Just because my five-year-old twin daughters upset my mate's former lover, he condemned them to the Iron Fang Den, a brutal training camp where young wolf pups were broken into obedience.

The wardens came to our packhouse before dawn.

They forced open the gates and marched inside, reaching for my daughters as though they were criminals instead of frightened little pups.

My girls clung to the stone doorway, crying for their father.

I dropped to my knees.

"They're only five," I begged, tears burning my eyes. "They're still pups. No child survives the Iron Fang Den unchanged. Please... they'll die in a place like that."

"If someone must answer for their mistakes, let it be me. I'm their mother. I failed to teach them properly. Punish me instead."

My mate stood beside the woman he had once loved, his arm wrapped protectively around her waist.

He looked at our daughters without the slightest trace of pity.

"You've coddled them for far too long," he said coldly. "That's why they've grown so wild and disrespectful."

"I'm their Alpha and their father. If you can't raise them properly, I will."

He met my tear-filled gaze without wavering.

"Do you truly believe I would ever harm my own flesh and blood?"

The next morning, my sister-in-law and I raced to the Iron Fang Den.

What awaited us shattered my soul.

One of my little girls lay motionless on the cold stone floor.

Her tiny body was covered in purple bruises and whip marks.

Her breathing had long since stopped.

At that very moment, my mate was celebrating throughout the pack, announcing that his former lover was carrying his new heir.

I stared at my sister-in-law with empty, lifeless eyes.

"My daughter is gone."

"I have nothing left to fight for."

"Please."

"Let me leave this pack."

"I don't want anything anymore."

……

By the time they carried my daughter to the pack healers, she no longer had a heartbeat.

The healers took one look at her small, battered body and quietly covered her with a white shroud before she ever reached the healing chamber.

My sister-in-law looked at me with eyes full of sorrow.

"It's all right," she whispered, though her voice shook. "Grandfather and I will stand by you. My brother is the one at fault. I swear the Howell bloodline will make him answer for this."

Before she could say anything else, I silently handed her my crystal communicator.

On its glowing surface was the message Jordon had shared with the entire pack only two hours earlier.

"Little one, your parents have loved you since before you were born."

Attached was a healer's pregnancy scrying, clearly showing that Annette was six weeks with pup.

Annette Tate.

Jordon's first love.

The color drained from my sister-in-law's face.

After a long silence, anger replaced her shock.

"I'll summon my brother immediately," she said through clenched teeth. "Don't worry. The Howell Family will give you the justice you deserve."

A bitter smile touched my lips.

Instead, I activated our mate-link crystal and called Jordon myself.

The connection had barely formed before his impatient voice echoed through it.

"Are you calling to tell me the pups are being mistreated again?"

"They're members of the Howell bloodline. Who would dare lay a claw on them?"

"I only sent them to the Iron Fang Den to learn discipline. Do you really need to harass me without end?"

"Diana, I'm sick of this."

Before I could speak a single word, the connection was severed.

The crystal had been on speaker.

Every cruel word reached my sister-in-law without restraint.

She stood frozen, her face deathly pale, unable to find anything that could comfort me.

I tried to smile.

Instead, tears streamed silently down my face.

"I've lost everything," I whispered.

"Please... let me leave this pack."

"I truly can't endure it anymore."

Before my sister-in-law could answer, several Pack Enforcers approached us.

"Are you the family of the deceased pup?" one of them asked gently.

"The wardens responsible for the Iron Fang Den have been taken into custody. We need your cooperation to complete the investigation."

The moment I entered the pack's Hall of Judgment, I saw the same wardens who had dragged my daughters away from our home the day before.

Reason abandoned me.

I broke free and threw myself toward them, screaming through uncontrollable sobs.

"You monsters!"

"They were only five years old!"

"How could you do this to innocent pups?"

"How could you?"

The Pack Enforcers quickly restrained me before I could reach them.

My sister-in-law wrapped her arms around me as I collapsed, shaking uncontrollably in her embrace.

"Diana, please don't do this," my sister-in-law pleaded as she held me tightly. "The Pack Council will judge this fairly. As long as the Howell Pack stands behind you, those men will answer for what they've done."

The wardens seemed more annoyed than remorseful.

One of them sneered from where he stood under guard.

"If you'd raised your pups properly, they would never have ended up in the Iron Fang Den."

"This is how young wolves are trained. Discipline requires pain. We never expected your daughters to be so weak."

My whole body trembled with rage.

I pointed at them, wishing I could rip them apart with my own claws.

A metallic taste filled my mouth.

Blood spilled from my lips.

Darkness swallowed me whole.

When I opened my eyes again, I was lying inside the Howell Pack's ancestral lodge.

My sister-in-law stood beside the bed, her eyes swollen from crying.

"You're awake," she whispered. "Don't worry. The Pack Council has already begun its investigation. We won't let those beasts escape justice."

I stared blankly at the carved wooden ceiling.

"Please," I murmured. "Let me leave. I have nothing left."

Deep down, I understood the truth.

Those wardens deserved punishment.

But they had only carried out the sentence.

The one who had condemned our daughters to that place was Jordon.

Their own father.

He was the one who had truly killed them.

My sister-in-law lowered her head.

After a long silence, she nodded.

"All right."

"I'll speak with Grandfather."

The moment she left, the tears I had been holding back finally broke free.

Years of grief poured out with them.

