The sound of a vase shattering echoed off the marble floors of Valentina Queen's home in Santa Monica, thousands upon thousands of dollars of Baccarat hovering so beautifully for, for just a moment, the shards of crystal catching the dying rays of the sun like miniature universes before they fell like rain upon the ground.

"Jesus Christ, Val! Calm down!" Clint De Cristo shouted, still hunched over and cowering even though the vase had hit a good three feet east of his head.

"Don't you fucking tell me to calm down!" Val screamed back, snatching up another piece of Baccarat, a tasteless elephant thing that she'd always fucking hated, and which had also cost more than 90% of the country made in a year.

"Put that down!" Clint practically squeaked, "or I'm calling the cops!"

In the back of her mind, Val recognized that the words coming out of their mouths sounded like they'd been scripted for a soap, and another part recognized that this was exactly what she'd told several of her patients not to do, but she couldn't spare even a fraction of her energy to care. She could feel the muscles squirming beneath her flesh, her bones threatening to rip through her skin lest she give in and let the predator free. Her teeth fit oddly into her skull, her already lengthy canines cutting her gums as she struggled to reign in the overwhelming rage which was consuming her. She could practically taste his blood upon her tongue, hear his panicked screams as she crunched through his bones and ripped his limbs free from his torso, savaging the uses pieces of meat before his still living eyes.

Another shower of crystal danced through the air as the hideous elephant shattered against the wall, though this time, the wall closest to her. She couldn't look at him. If she looked at him then the father of her children would be horribly murdered and she couldn't do that to her daughters...

"Look, I don't understand why you're so upset! I told you that I wanted a divorce!"

"I'm upset," Val growled, her voice deepening, her bones cracking as she fought with everything that she had, everything in her heart to force the soul of the wolf back down, her veins writhing within her, tendons stretching, the nubs of her spine threatening to tear through her skin.

"I'm upset," she repeated again, her body trembling, sweat beginning to drip down her skin and soak her hair, "because you've been fucking the nanny!"

"Look, the girls need a mother," Clint protested, failing to but some bass into his voice, even as he inched towards the door, his bladder feeling alarmingly loose, her knees trembling within his Armani slacks.

"I'M THEIR MOTHER!" Val howled, whirling back on her husband, her steps carrying her ever closer, the fabric of her slippers creaking and tearing as her feet stretched unnaturally within them. She could smell the acidic tang of his fear-sweat, and her eyes locked onto the pulse thudding in his throat.

Clint couldn't tell if he was having a heart attack, or if his system had finally been drowned in adrenal, but for a moment he was sure his heart had stopped beating. Yet, even as part of his brain shut down, the lawyer within him refused to give in without an argument.

"Well, where have you been? Charlize has even started calling Vanna her'Mommy!'"

The words cut through Val's rage more effectively than a silver bullet to the brain. Her little baby girl had started calling that goldigging piece of euro-trash her mommy?

Val stumbled backwards, practically tripping over a dining room chair as she struggled to process what she'd just heard. Was that Father Wolf had felt as he lay, dying, with his children standing over him? Was this what Mother Luna had felt as she'd looked down and seen her husband slain, his blood slathering her children's jaws?

"She--"

"Yes!" Clint shouted, his instincts telling him to press on while his opponent was in this moment of weakness. "That's right! I have it on video! You've been gone so much they've already started to forget about you! What kind of mother let's that happen? I mean, we agreed that you'd go on maternity leave and be there for the kids for as long as they needed, but no! Next thing I know, we need a nanny, and where have you been anyway? Reconnecting with your culture? What the fuck does that even mean? What have you been doing, fucking guys with man-buns on yoga retreats? At least Vanna is there for us!"

Val could barely even hear what her husband was saying. She'd tuned out, her legs carrying her towards the back door, and before she knew it, she'd thrown it open and was tearing out across their backyard, ducking into the bushes and slipping her clothes off as she ran, the form of a sleek wolf overtaking her a moment later, and a howl so filled with pain and anger, betrayal and sorrow that only the firstborn would remember one like it...