Sold To The Ruthless Werewolf King

8

Emily

The knife came down more than once.

“This is what you get for being too pretty,” Anna screamed.

The silver blade caught the light an instant before it bit into my cheek. She dragged it down, tearing through my skin.

“Ah!” I shrieked, the sound echoing off the walls as a wave of hot blood gushed down my neck. “Please! Please stop!”

But no one moved. Josh sat in his seat, staring at the floor. My father turned his face away. Nobody stopped her. Anna didn’t quit until her arm was tired and she was satisfied with the ruin she had made of me.

“Now!” she panted, wiping the blade on her silk dress. “You look much more adorable like this.”

I curled into a ball on the floor, screaming as my face burned as if it were on fire.

“Must you do that?” Father’s voice was flat, totally empty of any love. “You know what is at stake with the King.”

“The King needs a wife,” she said, turning to face him. “Not a pretty one. Just a breathing one.” She shrugged. “She’s still breathing.”

“But...” Josh finally muttered, his voice shaking slightly as he looked at the pool of blood around my head. “This is too much, Anna.”

“Does your heart bleed for her?” She yelled at him, stepping so close to his face that their noses almost touched. “I am your Luna! The day you crown me, this b***h leaves for the Nightclaw Pack forever!”

Josh flinched, but he didn’t step back.

“I want her to leave knowing that only I am fit to wear the crown,” Anna continued, her voice rising with a twisted, manic energy. “I want her to stand there and watch me take everything she had.”

She threw her arms wide, looking around the grand room with a dark, triumphant smile.

“This house, this pack, and you… They belong to me now.”

Josh looked from Anna’s blazing eyes down to my bleeding form on the floor.

Her voice cracked slightly on the last word, revealing more than just cruelty. Fear seeped through as she declared, “I won’t let history repeat itself.”

“You did right,” Clara said softly, her voice cutting through the heavy silence of the room. She stepped forward, her eyes fixed on my bleeding face with total disgust. “Her mother had the same face. That same beauty that made men forget themselves. And this slut would have used her looks to trick the king. I understand your fear, my love. I understand it completely.”

Clara reached out, pressing Anna’s hands between her own, squeezing them tightly as if they had just won a grand prize.

“You are my daughter,” she whispered, a proud, dark smile on her lips. “I am proud of you.”

I lay in a pool of my own blood, listening to a mother praise her daughter for mutilating me. It all made sense now. The hatred running through Anna’s veins wasn’t new; it was inherited. Clara had hated my mother for her beauty and purity, and now she was helping her own daughter butcher me to cure her lingering insecurities.

“What do you think you two are doing? We cannot afford mistakes before the handoff.”

“Stop worrying, Lucas,” Clara said, waving her hand dismissively. She looked down at me like I was garbage. “Maids, take this slut out of here. Clean up her mess.”

Rough hands grabbed my shoulders, dragging me back down the cold stone hallway to my room.

“You’ll be fine,” one of the maids whispered softly once the door closed. “I will try my best to treat the cuts.”

Her best. I knew she was trying to keep me calm. She wasn’t a healer. Even if the pack doctor came, he would only stop the bleeding. What about the scars? I was permanently ruined.

“Ahhh!” I screamed into my pillow, the emotional agony tearing through me. I was a wolf-less slave with a broken face.

The other maids left the room to fetch more bandages, leaving only the one who had spoken softly.

“Miss,” she whispered quickly.

My eyes snapped open, drifting to the door in absolute terror. “No,” I gasped, my voice raw. “Please... don’t call me that. If Anna hears you, she will kill you.”

“Are you new here?” I asked, momentarily forgetting the burning pain in my skin.

“No, Miss Emily. I am Mai,” she said, a small, sad smile touching her lips. “I was one of the maids who served your biological mother before she passed. I stayed to look after you, but they kept me away. I see so much of her in you...”

Before she could finish her sentence, the heavy wooden door banged open. The other maids returned with the bandages. Mai quickly closed her mouth, and I sat in silence, letting them wrap my face. But my mind kept racing back to her words—my mother.