I had come to the Howell Pack when I was eight years old.

Jordon had been the same age.

Alpha Howell and my grandfather had once fought side by side in the Great Pack War.

My grandfather had saved the Alpha's life, and the two had sworn a blood oath of brotherhood.

After my parents died during a rogue attack, my grandfather became my only family.

When he later passed beyond the Moon Goddess's embrace, I was left completely alone.

Alpha Howell brought me into the Howell Pack and raised me as one of his own.

Over the years, he and my sister-in-law had shown me nothing but kindness.

They had truly treated me as family.

So during the seven years of my mating bond with Jordon, no matter how coldly he treated me, I endured everything.

I raised our daughters.

I cared for our home.

I asked for nothing in return.

I believed that even if my mate never loved me, my life still had meaning because I had my little girls.

Now...

They were gone.

Some time later, my sister-in-law returned.

"Grandfather wishes to see you."

When I entered the Alpha's chamber, the old Alpha sat quietly beside the hearth.

The sorrow in his eyes nearly broke me.

"Diana," he said gently, "you have always been a good child."

"Your sister has told me everything."

"We will return your daughter's ashes to the Moon tomorrow."

"When it is over, you may leave this pack if that is your wish."

"My grandson is unworthy of you."

"You should not waste another day of your life because of him."

I said nothing.

I simply bowed deeply before the old Alpha.

Tears struck the wooden floor beneath me.

I would always be grateful to the Howell Pack for giving an orphan a home.

But I could never forgive Jordon.

He was the one who had sent our daughter to her death.

When I returned to my chamber, Jordon was already waiting.

The moment he saw me, a mocking smile crossed his face.

"So you couldn't wait to run to Grandfather and complain?"

"Diana, do you really think winning Grandfather's sympathy or my sister's support will make me care about you?"

The instant our eyes met, every shred of grief inside me became hatred.

It crashed over me like a tidal wave.

In that moment, I wanted only one thing.

To watch the man who had murdered our daughter fall into the abyss he had created with his own hands.

At the same time, my daughters' voices echoed through my mind.

"Mother, we love Father so much. He's the strongest Alpha in the whole pack."

"Mother, we miss Father. Will he come home to see us tonight?"

"We love Mother most in the world... and Father second."

Then came the final words they had ever spoken to me.

"Mother, please don't argue with Father because of us."

"We weren't good pups. This is our fault."

They had whispered those words as they lay dying in my arms after I reached the Iron Fang Den.

I drew a slow breath.

Without sparing Jordon a glance, I walked past him and sat quietly on the edge of the bed.

My silence only seemed to anger him.

He strode over, grabbed my shoulders, and threw me back onto the bed.

One hand pinned both of my wrists above my head.

"What is this now?" he demanded. "Didn't you have your sister summon me back?"

Before I could react, he lowered his head, trying to claim my lips.

Disgust surged through me.

Unable to break free, I bit down hard.

Jordon cursed and jerked away, touching his bleeding lip.

"Diana, have you lost your mind?"

"I can't stand the sight of you."

"You fool Grandfather with that innocent face, then drag me back here only to pretend you don't want me."

"Pathetic."

He laughed bitterly.

"Your daughters turned out exactly like you."

"Soft. Weak. Manipulative."

I bit my own lip until I tasted blood.

Then I interrupted him quietly.

"Our daughters are dead."

His expression stiffened.

For the briefest moment, disbelief crossed his face.

Then he scoffed.

"So you've learned Annette is carrying my pup, and now you've decided to invent something this outrageous?"

"Diana, you've become completely unreasonable."

He turned and walked toward the door.

Before leaving, he glanced back coldly.

"Since you're the one refusing me, don't run to Grandfather later and complain that I ignore you."

"It'll only make me despise you even more."

The chamber fell silent after he left.

I stumbled into the washroom.

Again and again, I scrubbed my mouth until my lips bled, desperate to erase the lingering taste of my mate.

There had once been a time when we truly loved each other.

On the night of my Coming of Age Ceremony, eighteen-year-old Jordon had stood beneath the Moon Goddess's sacred tree, his ears flushed with embarrassment.

"Diana," he had whispered.

"I don't want to be only your childhood companion anymore."

"I want to become your mate."

His voice had trembled, but the determination in his golden eyes had melted my heart.

For years afterward, he cherished me with a devotion that seemed endless.

I loved him just as deeply.

When we were both twenty-two, Alpha Howell called us into the ancestral hall.

"You've both reached the age to choose your mates," he said gently.

"Diana's grandfather once saved my life."

"I cannot bear to see her leave this pack."

He looked at us with a warm smile.

"What would you think of becoming true mates?"

Everything changed after that.

Almost overnight, Jordon became distant.

The tenderness in his eyes vanished as though it had never existed.

No matter how many times I asked what had happened, he refused to answer.

A year after our mating ceremony, I conceived our twin daughters.

From that day on, Jordon rarely returned to the packhouse.

He spent his nights outside, openly accompanying his former lover without caring who saw them.

I questioned him once.

He only looked at me as though I were beneath contempt.

"You got everything you wanted."

"You became the Luna of the Howell Pack."

"You gave the pack heirs."

"So why are you still making a scene?"

"Stop pretending you're the victim."

"It makes me sick."

After that day, I never asked him for an explanation again.

I poured every remaining piece of my heart into raising our daughters.

I truly believed...

As long as they were with me, it was enough.