"You've been summoned to the Alpha's quarters, slave." Just six words, yet they fell like stones into a frozen lake as ripples of ice spread through Reina's limbs until her whole body went cold.
Her breath hitched. She had been dreading this sentence for thirty days. Every morning she opened her eyes on this tattered floor, she had thought: Today. Every evening she survived without them, she had pressed her palms together and whispered a thank you to a Moon Goddess who rarely listened.
Not today. Not yet.
Do you know what it means to live every waking moment waiting for something you cannot stop? Something you cannot outrun, cannot pray away, cannot bargain with?
Reina knew.
She was only twenty-one years old, but she already felt like a candle burned down to its last bitter wax.
She had spent one moon in Ironfire Pack scrubbing floors until her knuckles cracked and bled, carrying water until her shoulders burned with a deep, grinding ache that stayed even in her sleep all because of her father's sins. She had tried to make herself invisible, but none of it had been enough to hold back these six words.
The door swung open, and a tall, unsmiling guard filled the frame. He looked at her the way all the men in Ironfire Pack looked at her—not like a woman, but like a debt that needed collecting.
"Now," he barked.
Hera, Reina's maid and soul sister said, "She needs a moment to pre—"
"She needs nothing." The guard's mouth curved into something ugly. He let his eyes drag down Reina's body before he smacked his lips in delight like she was a roasted rabbit he was waiting to devour.
"She better have saved her strength. The Alpha does not rush. And trust me, girl... he is not a small man."
Reina pressed her trembling hands flat against her thighs. She tried to find that place inside herself, the small, locked room she had been retreating to since she was a little girl.
Her father, Chase Hunter, had built that room for her, stone by stone, with every closed fist and every night she spent in his dungeon wondering why the moon goddess hadn't taken her alongside her mother.
She searched for the key now. She found nothing but exhaustion.
All her life had been pain, but the cruelest blow hadn't been her father's belt; it was the morning he had announced her engagement to Damien. Her own brother.
She had stood at the altar and prayed for a miracle to stop the ceremony. The Moon Goddess had answered, not with mercy, but with a massacre.
She had sent Terrivan,her father's slave for a decade. He had turned her wedding into a slaughterhouse and dragged Reina and her people here, out of one nightmare and straight into the arms of a monster who hated her very bloodline.
What would this monster do to her in his lair?
Fear sliced through her chest as she looked at the ceiling and thought, is this what you saved me for?
"Look at me." Vera, her milkmaid, crouched in front of her, anchoring Reina's shaking hands with her own. "You are the strongest woman I have ever known. You survived your father. You survived that perverted Damien. You will survive this night too."
"Vera, but what if—" Reina's voice cracked as the first tear rolled down her pale cheek, as her trembling hands clutched her brown slave dress
"You will survive it," Vera squeezed harder. "And I will be right here when you come back. I am not moving."
Hera knelt on her other side, her eyes carried a determination that helped Reina find courage, again. "Before you come back, mistress I will find a way to help us escape. I swear to you, mistress, even if it is the last thing I do, I will get us out of this place."
Reina choked on a sob, wrapping her arms around them. These two women were her pillars, without them, she would have stopped fighting long ago.
They let her go, helping her up. Reina nodded, heaved a sigh and turned to stride out of the room.
The walk to the Alpha's wing was a blur of torchlight, maid's gossips filtering into her ears and cold stone as the evening air carried a certain dread she couldn't quite name. Approaching the door, there was another tall, unsmiling guard stationed at the door.
"The-the Alpha—" The guard shoved her violently through the heavy oak doors silencing her.
"The slave is here, Alpha."
Reina sucked in a breath as she came face to face with her captor, Alpha Terrivan, his russet brown eyes pinning her down.
A long scar stroke on his forehead caught the firelight, pulling the bronze, olive skin taut across his brow.
Reina found herself lips trembling, against every survival instinct she possessed as she studied his angry face. She didn't fare well in silence.
