand and her face darkened. "You think you belong here?" "My name is on the invitation." "Adrian only wants you to watch me win with your own eyes." She held out her coat to me. I didn't take it. Layla threatened quietly, "After tonight I'll make sure you can't find work anywhere in Blackpine." The doors of the reception room opened. Adrian stood at the far end of the long table. There was no greeting or small talk. His gaze went straight to the necklace around Layla's throat. "Who gave you permission to touch my wife's things?"