FOUR

A shard of glass pierced my skin, and I barely had time to register the pain when my eyes met with Zella’s standing at the door of the kitchen, glaring at me, and then back to the mess I’d made on the floor. The omega girl who’d been kneeling moved a considerable distance away from me to indicate she’d not been a part of it. My stomach was still hurting badly, my leg was bleeding, and the scars on my back still ached, but I don’t know how I managed to remain on my feet, glued to the spot and silently saying my last prayers while tears poured down my cheeks. 

“What have you done?” Zella screamed. 

Why did I have to be so unlucky? Why don’t I do anything right? Why did I do everything that any normal person will do but get a different result instead? Nothing ever worked for me. Maybe I was cursed as people believed. 

Her eyes burned with fury, and I looked for the right words to explain the situation, but what can I possibly say to justify this situation? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. 

“Ple-ease.” I wanted to beg, but the word didn’t come out quite right. I closed my eyes, wishing I wasn’t in this particular situation, wishing I’ll open my eyes and everything will go away, wishing I’d wake up from this bad dream. But this isn’t just going to go away like every other bad situation I’d created for myself in the past. I opened my eyes a little too late to dodge the wooden spoon Zella had thrown in my direction. It hit me across the face, almost breaking my nose. I cried out, falling to my knees. 

“I promise it was an accident-” I pleaded “I didn’t do it on purpose,” The pain I was feeling from my mate being with another stopped abruptly, much to my relief. It means one less thing to worry about in that moment. 

Zella attacked me with a spatula, my words upsetting her like it did every other person. She smacked my face, my head, my shoulders, hands, and all areas of my body that she could, raining curses on me as she continued to hit me until the spatula broke into two. 

She blamed me for that too, and when she felt I wasn’t screaming as loud as she would have liked, she picked up an aluminum tray and continued to whip me with it. By now, I’d fallen on a few pieces of broken ceramics, and I could feel shards of glasses embedded in different locations of my arms and thighs and blood trickled out to stain my clothes. I could feel the injuries on my back reopening, but all I could do was cry and beg. 

“What is going on here,” I hear a familiar voice growl behind us. Zella froze with the tray mid-air to hit me, turning around slowly in the direction of that voice. My vision was blurred from tears, but I’d recognize that frame even in the darkest nights. He stood with his legs slightly spread apart and hands on his waist. 

My wolf whimpered, but I could barely move. I was gradually slipping into unconsciousness, but I told myself I had to hold on, I told myself I had to be strong. 

“She did that-” Zella pointed to the broken plates on the floor “She broke all my expensive wares on purpose and without any remorse,” 

She lied, but it didn’t matter. Whether she lied or she told the truth, no one will take my side, especially not Zayden Vaughn. Zayden stalked towards me. I’d have moved further backward if I wasn’t so far gone. He pulled me by my hair, lifting me off the ground. I screamed, clutching his hands that pulled against my hair, more tears streaming down my cheeks at the pain. 

“You moron,” he snickered. From the corner of my eyes, I can see Zella gloating. Why did Zayden have to show up? Wasn’t he just with one of his many mistresses minutes ago? Why did he have to be the one to walk into this situation? 

“It’s not the first time, Alpha Zayden,” I hear Zella chip in. I’d broken a plate once, five years ago, but Zella isn’t someone to forget anything so easily. I’d been punished already, but Zella will remind me at every opportunity until I take my last breath. 

“Please. I swear-” 

He didn’t let me finish, “Please what?” He growled. 

“Please, Alpha Zayden,” I amended. Zayden isn’t the ruling alpha yet, but he made it mandatory that everyone referred to him as alpha. He’d rain fire and brimstones on anyone who called him anything but. His grip on my hair tightened, his eyes roaming around my body disgustingly. 

“You are not only going to be punished slave, you are also going to have to pay for every single thing you destroyed,” he proclaimed. Everyone in this pack calls me slave. Infact, I’d gotten used to the name that my original name now sounded unfamiliar to me whenever Ailana used it. But when Alpha Zayden called me slave, I felt a stab of pain in my heart. 

In the first few weeks after I found out we were mates, I’d had a crazy urge and pull towards him even though he made it clear I disgusted him. I begged him to call me by my name at least, but he enjoyed making me sad. 

He made me kneel and suck his cock once, then beat me up that I wasn’t doing it right. It was from that day that he made me sit and watch another lady do it, then he f**ked her in my presence. He’d told me he’ll make me beg for a rejection, and I was on the verge of doing so now. If Zella and the omega weren’t in the kitchen now, I’d have shamelessly begged him to. 

I couldn’t reject him because I was a lower rank, and it was disrespectful for me to do it. Besides, even if I did, he’d still have to accept my rejection, otherwise, it will be revoked after a fortnight. I’d rather deal with the pain of rejection than deal with the pain of him being with other women every single day. 

“I-I don’t have any money,” I don’t know how I managed to sound so defensive when what I really wanted was to fall on my face and lick his feet, begging for mercy. I know he’d make me regret every single ounce of defiance, but can he just kill me already? I want to die, and I don’t mind by whose hands. I want to leave all of this behind and join my treacherous parents in the world beyond. 

He smacked me hard in the face I knew he’d left imprints of his fingers on my skin with that slap. My face burned, and coupled with the shards of glass in my skin and the pain from the alpha’s whip on my back opening up, I felt like my whole body was on fire. 

“You don’t talk back at your alpha, you slave!” He growled “I can kill you, make you die a slow painful death, but today is not that day. You’ll spend the next days in the dungeons, maybe that should teach you a lesson,” he hissed releasing me roughly to slump to the ground again. 

I heard him call some guards, and then I felt strong muscular hands grip me on both arms, pulling me up. My legs couldn’t carry me, and my eyes could not stay open anymore. The only thing I felt was pain. 

They pulled me away with my eyes still close, but I was still cautious of my environment. I was thrown into a vehicle, I heard the engines start, and I know we were on our way to the dungeons. The place I dread the most in the whole wide world. 

I’d been in the dungeons once, and I’d spent a week there. The trauma of the screams coming from different cells of offenders still lives with me till today. It’s the last place I want to be, but I don’t exactly have the right to choose where I want to be and where I do not want to be. I was a slave, and my owners dictated whatever it is they wanted of me. My life isn’t mine, it’s their’s. 

Hopefully I’ll bleed out and die in those dungeons. If I don’t get medical attention, my wounds will get infected and I’ll die. Sounds good enough to me. Death is better than here. I want it. 

The car engine stopped. I was pulled out of the vehicle and then I heard sounds of metal jiggling, padlocks being opened, and I was thrown into a cell. I winced when my body hit the concrete wall, but I didn’t open my eyes I just couldn’t, maybe this is when I die. This is when I’ll finally have my peace.