Sealed Mates

Chapter 7

“You stupid b***h, you were supposed to leave the room before he woke up!” Tina shouted at me. She was beside me in an instant, her foot making contact with my rib and sending me flying across the hall.

“Tina,” my brother said from his chair, sounding like he was trying to calm her, but not doing anything to stop her when she approached and grabbed my hair, dragged me up from the ground despite my cry of pain. “Don’t leave a mark the Alpha isn’t going to appreciate.”

My eyes caught my brother’s, but he was staring at me passively. Like he thought this was okay.

Tina tossed me away from her, my body landing against the dais, and once more slamming my head with a sickening crunch. The world spun around me, and I couldn’t move as I waited for the world to settle.

“She ruined all of our plans, Kai. We would have had one of the most powerful pups in the land, and instead, he knows what she did!” She was screeching so loud, my head was throbbing with her every word, and I was sure people outside of the room had to be hearing every single word. “She couldn’t even follow one. Single. Instruction!” She punctuated her words with more kicks to my ribs, my body trapped against the dais, and the world still spinning around me.

I felt broken and sore. Resigned to a fate that would no doubt look too much like the rest of my life. Darkness claimed my mind as I looked into a future that continue to bring darkness. I was so caught up in what I was going to be, I didn’t notice Tina was still hitting me, until I realized she had raised her foot and aimed it at my knee. I stiffened, unable to get away before she did the damage she was intending to do.

Kai saved me, catching his mate’s leg and forcing her to not break my leg.

“I told her,” he snarled at her. “You can’t do anything that will make the Alpha angry. A broken leg? To a wolf who could be carrying his child? That’s what I meant by that?” He shoved Tina away from him, and she snarled at me.

“You’re getting off lucky. Don’t expect it to stay that way when you get back here once your husband is done with you.” She said the word husband as if it was an insult, which it was. He would take me as his wife, but he wouldn’t declare me his mate. That meant, he could break the bond whenever he wanted to. Exactly what he was planning to do.

How long would it take him to realize I wasn’t carrying his pup? How long before he sent me right back into the punishment Tina was already promising me?

I was too hurt to be scared. I still couldn’t move without the world moving around me, and Kai let out an annoyed sound as he realized I wasn’t going to crawl away. He walked over to the door and shoved it open.

“Get a healer. Get her cleaned up for her wedding. Make sure she can stand for the whole ceremony. The last thing we need is her collapsing in the middle of it.”

Kai looked back at me, his eyes cool as he took in my condition, but just walked away without another word. Tina spat on me before following after her mate.

No one entered the room for a long time. I couldn’t track time, but I lay there, pain permeating every part of me, until one of the healers finally showed up.

Trey, was his name, and he didn’t bother to be gentle when he lifted me and threw me over his shoulder. The pain was enough that the world went black around me, and I didn’t come to until I was laying on a table in the healer’s wing, being worked on by Trey. He was stitching the wound on my head, and I let out a cry as the needle pierced my skin. He hadn’t bothered with anything to help with the pain.

“Shut up,” he hissed at me. “You’re lucky you’re even being healed after what you did.”

I didn’t bother to ask what that was. I had done everything they had told me to do, except I had fallen asleep. After a full day of cleaning and being attacked. I had just fallen asleep.

Biting my lip, I tried to hold in every noise I wanted to make as the needle pierced my skin over and over again. Finally it was over, and Trey shoved a bottle in my mouth without warning. I choked on the potion he was forcing down my throat, and when it was down, I coughed, my body protesting every spasm.

“What was that?” I finally managed to get out.

“You don’t need to know that. The Luna dropped off a dress for you. Get dressed. Fix up your hair. Do something to make yourself look like more than your worthless self. You have twenty minutes.”

Trey walked out of the room, leaving me alone. I still hurt so much, but I pulled myself off the table and crawled to the dress he had laid out next to a pitcher of water and a mirror.

I looked like hell. My red hair was a mess that I didn’t think I would be able to detangle if I had an entire day. There were dark bruises under my eyes, and I could see the hint of bruises everywhere my clothes weren’t covering.

A tear slid down my cheek, but I didn’t have time to indulge, so I brushed it away and started working on my hair. It was sticky with blood that blended in with the tresses, but I managed to work it into a braid without completely detangling it, and even managed to wrangle it into something that resembled like it was done on purpose.

The dress took more work than I had in me, but whatever that potion was finally kicked in, giving me enough energy to pull it on. It was a nice enough dress, and it covered every part of me that might have a bruise.

I took a deep breath after using the water to clean up any remaining evidence of what had transpired after the Alpha had left the hall, and tried to steel myself, then I turned and walked out of the room and toward the life I would live for a couple of months before the Alpha realized there was no chance I was carrying his pup.

If I wasn’t so desperate to leave this place, to find a chance to get away from it all, I would tell him right then and there. But maybe, just maybe, there would be a chance for me to run on the way there and back. It couldn’t be any worse out there as a rogue. And if it killed me, maybe that was for the best.