Bastard Luna: Tribute Bride For The Nothern Alphas

Chapter 8

Francine's POV

I walked quietly toward the door that led to Jennifer’s chamber, my steps light and measured. I was everywhere these days, serving her, fetching her things, doing everything she demanded without a word of complaint. Without defiance.

She had sent for me this evening to assist in the preparations for the Alpha’s thirtieth birthday celebration. The moment I heard her summons, I was surprised. Me? Of all servants in the pack, she had chosen me the Western mutt. The plague. The cursed, ugly thing from the West.

It was almost laughable. That she would even let me near her, let alone touch her precious things. That she would let the “flea-bitten mongrel” prepare her for the grand ball where she’d be presented and possibly marked as Luna by the Northern Alpha.

I couldn’t help but find the thought bitterly amusing. But I still went. I always went. No matter the insults I might endure, I obeyed.

“Come in, slave!” she purred the instant I knocked.

The word “slave” rolled from her tongue like honey laced with venom. I swallowed hard, forcing down the bile rising in my throat and stepped inside.

The room gleamed with excess. Dresses of every imaginable color were spread across her bed, crimson, maroon, gold, even shades I couldn’t name. Around the bedpost, pairs of heels glimmered under the light, gold-plated, diamond-studded, embroidered with designer marks I hadn’t seen in years. Jewelry boxes lay open on the covers, spilling their contents like treasure from a queen’s vault.

It was ironic, almost absurd. When I first arrived in the North, I had thought of them as primitive, their culture old-fashioned, their Alpha rigid and steeped in tradition. And yet here she was, surrounded by luxury fit for royalty. She didn’t need all this, she just wanted me to see it.

Show off. That was what this was. She wanted me to stand there, the cursed Western outcast and envy her. If only she knew I had never been the kind of princess who cared for gold and silk. Was I ever one to start with?

“Francine,” she said, rising from her vanity where she had been admiring her own reflection. “I need help. I can’t decide which of these dresses to wear for the ball.”

I stared at her reflection in the mirror but didn’t answer. Why was she asking me that? Why call only me here, when she had more servants than she could count? I could already feel her gaze on me, sharp, assessing and waiting for my reaction. But I refused to look up. I knew trouble when I saw it and Jennifer was trouble wrapped in satin and perfume.

“Come on, Francine, help me choose!” she insisted, her tone sweet with false friendliness. “Those three on top, they’re all gifts from the Alphas. Each came with matching accessories. I just don’t know which to pick! I heard each dress costs more than ten grand. I don’t want to make any of them jealous. Or angry. Or clash their gifts.” She laughed lightly, running her manicured fingers through the fabric as though the dresses were priceless artifacts.

I said nothing. My thoughts were elsewhere, swirling with disbelief. The Alphas? There was only one Alpha in the North which was Alpha Raphael. Yet she spoke as though multiple Alphas had showered her with gifts. As if she expected all of them to come crawling to her feet at the ball. As if she wanted them all to mark her

She was delusional and lost in her own fantasy of power and envy.

I knew her type. She didn’t want help choosing a dress. She wanted to be adored, envied and worshipped. And if she could make me feel small while flaunting her wealth and imagined importance, that would be her sweetest victory.

But what she didn’t know was that her games didn’t move me anymore. I’d seen worse. I’d lived through worse. And I’d learned that silk and jewels could never hide the stench of rot underneath.

“I am speaking to you, you pathetic w***e!” she suddenly snapped, exactly what I had been waiting for. Finally, the mask had slipped. The false sweetness, the pretended civility all gone. This was the real her, the venom beneath the lace.

“I’m sorry, mistress,” I said quietly, lowering my gaze just enough to hide the glint in my eyes. “I was silent because you do not like it when the slave speaks without your permission.” My words dripped with mock humility, a quiet rebellion wrapped in obedience.

“Foolish girl!” she bellowed, her voice echoing off the marble walls. “Get your smelly ass over here and style my hair!”

“Smelly ass, but you still want me to style your hair,” I muttered under my breath.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing, mistress.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Are you insulting me in that disgusting language of the unruly Westerners?”

“Of course not, mistress,” I replied calmly. “The West and the North share one common language.”

“Shut up! There’s no way the North would ever share anything with such filthy people!” she hissed.

“But you can understand me, can’t you? If the two didn’t share the same language, then there’s no way you would—”

“Shut up and get your lazy ass here and style my hair!” she snapped, cutting me off mid-sentence.

I let out a slow, quiet breath and went to her. My hands found her hair, soft but heavy and I began the long, hateful task.

Thirty minutes passed, long, miserable minutes that felt like an eternity. Every style I tried, she found fault with. Every touch of my hand seemed to offend her more.

“This is too ugly! Is this how your hair was styled back in your uncivilized village?” she scoffed.

“Change this! I will not have you make me look like a beggar like you at my own ball!”

“You evil thing! Did you swear an oath to ruin my night?”

“I hate this! Redo it!”

“This looks as ugly as you are! Redo it again!”

“Redo it! Redo it! I said redo it!”

On and on it went, a chorus of insults, venom and cruel laughter. I did not cry. I did not flinch. But with each word, the air around me thickened with the weight of humiliation she was trying to force down my throat.

By the time the clock struck six, my hands were trembling from exhaustion. And that was when her professional makeup artists swept into the room, a flurry of perfume, powder and chatter. Dozens of them, hired and paid to make her perfect.

And the final insult?

She walked out of her chambers with one of the hairstyles I had done earlier, one she had screamed at me for, called hideous, called “fit for a peasant.” She wore it proudly now, pretending it had been her choice all along.

That was when it all became clear. She hadn’t called me because she needed me. She had called me because she wanted to humiliate me. To watch me sweat, to hear me apologize, to remind me of what I had lost.

As she strutted out, her laughter echoing down the hall, her dress glittering like it belonged to a goddess, I stood there silent, shaking, but not from fear.

From fury.

And as I watched her go, head high and smug, I prayed.

I hoped, with every fiber of my being, that she would be humiliated at that ball. Spectacularly. Publicly. Just as she had done to me and yes, in the presence of everyone.