Chapter 1

Pain tore through Ella's skull, sharp and blinding.

It felt as though someone had driven a steel spike directly between her eyes. She gasped, her lungs burning as they fought for air. Her vision swam, slowly focusing on a heavy, dark-wood canopy bed above her. This wasn't her clean, sterile veterinary clinic in New York.

Before her brain could process the vintage ceiling, a violent chill washed over her skin. It was the pure, suffocating instinct of a predator closing in.

Ella rolled hard to the inside of the mattress.

A sharp thud echoed in the quiet room. A jagged bone dagger sank deep into the silk pillow, exactly where her head had rested a second ago. White feathers exploded into the air, drifting down like morbid snow.

Ella's heart hammered against her ribs so violently it hurt. She whipped her head around.

A pair of amber eyes glared down at her. They were bloodshot, feral, and burning with a hatred so intense it made Ella's stomach twist into a tight knot. The boy holding the dagger gripped the hilt with white knuckles. He let out a low, guttural growl that vibrated in his chest.

Atop his head, a pair of silver-gray, furry wolf ears streaked with jagged dark fur twitched aggressively.

In this world, males possessed two forms: a human form for complex social interactions, and a beast form for brutal combat. Even in human form, they retained highly sensitive animal traits, like those ears. They were born warriors, existing only to hunt magic beasts and absorb energy cores. But they could never evolve without a female. Females were the ultimate catalysts, using their unique biological energy fields to unlock a male's power.

Because of this biological absolute, females held supreme power. Males were mere accessories.

But right now, this "accessory" was trying to murder her.

Daulton ripped the bone dagger from the mattress. He bared his teeth, his canines elongated and sharp, and lunged at her throat again.

Ella's mind went entirely blank. Her modern human body, trained to heal sick puppies and kittens, had zero muscle memory for dodging a lethal strike. She froze, her breath trapped in her throat.

Just as the jagged bone edge hovered inches from her jugular, a thin shadow threw itself through the half-open bedroom door.

"Stop!"

A man crashed into Daulton. Kevan, another of her consorts, grabbed the sharp blade of the dagger with his bare hands.

Warm, metallic-smelling blood instantly dripped from Kevan's sliced palms, splashing onto Ella's pale cheek.

The heat of that blood was a trigger. A massive tidal wave of memories crashed into Ella's brain. She clutched her head, letting out a raw scream as her body curled into a tight ball on the silk sheets.

She wasn't just Ella the vet anymore. She was Ella Ortiz, the tyrannical matriarch of this estate. She was a monster who tortured her bound consorts for sport-she had already broken the others, leaving a blinded leopard beastman to rot in the deadly Mist Forest, and banishing a crippled panther to the outer slums.

Daulton froze at her scream. The dagger halted in mid-air.

Kevan ignored the agony of his sliced hands. He shoved himself between Daulton and the bed, his voice trembling violently.

"Daulton, don't! If she dies, we all die! The Beast Mark!"

The Beast Mark. The memory surfaced in Ella's mind like a toxic bubble. It was a one-way life-binding contract. A male embedded a piece of his energy core into the female's life force. If the female died, her collapsing energy field would detonate the cores of every male bound to her. They would all die instantly. It was the ultimate leash.

Ella forced her eyes open. Her chest he heave. She stared at the two beautiful, battered young men in front of her. They were covered in old scars and fresh bruises.

Daulton's wolf ears stood rigid with rage and despair. His silver-gray tail lashed against the floor behind him.

Ella was a massive animal lover. Seeing those fluffy ears, her heart gave a traitorous little skip. But the cold, hard reality of the bone dagger quickly sobered her up.

If she showed even an ounce of modern-day weakness, this furious wolf pup would realize she wasn't the tyrant he feared. He might just risk the Beast Mark and rip her throat out anyway.

Ella swallowed the bile rising in her throat. She forced her facial muscles to freeze into a mask of pure, aristocratic arrogance.

She let out a slow, chilling laugh.

Pushing herself up against the headboard, she reached up and wiped Kevan's blood from her cheek. She smeared it between her fingers, looking at them with utter disgust.

Daulton flinched at her dead, cold eyes. The hand holding the dagger began to shake, but he didn't back down.

Seeing Daulton hesitate, Kevan dropped to his knees. His kneecaps hit the hard stone floor with a sickening crack.

He wrapped his bleeding arms around Daulton's legs, desperately trying to pull the boy back.

Ella's gaze drifted to Kevan's pale face. She stared at the heavy, humiliating metal collar locked around his neck-the physical symbol of her absolute ownership.

She cursed this twisted, sick world in her head. But on the outside, she tilted her chin up.

"Go ahead," Ella sneered, her voice dripping with venom. "Kill me, mutt. But the second my heart stops, your half-dead brother in the dungeon will explode into a million pieces. Is that what you want?"

The word brother shattered Daulton.

The feral rage in his amber eyes dissolved into pure, hollow despair.

The bone dagger slipped from his trembling fingers. It hit the thick carpet with a dull thud. Daulton buried his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking as a broken sob tore from his throat.

Ella exhaled a shaky breath through her nose. Her back was slick with cold sweat. She had survived.

Suddenly, a flat, mechanical voice echoed directly inside her skull.

[Villain System Lex Cantor activated. Binding to host. ]