Chapter 4 Banquet

Fenhold Castle, on the outskirts of Manhattan.

This was the very top of the global werewolf power pyramid — a place only true high-ranking purebloods were allowed to enter.

The ceiling soared impossibly high. Massive crystal chandeliers cast a cold, piercing light across the room. The air was thick with restrained yet suffocating pheromones — this was an arena of power and bloodline.

Olivia stood on the circular balcony of the second floor.

She wore a minimalist black couture gown with no extra embellishments, yet it made her fair skin look like cold jade.

Her long hair was loosely pinned up, exposing the elegant line of her neck.

Raymond had just left.

Several senior Elders from the European region had pulled him away to a closed-door meeting.

Before leaving, the tyrant had draped his black suit jacket — still warm from his body — over Olivia's shoulders in front of everyone, then pressed a deeply possessive kiss to the back of her neck.

That kiss carried the icy bite of fir trees, sending an unmistakable message to every person in the room: she belonged to him.

Olivia held a glass of red wine, her amber slit-pupils sweeping coldly over the main hall below.

"How does it feel to climb above your station?"

A saccharine, grating voice came from behind her.

A heavy wave of rose-scented pheromones flooded the air, dripping with open hostility.

Olivia didn't turn around.

Elodie clicked over in twelve-centimeter heels, champagne in hand, and stopped beside her.

Tonight, Elodie was dressed to be seen — diamonds scattered across her entire outfit, catching the light with every move, as if she was terrified someone might forget she was a pureblooded Omega.

"Even with His Royal Highness backing you up, you're still just some slum girl from the Lower District at your core." Elodie looked Olivia up and down, her eyes full of undisguised contempt and envy. 

"Look at you — not a single decent piece of jewelry. Queen? Don't make people laugh. His Royal Highness only wants you for that data you're sitting on. Once he gets bored, you won't even have a slum to crawl back to."

Olivia slowly turned around. Her gaze drifted past Elodie and landed on the man standing behind her.

Clarence.

Just a few days ago, at a dinner party, Raymond had been ready to have him torn apart and fed to the dogs.

It was Elodie's family that had stepped in — trading tens of billions of dollars in interests, plus the old chairman of Vanguard Threshold Group handing over every share he owned — just barely buying Clarence's life back.

Now Clarence stood there with his right arm in a high-polymer medical cast, his face as white as paper.

The high-ranking Alpha dominance he'd once been so proud of had been half-destroyed by a single blow from Raymond.

He had lost his inheritance rights to Vanguard Threshold Group and was now completely dependent on Elodie's family.

Olivia looked at him — this man she had spent over a thousand days and nights with, the man she had dulled her own edges for, pretending to be an unremarkable Beta just to stay by his side.

Clarence noticed her gaze, but he didn't look back.

He couldn't even spare her one second of eye contact.

He dropped his eyes, his expression blank, as if the person standing in front of him wasn't his ex-girlfriend of a year, but a worthless pocket of air.

"Elodie, don't waste your breath on her." Clarence finally spoke, his voice hoarse, with a clear note of flattery. "Her background limits her. Talking to someone like her only lowers you. Let's go — the Smith family patriarch is waiting for you."

He stood beside Elodie the entire time, holding himself in a posture of pathetic protectiveness.

His left hand hovered loosely near her waist, as if shielding her from any possible harm.

Olivia heard those words. Her fingers tightened slightly around the stem of her wine glass, then slowly relaxed.

What had she been thinking, back then? How had she ever convinced herself that Clarence was her escape — her way out of her family's cage?

"Clarence is right." Elodie lifted her chin triumphantly, like a peacock that had just won a fight. "Someone like you has no business being here. Enjoy your little moment of borrowed glory, Olivia. The upper ranks of the werewolf world will never accept some nobody with no real bloodline."

With that, Elodie turned and walked back into the crowd. Clarence followed right behind her, without so much as a glance back at Olivia.

Olivia leaned against the cold stone pillar, watching coolly as Clarence and Elodie moved toward the center of the room.

Elodie was quickly surrounded by several young aristocratic Alphas.

Her family's wealth was enormous — of course, people flocked to her.

A young blond, blue-eyed Alpha walked over with a drink, leaned down, and murmured something in Elodie's ear.

Elodie covered her mouth and laughed, her body tilting toward him just slightly — deliberately or not — while her rose-scented pheromones drifted through the air with a faint, teasing edge.

In that instant, Olivia clearly saw the change come over Clarence.

The color flooded back into his pale face all at once, turning it dark red. The vein at his temple bulged.

Whatever was left of his Alpha instincts snapped.

He stormed forward, not caring in the slightest that this was a high-society werewolf function, and grabbed Elodie's wrist with a grip hard enough to crush bone.

"What are you doing!" Elodie cried out in pain. The champagne splashed from her glass and soaked the floor.

Every conversation nearby stopped dead. Dozens of eyes turned toward them.

"Come with me," Clarence spoke through clenched teeth, his eyes dark and frightening.

"Let go of me! Clarence, have you lost your mind?" Elodie struggled frantically, humiliated. "We're at a social event! You're hurting me!"

"You're my fiancée!" Clarence's voice dropped low, but it was laced with something unhinged. He locked his eyes on the blond Alpha like a rabid dog guarding its food. "Stay away from other men. You only look at me. Do you hear me?"

He ignored Elodie's screams and struggling. He ignored the amused, contemptuous stares of the aristocrats around them. He dragged her toward the side door of the banquet hall while she stumbled in her heels across the carpet, completely stripped of her dignity.

Olivia stood above it all and watched.

She swirled the wine slowly in her glass. The deep red liquid left vivid streaks along the inside of the crystal.

So that's how it is.

She watched Clarence's face twist with obsessive, desperate control, and suddenly felt like laughing.

This was exactly how he had treated her for the past year.

He wouldn't let her wear bright colors. He wouldn't let her attend any cross-department dinners. He had even forced his name onto the core data she'd stayed up all night to build.

He always said it was to protect her. For the future of Vanguard Threshold Group.

But that was never what it was about.

Clarence had never loved her. He didn't love Elodie either.

What he loved was the feeling of holding someone completely in his grip — the rush of total control.

The moment his target slipped out of his sight or showed any connection to another Alpha, his fragile, pitiful ego would shatter, and the ugliest part of him would crawl out.

He used to control her. Now that he'd lost his power, he had latched onto Elodie like a parasite, pushing his need for control to an even more extreme place.

"How pathetic."

Olivia murmured.

She tilted her head back and drank the rest of her wine in one go.

The cold liquid slid down her throat and extinguished the last ember of whatever she'd once felt.

That year of swallowing her pride. The lines of code she'd typed out for him in the middle of the night. The warmth she'd talked herself into believing was real. In this moment, all of it crumbled to ash.

She would never feel even a trace of heartache over this man again. She didn't even have room for hatred.

He wasn't worth it.