The Villainous Matriarch's Secretly Pampered Wolf Consorts

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. ]

The mechanical voice echoed in Ella's brain, cold and emotionless.

She kept her face perfectly rigid, but her pulse raced. A System? Like in the novels she used to read between surgeries?

She looked down at Daulton. The fierce wolf boy had completely collapsed, his spirit broken by the threat to his brother. Every instinct in Ella's body screamed at her to reach out, to pat his shaking shoulders and tell him it was okay.

She dug her fingernails so hard into her palms that the skin nearly broke. She couldn't.

Kevan shuffled forward on his knees. He reached out with his bleeding fingers, gently catching the hem of Ella's lavish silk nightgown.

"Please, Master," Kevan whispered, his voice cracking. "Forgive him. He is young. Punish me instead."

Ella's eyes dropped to Kevan's hands. The cuts from the bone dagger were deep, slicing straight down to the muscle. In this world, minor wounds healed fast for beastmen, but a cut that deep could easily sever a tendon. Her veterinary instincts flared. She frowned hard.

Daulton saw her frown. He thought she was disgusted by Kevan's blood on her dress. He immediately threw himself in front of Kevan, shielding him with his body, squeezing his eyes shut as he waited for her to strike him.

Ella took a slow, deep breath. She channeled the original owner's haughty, impatient tone.

"Get up," she snapped, her voice like cracking ice.

Both men scrambled to their feet, terrified. Daulton's wolf ears drooped flat against his head, all his rebellious fire extinguished.

Ella searched the original owner's memories. Why was Daulton trying to kill her?

The answer hit her like a physical blow to the stomach. Cordaro. Daulton's older brother.

Last night, the original Ella had been bored. She had taken a whip soaked in a flesh-rotting toxin and lashed Cordaro for hours. She had left him chained to the dungeon wall, his wounds heavily infected, slowly dying in agony.

Ella's stomach lurched violently. A wave of intense nausea washed over her. She felt physically sick at the cruelty her body had committed.

She forced the bile back down. She spun around, marching toward the heavy oak door.

"Take me to the dungeon," she ordered coldly.

Daulton's head snapped up. Raw terror flooded his amber eyes. He thought she was going down there to finish Cordaro off, to execute him for the assassination attempt.

Kevan quickly grabbed Daulton's arm, digging his fingers in to keep the boy quiet. He bowed deeply to Ella's back.

"Yes, Master," Kevan said, his voice completely hollow.

The three of them walked down the long, opulent corridors of the estate. The walls were lined with gold-leaf mirrors and expensive magic-beast pelts, but the air felt dead. Torches flickered, casting long, twisted shadows across the marble floors.

As they descended the stone spiral staircase into the underground levels, the temperature plummeted. The air grew damp and heavy.

A thick, metallic stench of old blood mixed with the sweet, sickening smell of rotting flesh hit Ella's nose.

Her steps faltered. The nausea returned, stronger this time.

Kevan, walking slightly behind her, noticed her hesitation. His gray eyes flickered with a tiny, deeply hidden spark of confusion. The old Ella loved this smell. Why was she slowing down?

They reached the end of the corridor. A heavy iron grate blocked the entrance to the last cell.

Daulton's breathing turned ragged. His eyes filled with fresh tears.

In the dim light of a single torch, a massive figure hung from the wall, suspended by thick, rusted iron chains locked around his wrists, the excess heavy links pooling on the damp stone floor below.

It was Cordaro. He was a high-tier wolf warrior, a man who used to command respect. Now, he was covered in blood and filth. His fur was matted into hard, dark clumps.

Ella stepped closer to the iron bars. Even in the bad lighting, she could see the deep, jagged whip marks crisscrossing his broad chest. The edges of the wounds were swollen, leaking thick, yellow pus.

She listened carefully. Cordaro's breathing was shallow, rapid, and wet.

Sepsis. The infection had entered his bloodstream. His body was shutting down.

Daulton couldn't hold it in anymore. He threw himself against the iron bars, letting out a muffled, agonizing whimper.

Kevan leaned against the cold stone wall and closed his eyes. He was waiting for Ella to give the order to throw the body to the wild beasts.

Ella's hands gripped the fabric of her skirt. She squeezed so hard her knuckles turned stark white. She needed the physical pain to keep her face from crumbling into tears.

[Warning, ] the System's voice chimed in her head. [If a bound consort dies, the host will suffer a forced extraction of life force, resulting in agonizing, immediate organ failure. ]

Ella sneered in her mind. I don't need a threat to save a life, you piece of junk.

She spun around on her heel, her eyes locking onto Kevan with a harsh, demanding glare.

Kevan flinched violently, instinctively pulling his bleeding hands against his chest.

"Go fetch a basin of boiling water and clean rags," Ella barked, her tone leaving no room for argument. "Now. I am going in there."

