It hurt. It all hurt.
Breathing, thinking, hurting. It all hurt. My body, my mind, my existence, it all hurt. I wanted to stop hurting, but I couldn't. I was alive.
"Ugh." I protested as my body was moved, and pain shot through me.
It was...Master. He was still here. He was still angry. The beating wasn't enough for him. He wanted more.
"Explain this." He was talking, but I couldn't understand his words. Too much pain to make sense of anything.
Explain? What?
He moved me again and I whimpered. He was trying to wake me up.
I tried to open my eyes, but they were too swollen, too heavy to open. All I saw was a blur. My mouth opened, trying to say something, anything, but the only sound that came out was a whine.
"Speak!" He forced my mouth open, pressing something round against my teeth.
The round thing rolled onto my tongue and down my throat, dissolving. It was a miracle core. Master wasted a miracle core. It must have been urgent if he was willing to go that far. It was something that could heal any injury, but was very hard to get.
I felt the effect immediately. The swelling in my eyes went down, my muscles relaxed, and my bones cracked back into place. The pain dulled enough for me to gather my thoughts.
I blinked, seeing the blurry figure of my master and the piece of pamphlet in his hand. The image on it was of...me.
Why would there be a pamphlet with my face on it?
"The whole world has been littered with these." His voice was cold, "Any price? Since when did your worth go from nothing to any price? And what is this? Cloud Nine's precious Little Miss?"
Owners…?
Owners…!
It was not a dream, they were real!
Master saw my face lit up and a snarl escaped him. He grabbed my chin. His fingers dug into my cheeks, "How much do they know? What did you tell them?"
"I didn't..." I couldn't finish as he hit the side of my head, knocking me back down on the ground. The way he didn't care about breaking my newly healed bones proved that miracle cores didn't hold real value to him.
"Tell me everything about Cloud Nine's owners. How did nine apexes appear out of nowhere? Why are their armies sweeping through every territory? What do they want? What is their weakness?"
His questions were rapid, fast, and aggressive.
"It's you...you are their weakness."
He answered his own questions one by one.
"You are what they want... and the only thing standing between them and you...is me."
He let go of my chin and stood up, realizing that if the owners found out, he would be in danger. He had his own connections, and other powerful allies, but could he really stand against nine apexes?
"Are you their pet? A slave?" he thought about what relationship I could have with them. "It doesn't matter. They should forget about you soon. You are nothing but a female, not worth their time."
I've never seen him so agitated before. He was pacing, thinking, planning and gathering information from me, my reactions to his questions.
I didn't want to sell the owners out. They helped me when they had no reason to. They wanted to keep me safe and made me feel...special. It was the least I could do, to not betray them. But Master was smarter than me. He would find out about them even if I kept quiet.
'Stop reacting to Master's words Black Sheep.' I berated myself. 'He's using your expressions as clues.'
I tried to mask my emotions, to keep my face blank, but it was hard to do when his threats moved to the owners.
"Let's meet them in person. How about that?" he asked before a mirror, putting on a smile. It was a malicious smile, one he reserved for his enemies, "A small talk, an exchange of information, wouldn't hurt. They seem to hate males who torture females...should I treat them better? Will it lower their guard?"
He found out so much already from my small reactions.
"I gave you freedom, surely they won't blame me for all your scars, maybe I should put the blame on another...who should it be...yes, that will do."
He had it all figured out in his head. I wanted to warn owners, at least leave a hint of me on his body that they could find.
Just as I thought of that idea, my hope was scrubbed off his skin as he went to wash off my traces.
I didn't know what to do. He was going to use my existence to harm them.
As he turned around to get his clothes, I jumped at his back, my teeth sinking into his shoulder. He spun around, flinging me away. All his effort to wash me off, gone.
My teeth didn't leave any marks, but the intention did. Knowing it wasn't a dream, that the owners were real, that they were looking for me, and that I might see them again, gave me more courage to fight.
Master looked at me in surprise, not expecting me to be brave enough to attack him. He held his shoulder, his eyes narrowed.
I got up, and charged at him again.
A small wave of his palm sent me flying back. I crashed into the mirror, shattering it into pieces. "Ugh!" My back stung with the impact and the shards of glass cut into my skin.
"You and your stupid hope," he was angry, the anger seeping into his voice. He opened a drawer and took out a pair of iron cuffs. "It's time to get rid of it."
I struggled against him as he grabbed my wrists and cuffed them together, dragging me to the dark corner of the room. He took out a chain and attached it to the cuffs. The other end connected to a ring on the ground.
The chain was short, and I could only move in a sitting position. It was long enough to reach the food bowl, but nothing more.
He walked to another room and brought a barrel of sand, "It will get rid of the stench of you."
He poured it over me, making me cough. It got into my eyes and my mouth, I tried to shake it off, but he kept pouring until the corner was full of it.
Then another barrel. He was building a sand pit. Another one, and another, until it covered half of my body.
This meant my chances to go out of his space were now zero. My plans of littering his floor and annoying him to get kicked out were ruined. He was willing to bear my filth, just to keep me contained.
Tears began to roll down my cheeks, which made me feel even more pathetic.
If only I were smarter and stronger, I could have done more to change my situation.
╔═══ Author's note ════╗
Hey, it's me. 👋
I decided to join a writing contest. The requirements are a newly created book and locked chapters. 😭🙏
To fit the WN market more, it's going to be a straight beastworld setting (with plenty of world building), with Madam as the main character and how she got to meet the owners, from her perspective.
If it's not your cup of tea, a small thing such as a powerstone and adding it to your library will be tons of help for me.
I hope that after finishing that novel, more people will be interested in checking out our Black Sheep, who is a bit of a niche project.
Of course, Black Sheep will keep getting updates, albeit slow ones, as always. 😁💖
Thank you all!
Below is the title of the new book.
Beastworld: The Baddie Eats Red Flag MLs For Breakfast
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