“Thank you,” I whispered when they finished.

“I’ll bring your food soon,” Mai said gently. “Please rest.”

I lay back on the mattress. What was the use of eating? My face was destroyed because I was “too pretty.” Was it my fault? Was it my mother’s fault?

An hour passed. The door clicked open, but only one maid walked in, carrying a tray.

I sat up, looking behind her. “Where is she?” I asked, panic rising in my chest. “Where is Mai?”

The maid’s hands shook so hard that the soup spilled onto the tray. “Miss Anna...” she whispered, her voice trembling. “She... she...”

“She what?” I scrambled off the bed, grabbing the maid’s arms. “What did she do to Mai?”

“She killed her.”

The air left my lungs. My legs gave out, and I slammed hard onto the floor. “Killed her? Why?”

“She killed her for addressing you as ‘Miss’ instead of the slave that you are,” the maid said. She dropped the tray onto the bed, terrified, and ran out of the room.

I sat on the floor, staring at the wall. I wanted to cry, to scream for Mai, but the tears wouldn’t come. My chest was completely hollow. How did Anna know? Mai had whispered it.

Slowly, my eyes scanned the corners of my ceiling. My heart stopped.

There, hidden behind a wooden beam, was a tiny, blinking red light.

A camera.

They weren’t just punishing me; they were watching my every movement. They were treating my agony like a game.

“Monsters,” I whispered, my whole body shaking with a terrifying, cold rage. “You are all monsters.”

I didn’t touch the food. I sat alone in my room for days as the wounds on my face turned into thick, ugly scars. Mai had died because she loved my mother. Her loyalty was her death sentence.

The days that followed had a rhythm to them. Wake up. Eat the food they left outside the door, or don’t. Hear the sounds of the house preparing for the ceremony above me—the deliveries, the raised voices, the distant laughter. Lie back down. I spent most of those days thinking about Mai’s unfinished sentence.

I see so much of her in you.

What was she about to say next? What had my mother told her? What was she carrying for me that I would now never receive?

I didn’t have an answer; I only had the question.

Then the morning came.

The day Josh and Anna would officially take the alpha titles, and the day I would be shipped away to the feared Nightclaw Pack to become a discarded queen.

“Slave!” My door was kicked open. “Miss Anna demands your presence. Now.”

I didn’t say a word. I got up and followed the guards to Anna’s grand bedroom. I stood outside the door, took one deep, ragged breath to steady my racing heart, and knocked.

“Come in,” her voice purred.

I pushed the door open. The room smelled of expensive roses. Anna was sitting like royalty while three maids brushed her hair and adjusted her golden jewelry.

“You called for me, Miss,” I said, keeping my eyes glued to the floor.

She didn’t answer right away. She just stared at her own reflection in the massive gold mirror, admiring her perfect skin. Finally, she flicked her wrist.

“Come here.”

I walked over, my knees stiff, and stood directly behind her.

“Look into the mirror, Emily.”

I raised my eyes, and my breath hitched. My reflection stared back. I looked like a monster. Thick, jagged red scars cut across my cheeks and forehead, ruining the skin I used to have. I hadn’t looked at myself since that horrible day. I had avoided every piece of glass.

Seeing the damage with my own eyes brought the memory of the blade rushing back. My chest tightened. I couldn’t breathe.

“Do you like your new look?” Anna smirked in the glass, her eyes dancing with evil delight.

The room began to spin. The air wouldn’t reach my lungs. Mai. Amy. My mother. The weight of it all crashed down on me at once.

“Ah...” I choked, my knees buckling as I collapsed onto the floor, clutching my chest.

“Don’t die yet,” Anna laughed, looking down at me from her velvet chair. “Not until you watch the pack crown me as the new Luna. Not until you realize you lost everything.”

The floor was cold against my cheek. Anna’s voice was still talking somewhere above me, but the words had stopped making sense, dissolving into sound without meaning.

“Emily!”

A male voice shouted my name from a great distance, but the darkness was already pulling me under.