Beneath the scar and the cold loathing in his brown orbs was a face that might have been beautiful once. It still was, in a way. However, his eyes were cold. Dead. Empty. She could read the pain in those emotionless eyes, the anger in those clenched fists.
In a way she understood him. Or was it pity she felt for him? For this man who looked so large like he bore the weight of the world on his shoulders.
What had her father and brother done to this man?
"Undress her." His voice was low, but it settled like hot lead in Reina's stomach, "I want to see all of her."
The tears she had been holding
broke free rolling down her cheeks. They mapped the dirt on her cheeks in hot rivers. She bit her lip until she tasted copper.
Do not make a sound. Do not give him that.
The guard's hands found her collar and pulled. One violent, practiced yank tore the fabric away and the cold air hit her skin like a physical blow. Reina gasped, crossing her arms over her breasts, wishing she could disappear.
A low, slow exhale escaped the guard behind her. She felt the weight of his hungry gaze, it was thick with lust and devoid of shame, raking over her like a scavenger.
Humiliation settled over her like a second skin.
"Enjoying yourself, Leon?" Terrivan's harsh voice cut through the room, stopping the guard's drool.
Leon straightened, "Alpha, I only—"
"Get out." Terrivan rose from the chair walking towards his prey in low, calculating strides, his full height filling the room. "You will get your round when I am finished with her."
Your round.
The words hit her like a second blow, worse in some ways than the cold air and the torn dress, because they reduced her to something passed around between hands like an object, like a thing with no name and no soul. But she was a princess.
"Please." The word scraped out of her before she could stop it. "Please, I—"
He reached her in two strides.
His hand closed around her left breast. The sound that tore from her was raw and painful. She grabbed his wrist, pulling with all her strength, but he was stronger. He squeezed, and the air left her lungs entirely.
"Let go—"
His thumb found her other nipple, pressing it to draw pain from her. Wincing, Reina sniffled, pain rolling through her in waves.
"Those tears won't save you, princess." The sneer on his mouth was cruel, but his eyes were colder, devoid of emotions. "You are in my house now. Not your father's and you do not give orders here, slave."
"I am not my father!" her voice shook violently as he twisted her nipple harder. She choked on a painful moan.
"I was his victim too! Please, ple-"
"Every child of Chase Hunter will receive exactly what they are owed." His grip was merciless. "Your brother is in my dungeon learning that lesson. Tonight, you learn yours."
"That is not justice," she gasped. "You are doing exactly what he—"
His free hand spanked her ass with a loud crack,silencing her. Heat bloomed and spread across her skin, and she shut her eyes as another sob finally broke through her fragile defenses.
"Justice? You—no child of that devil gets to lecture me about justice," he said, his voice terrifyingly quiet.
He yanked her forward, bending her little body over his lap. She felt the radiating heat of his body behind her. His hand trailed across the inside of her thigh, inching close to her pussy lips.
Reina's lips closed against the emotion clawing at her throat, her eyes shut tight as she fidgeted. And then he went still.
Then the cold rushed in where his warmth had been, and she felt it, the dampness, the heat that had nothing to do with him. Humiliation washed over her when she realized what it was.
Her moon cycle.
In the misery of the last moon, she had lost count of the days.
Would he take her in her blood?She had seen her father do worse.
Terrivan straightened slowly. She was grateful she couldn't see his face. The silence stretched like a taut wire then it snapped.
"Get out of my sight. Go clean yourself up."
Reina didn't wait, she scrambled for the remains of her shredded dress and ran.
She didn't remember the walk back. She only knew that moments later, her back was against the cold stone wall of the slave quarters.
She clutched the torn fabric to her chest, her body shaking with a wracking sob that wouldn't stop.
"Mistress," Hera reached her first, pulling her into an embrace. "I am so sorry. I am so sorry."
Reina buried her face in Hera's shoulder and wept.
"We leave tonight," Hera whispered into her hair. "Tonight, I give you my word."
Reina held on and believed her with everything she had left. She should not have believed her. She should not have. Maybe if she didn't, she wouldn't have found herself in that situation.