Kevan stared at her, his gray eyes wide with shock. He stumbled backward, then turned and sprinted down the dark corridor, his footsteps echoing wildly.

Ella turned back to the cell. She reached out and pulled a heavy iron ring of keys from a hook on the wall.

She stepped up to the iron grate. She shoved the largest key into the rusted lock. It ground against the metal with a loud, ear-piercing screech that echoed through the dead silence of the dungeon.

Daulton watched her every move. His muscles were coiled tight. A low, warning growl rumbled in his throat, but he didn't dare step forward to stop her.

Ella pushed the heavy iron door open.

The stench of necrotic tissue hit her like a physical wall. She gagged, pressing the back of her hand against her mouth.

What the hell, she cursed internally. She forced herself to breathe through her mouth, treating this exactly like walking into the worst, most neglected animal hoarding case back in New York. She locked her emotions away and let her clinical training take over.

She walked straight up to Cordaro.

He was a massive man, easily over six-foot-three, built with thick, dense muscle meant for hunting giant monsters. Now, he looked fragile.

Sensing someone approaching, Cordaro's survival instincts flared. He was half-unconscious, but his lips curled back, exposing sharp, terrifying canine teeth. A weak, rattling snarl tore from his throat.

His eyes were glazed over, unfocused and cloudy, but they still burned with a stubborn refusal to die.

Ella ignored his warning. She didn't hesitate. She crouched down and reached her hand straight toward his rotting chest.

"No!" Daulton gasped from the doorway, terrified she was going to dig her nails into his brother's open wounds.

But Ella's hand stopped an inch above the ruined flesh. She didn't touch him. She just hovered her palm there, feeling the heat radiating off his skin.

It was like holding her hand over a lit stove. His fever was dangerously high.

Her veterinary instincts processed the data instantly. The toxin had bypassed his muscular tissue and invaded the lymphatic system. This wasn't a surface infection anymore. His organs were cooking from the inside out.

Cordaro felt the slight shift in air currents from her hand. His body violently convulsed in pain. The heavy iron chains rattled loudly against the stone wall.

Ella looked up at his face. His deep, charcoal-gray wolf ears were plastered flat against his skull, a universal animal sign of extreme distress and submission to pain.

A fierce wave of protectiveness surged in Ella's chest.

Without thinking, she softened her posture. She leaned in slightly, and she whispered under her breath, uttering a strange, melodic string of syllables he had never heard before.

"You poor, big guy."

The words were barely a breath, but Cordaro was a wolf beastman. His hearing was infinitely sharper than a human's.

Even through the thick fog of his fever, his ears twitched. He caught the sound. It was a tone of pure, unfiltered pity. It was a sound that the cruel, sadistic Ella Ortiz had never made in her entire life.

Cordaro's thick eyelashes fluttered. He fought against the heavy weight of his eyelids, trying desperately to focus on the face of the woman crouching in front of him.

Before he could clear his vision, the darkness dragged him back under. His head slumped forward.

Footsteps slapped against the stone floor outside. Kevan rushed back into the cell, carrying a wooden basin filled with steaming hot water.

He stopped dead in his tracks. He saw Ella crouching near Cordaro. She wasn't holding a whip. She wasn't pressing salt into his wounds. She was just looking at him.

The sheer confusion on Kevan's face was obvious.

Ella heard Kevan's ragged breathing. She instantly wiped the pity off her face, replacing it with a mask of deep disgust.

She stood up abruptly. She snatched the basin from Kevan's hands and deliberately slammed it down onto the stone floor.

Water splashed everywhere, hissing as it hit the cold rock.

A splash of scalding water hit Daulton's boots. He jumped back, his amber eyes flaring with renewed hostility.

"Clean the filthy blood off his chest," Ella ordered Kevan, her voice dripping with contempt. "And do it fast. The smell is making me sick."

Kevan didn't dare disobey. He dropped to his knees, ignoring the searing pain in his own sliced hands. He dipped a rag into the hot water and began to carefully, agonizingly wipe away the crusted blood around Cordaro's wounds.

Ella stood a few feet away, her arms crossed. Her eyes were locked on the texture of the wounds, her brain calculating the massive dose of broad-spectrum antibiotics he would need to survive this.

Hot water wasn't going to do a damn thing. This world didn't have IV drips or modern medicine. She had to rely on that stupid System.

She screamed in her mind. Lex Cantor! How do I get medicine for this?

[Host must accumulate Animosity Points to purchase the High-Tier Healing Serum from the System Shop, ] the cold voice replied.

Ella ground her teeth together. She looked at Daulton and Kevan. They were terrified of her, but they didn't hate her enough right now. She needed points, fast.

She suddenly lashed out, kicking the wooden basin with her heavy leather boot.

It flipped over with a loud crash, spilling the remaining hot water across the floor.

"You are too slow!" Ella screamed at Kevan.