You imbecile!" Luna Maria said.
The slap was hurled at my face, and it threw me down to the floor.
Shaken, I set my hand against my cheek to feel the bruise.
I didn't need to be told twice that her hand would imprint my face.
"You useless girl!" She hissed at me. "Is there anything you can do?"
I managed to set my palms against the floor to bring myself to rise in a position that I was bowing to the Luna, my body shivering.
I looked up at her, and she spat on me.
The saliva landed on my face.
I dare not wipe it off.
"It is an honor for you to even feel the back of my hand or saliva on your skin." She sneered. "Thank me, you fool!"
I felt the tears roll down my eyes. "Thann..k yo. You, your maj.. majesty."
"You can't even speak well." She snorted.
She kicked me hard in the tummy with her heels, and I had to withstand the pain, but not without a breath escaping my lips.
"When next you're told to do anything, you will do it with haste! Even if my daughter wants you to lick her feet, you will do it!" She screamed at me. "Do you understand me?!"
I nodded quickly. "Yes, Your Majesty."
I had no choice.
Then Luna Maria turned to her daughter Jessica and gently touched her hair. "If you want this dog to do anything for you, she will."
"I hope so, Mother." Jessica screwed her face as she tossed her blonde hair over her shoulders. "But can't I get another slave? Why her? She is so ugly! Look at the scar on her face."
I felt a pang of hurt in my chest at the words she used on me.
"I know my little pup." Luna Maria said as she kissed her daughter's hair. "But we have to put her in her place. She needs to be under our feet at all times. You can do as you wish with her."
"Even kill her?" She asked.
And I instantly stiffened.
I heard her mother laugh. "Unfortunately, no. Your father wishes to keep her around. But don't worry. Very soon, I'll come up with a solution. I don't like seeing the creature any more than you do."
My entire body was shaking.
They spoke as if I was not even present, as if I were nothing because, in fact, I was nothing.
Nothing at all.
Even a slave wolf was better than I was.
I was the lowest of the low. And there was no changing that.
Jessica sighed.
"Alright, mother," Jessica said. "I hope the illiterate now knows how to do my hair to my liking. If she doesn't, I'll give her a beating."
"That you can do." Luna Maria said.
Then her footsteps turned, and she walked towards the doors, her ladies-in-waiting following her.
All my life, I had lived a life of misery.
It was an honor to be part of the Moonlight pack and even to live in it.
It was feared by almost every other pack.
But I was different.
I had been born in the dungeon nineteen years ago by my mother, who I had come to learn was a slave she-wolf in the pack.
The rumor that I had picked from around the castle was that the Alpha of our pack, Alpha Bale, had had an affair with an enslaved person who happened to be my mother.
His wife, Maria, had always known that Alpha Bale was never faithful, even though he had over fifty women in his harem.
She had accepted it, but when she discovered that he was also sleeping with a mere enslaved person and refusing to dispose of her, she grew furious.
She threw my mother into the dungeon at the slightest opportunity when Alpha Bale was away from the pack.
Six months pregnant, she went into forced labor, and she gave birth to me.
But she died in the process.
When the Alpha had returned, it was too late, and from what I could tell, He had turned the hate on me for killing her.
She had died giving birth to me, so it was my fault.
It didn't help the fact that me being born prematurely and with no mother made matters worse.
I was sickly, and they all assumed and hoped I would die.
I would have been abandoned if not for a very old servant and the healer in the pack, Urma, who took me in and used a breastfeeding she-goat to feed me.
To the utter shock of everyone, I survived.
No one wanted to be around me, and as I grew up, they realized I was born with a scar on my face.
I was the cursed red-headed girl, born with a mysterious scar who had also killed her mother.
It didn't help that I was the firstborn child of the Alpha.
A bastard child.
I only knew the life of slavery and nothing more. I was maltreated, beaten up frequently, and made to serve them directly.
I was also not to make contact with the Alpha because I was a reminder of his past.
A reminder he didn't want any recollection of.
My half sister Jessica turned to a servant who was waiting to be attended to.
"When you're both done serving me, See to it that this dog gets punishment three." Jessica smiled sweetly.
My heart stopped.
Punishment three.
That meant I was to be stripped naked in front of the training wolves and given thirty lashes on my back.
All because I had not styled her hair to her liking.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Thirty lashes!"
I was pushed down on the floor.
When I looked up, all the male betas, Lycans, and omegas training turned to watch a display of punishment three.
I swallowed heavily, terrified for myself.
I had never had punishment three before.
It was a first.
I was only whipped in the slave quarters to their amusement.
But punishment three was meant for traitors or enemy packs and never members of the pack.
I was going to be the first.
Jessica was standing, watching with a smile stuck on her face.
