"Mommy, look at this ugly necklace! The chain is broken!" Damien exclaimed, pointing to Violette's broken necklace.
"Damien, don't be naughty, Sweetie. That's Violette's precious necklace."
"This ugly necklace is useless. It breaks so easily!" Damien stuck out his tongue and threw the necklace carelessly, causing the diamond pendant to separate and shatter on the floor.
Irene chuckled, then looked at Violette with a satisfied smile. "Looks like you can't wear that dress and jewelry. If you want, I can lend you my old dress."
Violette's hands clenched and trembled as she tried to hold back her anger. "Irene, watch your attitude in my den. Don't try to provoke me if you don't want to regret it."
Irene flicked her hair back over her neck with a haughty attitude, the cloying sweetness of night-blooming jasmine and warm honey rolling off her in waves, that acrid chemical undertone barely masked beneath. "Still pretending to be the Luna of this pack? Tsk, did you know that Hans and I mated on your bed?" She showed the bite mark on her neck, the skin bruised and raw where teeth had broken through. "Look, he's so wild and can't stop. He said he was bored to death when he was with you. You can't make him excited because you're like..."
Before Irene could finish her sentence, Violette slapped her hard. Her expression was very dark.
"Irene, you're just Hans' kept she-wolf. Hans doesn't even dare to claim you before the pack and show you to everyone. Don't overstep your bounds. I've been patient enough with you! If you provoke me again, you'll suffer the consequences."
Violette didn't want to waste her energy dealing with a mistress, especially since she was going to sever her bond with Hans. But Irene repeatedly provoked her, causing her patience to run out.
Irene glared at Violette with red, hate-filled eyes. Her lips curled into a cynical smile as she glanced at the door, seeing Hans approaching from a distance.
"You evil woman! How dare you hit my mom!" Damien shouted and bit Violette's hand.
"Damien, let go!" Violette shouted, pushing Damien away, but he bumped into the ironing board.
Irene suddenly grabbed Damien and protected him, just as the iron fell on her shoulder.
"Akhhh..." Her cry was loud. She cried as she hugged Damien in her arms. "Violette, I know Damien isn't your biological pup, but you don't have to burn him with an iron! He's just a little boy! You'd better burn me instead!"
"Irene!" Hans rushed in and took the hot iron away. He stood up and slapped Violette very hard.
"Violette, this time you've gone too far in hurting Damien and Irene!"
The slap was so hard that it tore the corner of Violette's lip. This was the first time Hans had ever hit her. The scent of charred oak and black iron flooded the chamber as his Alpha aura flared, pressing down on her like a physical weight. Her wolf, already battered, went completely still inside her chest.
Violette smiled bitterly as she wiped the blood from the corner of her lip.
"I didn't mean to hurt Damien. But Irene started the fight by destroying my dress and jewelry."
The second slap struck Violette's face again.
"Just because of a dress and some jewelry, you had the heart to burn Damien and Irene with an iron. Your heart is so cruel," Hans snapped. "You have to apologize to Irene!"
Violette gritted her teeth. "Don't you dare tell me to apologize to that bitch!"
"You..." Hans was about to hit her again, but seeing Violette's face already bruised and the corner of her lip torn, he lowered his hand, feeling guilty. However, when he saw Irene crying protectively as she hugged Damien, her back injured, his heart hardened.
He lifted Irene into his arms, then ordered the guards.
"Lock Violette in her quarters and don't give her food or drink until she apologizes."
Violette stared coldly at his back. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She wiped them away roughly.
*Enough, Violette. Don't cry for him anymore!*
---
Violette was locked up without food or drink. Her mother reached out again through the mind-link stone, asking why she had let Hans take Irene to the Blackthorn pack gathering in her place.
Apparently, to calm Irene down, Hans had taken her to the Blackthorn pack gathering and given her the finest dress and jewelry. They had claimed that Violette was ill and had asked her sister-in-law to replace her.
Even though they were in another territory, the Ashwood Pack received a steady flow of information about what was happening here.
Violette wiped her forehead, then ended the mind-link with her mother. Her ears hurt from hearing her mother's accusations.
After that night, Hans didn't come back to the den and took Irene and Damien on a tour through the Italian coastal territories, the Eastern wolf sanctuaries, and the Greek island packs.
Irene showed off their trip in memory stone recordings that she sent nonstop to Violette's mind-link stone. Everything, without exception, including intimate images and recordings of them tangled together in bed, Hans's bite marks fresh on Irene's skin.
Meanwhile, Violette was still locked up. The pack servant gave her food and drink, kept asking if she had apologized, and then reported it to Hans.
Violette survived by drinking water from the basin in her bathing chamber.
Hans extended her confinement until they returned from the trip.
When Violette thought she was dying and starving to death, she woke up in her chamber with a healer's infusion tube attached to her hand. The faint scent of lavender and rain-washed stone, her own scent, had gone thin and sour, like something wilting.
Hans sat on the side of the bed with a stiff face and guilt covered by an angry gaze.
"If only you had admitted your mistake earlier, this wouldn't have happened."
Violette covered her face. She didn't want to see Hans's face. The man who had torn her heart apart. Her wolf lay flat and silent somewhere deep inside her, barely a flicker. It didn't even lift its head at the sound of his voice.
Hans sighed.
"Violette, stop being stubborn and just apologize to Irene."
Irene appeared behind Hans. The sickly-sweet scent of jasmine and honey drifted in with her, and beneath it, that wrongness that always made Violette's wolf pace. She smiled understandingly and said softly, "Hans, it's okay. Violette is the daughter of the Ashwood bloodline. Of course, her pride is so high that she won't apologize to me, who is nobody."
Hans glared at Violette angrily.
"Being the daughter of the Ashwood bloodline has made you so arrogant!"