To believe that we shared the same blood.
The fact that I was her elder sister and that she was supposed to be my younger sister ached my heart.
She had the finest clothes, shoes, food, and rooms, while I had rags, ate scraps, and slept in a corner.
Maybe in another life, she would have loved me.
But not in this one.
In this one, I was an abomination.
The Lycan, meant to deliver the punishment, walked up to me.
"Please don't," I begged him, tears gathering in my eyes.
But he ignored me and tore the back of my already filthy dress and exposed my bare back, ready to use his whip that was lined with thorns and the rough skin of a rope.
The front bodice of my dress dropped, and my breasts were exposed; I could hear the excitement and lust in the males voices as they laughed.
I quickly had to hold the front bodice of my dress to conceal my nudity.
"I want her stripped bare naked. Everything exposed!" I heard Jessica scream.
My body began to shake.
Was she going to have me exposed to everyone? She didn't hate me that much.
Did she?
The Lycan made no move to do it, and Jessica grumbled.
I heard her shoes match up to where I was and quickly tore my clothing apart.
"Please," I begged, tears flowing down my cheeks. "Don't do this."
But she didn't care.
"Let go!" She screamed, dragging away the fabric that I still fiercely held to my chest. "Let go, you bitch!"
She pulled at the fabric, and everything came off.
Exposing my entire body.
I was a slave and poor. I didn't own undergarments except for the few dresses I wore, so everything was open. I was stark naked.
I bit my lip and wrapped my arms around my body to manage to hide my nudity in the slightest way I could.
The men laughed, and I felt the tears that had been burning now flowing nonstop.
Tah!
The first lash came at my back, and my entire body shook.
The whip tore into my skin, exposing blood. I already had marks upon marks over my body.
But the pain still was the same; even though I was getting used to it, it still hurt.
Tah! Tah!
More lashes came against my back, and I felt myself burning up, my body telling me it was tired.
I looked up and saw Urma.
Her eyes were filled with tears, and she turned her face away as there was nothing she could do to stop the punishment.
It was a pack law to never interfere in any punishment on any account.
After the final thirtieth stroke, I fell to the ground, and that was when Urma rushed up to me and scooped me in my arms.
"Shhh. Don't worry. I'm here. It's alright." She sang to my ears.
I felt something drape over my body.
I wasn't sure who, but I knew that my naked body had been shielded.
"Get yourself up and serve me, you lazy swine!" Jessica ordered.
Urma looked like she would burst into a burning rage.
"Can't you see she is weak from the lashes? She can't get up in this situation." Urma snapped.
"And that is supposed to be my business. How?" Jessica demanded. "My engagement to Alpha Dean is coming in a few days. And I need this slave to start getting the arrangements ready."
I have only seen Urma confront Jessica upfront about her attitude and never get punished.
Why? I had no idea.
But Urma was referred to as the healer in the pack for years, and even the Alpha himself, I heard, didn't thread her path.
"I am going to take Jasmine to my quarters and treat her till she is fine," Urma said.
Then Urma said to someone. "Carry her into my quarters."
"I said I'm not done with the bitch!" Jessica hissed maliciously.
"If you have problems with me, then tell your mother that I took her away," Urma said.
Jessica looked like she wanted to explode, but she could do nothing.
I felt someone pick me up from the floor; that was the last thing I remembered before everything went black.
Chapter 2
SEIGE
I felt something warm against my back as I stirred awake.
"Don't move so much, dear." Urma's voice cooed.
I opened my eyes and saw that I was lying face-front on my tummy and that my back was exposed down to my waist.
I watched as Urma dipped the water inside a bucket and squeezed it, then she gently pressed it over my open wounds.
"Ahhh." I cried out.
Urma smoothed my hair. "My child, don't worry; the pain will soon be over."
I felt my throat choked up as I reminisced on my suffering.
For nineteen years, that was all I had known.
No happiness, no family, no future, no escape.
I was trapped.
"That useless girl." Urma snorted. "A good number of times, I want to give her a good beating."
"You shouldn't say such a thing," I managed. "What if they hear you?"
I couldn't afford to lose her or put her in trouble.
I had come to learn that people had been put in trouble for helping me.
When I was younger, an omega offered me some of his food.
Luna Maria had accused him of stealing and had his hands cut off.
Everyone steered clear of me after that incident.
The Omega had grown to hate me. This happened when I was only six years old.
"There is nothing they can do," Urma said to me. "How long will they treat you like this?"
I was silent.
I had asked myself that same question, too.
She picked up one of her ointment bottles and rubbed it over my back.
The pain burned.
If I had shifted, I could heal all my injuries.
But I had not. That was another thing.
It was a further abomination that I had reached the age of nineteen and still hadn't shifted.
It meant that you would never find a mate and that you were useless.
How much more could fate be cruel to me?
Urma picked up a knife and cut her palm.
"Why did you do that?" I asked her in shock.
She pressed the blood over my back, and I felt my back burn.
I screamed in pain.
But she held me.
"I'm so sorry, my child." She said.
Then, the pain slowly eased.
"I had to use my blood to heal you, or you might not heal on time." She said. "The marks are becoming too much."
I couldn't even tell her thank you.
I was too weak for that.
Loud bells were ringing around the entire castle.
Urma turned to me.
"The Alpha is back." She said.
I swallowed.
My father didn't want me or anything related to me.
He had never openly acknowledged me as his child, and sometimes I doubted it, but Urma had confirmed the rumors and told me it was true
Throughout my growth, he had ignored me and acted like I didn't exist.
I had grown to be so scared of him.
When he would speak to the thousands of our pack members from his balcony with Luna Maria, his son Abel, and their daughter Jessica, I would cower, watching them.
Wondering if one day I would be up there too with them.
But I had grown up to realize that that dream would never come true.
I knew that he had gone to fight with some of the other enemy packs as usual.
Our pack frequently sang his song of praises and how he made every other pack go down on their knees.
They all feared him.
Even the Wolf Council.
I started to get up.
"You need to rest." She stopped me.
"But I have to attend to Jessica," I said.
Urma snorted. "Ignore that spoilt brat. You need to rest. Don't worry. She won't do anything to you. I promise."
Exhaustion took the best of me, and I nodded slowly and fell back asleep.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Alpha Bale paced his throne room.
He was furious.
He had just returned, and he had lost the battle. Horribly.
It was his first loss in almost thirty years, and it had been to the Crescent Moon pack.
And to put further humiliation to his name, it was to a young alpha.
Xaden, who he had remembered to be a child when he had murdered his family, was now a man and had grown so powerful and hungry for revenge.
ut Xaden was now alive and well.
It had shocked him as Xaden's wolf army wiped all his men in a clean sweep. Only he had survived.
Never had he witnessed such disgrace, and like a coward, he had had to run and beg for help from the wolf council, which had agreed to intervene.
But Xaden asked for too much, and Bale was forced to agree.
Or his head would have gone.
The door was opened, and his wife Maria came in.
"What happened? I didn't see your party outside. Is everything al-
"Where is Jasmine?" He asked, cutting her short.
She stopped in her tracks, blinking at him in shock, and her face became grim.
"You mean the bastard child you fathered?" She asked him.
He glared at her. "Do not push me, Maria. Not today. Where the fuck is she?!"
Maria flinched. "She is down with that healer."
He rubbed his face.
"What's happening?" She asked.
"We lost the war." He said.
Her mouth dropped.
"We lost every fucking thing. We're at the mercy of that bastard Xaden." Bale said.
"Xaden? Who is Xaden?"
Then she paused, and it dawned on her. "Wasn't he Orion's son? Didn't you kill him?" Maria asked.
He hissed, ignoring her as he raked his hair. "I didn't see it coming. It was an ambush. I didn't know he was alive. I had no idea that he had been growing his strengths for years."
Orion and Bale had been best friends, but when it came down to power, Bale attacked Orion's pack and massacred them.
He had rendered the entire pack useless, killing Orion and his whole family.
He had thought he had killed Xaden, too, but somehow, the child had survived, and when he saw him on the battlefield, he knew that it was over for him.
"He would have killed us all if I didn't go to the council. They intervened, and the accord demands all my children to be handed over to him." He said.
He banged a mirror with his fist, and it shattered.
"Give out? What do you mean?" She asked.
"Xaden is going to own them and the entire pack as his. We will be at his mercy."
Maria looked like she was going to faint.
She shook her head as she gripped his armor. "No, not my son. Not my daughter. Not my children! How could you let this happen?"
"We have no choice." He said.
"We can send them off away. To hide somewhere." She begged as she fell to his feet, crying.
"They know what Abel looks like!" He said.
It was his own son—his only son! Did she think he liked this, too?
"The council and Xaden's pack is coming; they are already on their way here," Bale said. "We can save Jessica. Jasmine is my blood. They would sniff to be sure that she is mine and confirm it."
"But she is a bastard," Maria said, tears in her eyes.
"But they don't know that," Bale answered. "You don't understand. He is here for blood. And he will never stop. Where is Jasmine?"
Maria blinked at him.
"She was whipped today."
Bale wanted to scream and kick his wife.
"THEY ARE ALREADY ON THEIR WAY AND WILL HOLD US SEIGE. HOW WOULD THEY BELIEVE SHE IS A PRINCESS OF THIS PACK WHEN THEY SEE SHE WAS WHIPPED?????!!