Bastard Luna: Tribute Bride For The Nothern Alphas

Chapter 7

Francine's POV

I kept wiping at the floor with the mop I held, knowing I needed to be done with it soon so I could serve at the ceremony the pack was throwing in a few hours. I don’t know why this pack never ceases to find new excuses that work me to the bone, almost to death.

They said it was their Alpha’s thirty-fifth birthday celebration, but I didn’t understand why they needed rituals for that as well—rituals I had been ordered to prepare since morning.

“She’s always so slow. I wonder if her own were cursed not to be strong like their mates,” I heard a servant whisper as she passed by with another.

I bit down on my lip to silence the retort burning on my tongue. I would not give them the satisfaction of hearing a word from me.

It was only my second week here, yet I was already battered and bullied, punished endlessly by Jennifer, who always found excuses, no matter how small, to break me down.

My skin was covered in scars, though none as deep as they could have been, thanks only to Nanny Brielle’s kindness. Somehow, she had figured out I had no wolf. Well, it wasn’t hard as everyone was expected to have one to heal their injuries. I did not. And yet, since she learned, she had always come secretly to the storage room, rubbing an ointment onto my wounds that made them heal faster.

I continued scrubbing the floor, unbothered by the servants walking back and forth, their petty attempts to sabotage my work nothing but child’s play compared to what I had endured back in my pack.

But then, a servant passed deliberately, tilting her bowl to spill filthy water right across the clean spot I had just finished.

I froze. Then, slowly, I stood, rage twisting through me like a storm I didn’t recognize.

“Clean it,” I muttered, my voice low and sharp, laced with a fury I wasn’t used to—an anger that had only just begun to manifest inside me.

“Excuse you?” she snapped, pride dripping from her tone. She was still drunk on her identity as a Northerner, as though that made her superior to me, a cursed Westerner.

“You spilled the water. You will clean it,” I repeated, firmer this time.

She laughed, loud and mocking, turning to the girls nearby who joined her chorus of derision.

“Who does she think she is? Because she was let out of the dungeons, she suddenly believes she’s someone important?” one whispered, but loud enough for me to hear.

“It’s her duty to clean even our waste. If we want to dirty the floor she’s already mopped, then we’re free to do so. After all, that won’t even suffice for the thousand lives her father took when he came here,” another mocked.

That again. The same taunt I had heard whispered countless times every single day.

How I was supposed to accept anything they did to me because of what my father had done. How I had no right to dignity, no right to anger. How I was supposed to be grateful that they were merciful enough to only spit on me, to only pour filth on the ground I cleaned, instead of doing worse.

“Look, Francine. You are a slave. We are servants,” the girl who spilled the water sneered, stepping closer as if her words could break me further.

“We are higher than you. You’re nothing but filth beneath everyone’s feet here. If we want to bully you, destroy you, or do anything to you, then we are free to. If I want to empty a bucket of dirty water on the hallway you’ve already mopped, then I am free to!” she snapped, her voice sharp with vicious pride.

And as if to drive her point deeper, she lifted the bucket and dumped the rest of its foul contents across the marble floor I had already cleaned.

My patience snapped. Slowly, I rose and walked toward her, pressing the cloth I had been using into her hand.

“You will mop it. Take it,” I said quietly, my voice steady, laced with a calm that carried more threat than a scream ever could.

She laughed in my face and turned to her minions, who cackled alongside her, their mockery thick in the air.

“Did I hear you, princess? Did you honestly think I was going to do this degrading task you’ve given me?” she jeered.

“Degrading?” I repeated softly, tilting my head. “You spilled the water yourself. But now cleaning it suddenly becomes degrading?” I asked, my tone sharp with the edge of truth. She only laughed harder and turned to leave with the empty bucket swinging carelessly in her hand.

That was her mistake.

I grabbed her by the hair and shoved the bucket back into her grip. Gasps erupted, and instantly, the other servants rushed toward me in a frenzy, their intention clear—to beat me down for daring to resist.

That was their mistake.

I was ready. My patience had been worn down to nothing, and my silence had bred only anger. I would not allow their disrespect to continue.

The first one lunged, and I slapped her hard across the face. Another came at me, but I ducked swiftly, my hand tangling in her hair as I dragged her back. My rage fueled me, my body moving with a strength I didn’t even know I still had.

Just as I was about to teach them a lesson they would never forget, a shadow loomed.

A figure approached.

The girls froze instantly, stumbling back in fear, trembling as their bravado dissolved.

The Alpha.

The very one who had brought me here. The very one the mate bond of mine has snapped with.

“Alpha…” they chorused in unison, their voices shaking.

I said nothing.

Ever since I had been dragged into this part of the pack, I hadn’t left. I had scrubbed, mopped, and cleaned, bound to servitude. And I had learned one thing: silence was safer.

So when the girls lied and when they twisted the story, painting me as the aggressor, claiming I had attacked them simply because they’d asked me harmless questions about what it was like to live in the North, I remained quiet.

I did not defend myself.

When minds are already poisoned against you, no defense, no truth, no words will ever be enough to soften their hatred.

“You can go,” he ordered the ladies, and they scurried away.

I moved too, thinking I could slip off unnoticed, but his voice cut through the air, sharp as steel.

“Except you.”

I froze.

“Why did you attack them?” he asked coldly. His eyes were ice, but not once did he offer me defense. Of course not. There was no need to. Nothing I said would ever be enough to alienate me from his anger.

“I asked you a question. And there are two things I detest: a lying tongue, and a tongue that keeps me waiting.”

“I’m innocent. Innocent people have nothing to prove,” I replied, lifting my head in defiance.

Wasn’t the filthy water still spread across the marble floor evidence enough of what had happened? Wasn’t the mop in my hand proof that I had been working, not sabotaging? Why would I deliberately make my work harder by spilling more filth on the very floor I was ordered to clean?

“You know this is your only chance to defend yourself, don’t you?” he pressed.

I said nothing. My silence was deliberate, my eyes shifting to the shadows where the girls had already disappeared.

“Defend myself?” I scoffed.

“My accusers are gone, and yet you expect me to defend myself before you? For what crime? It’s not as if you would take my word over theirs. My being from the West has already condemned me, hasn’t it?”

The truth struck sharper than I intended. His face flickered, surprised by my boldness.

“You do realize that I am the Alpha!?” he thundered, disbelief burning in his voice.

“Alpha or not, you stand before me as judge of my case. Tell me, if you were the one scrubbing these floors and—”

“Enough!” he roared, storming closer, his presence suffocating the space between us.

“I spared your life. I haven’t killed you since the day I dragged you from the West. Do not think that gives you liberty to—”

“I did not ask you to spare my life, Alpha,” I breathed, my words heavy, each syllable like glass tearing my throat.

“If anything, I would prefer you order my punishment or execution now. I do not wish to breathe the same air as Northerners. I do not want to—”

“What’s going on here?” a cold voice sliced through my words.

Jennifer.

Of course. She always arrived at the moments I least needed her—just as I was ready to embrace death and end this miserable existence.

“Why is she before His Majesty?” she asked, gliding forward to clasp the Alpha’s arm possessively, her sharp eyes darting to me as though daring me to answer.

I rolled my eyes inwardly. Wasn’t she the same woman I’d caught with two men days ago? And now she clung to the Alpha as though she were destined to be Luna. Luna? A Luna who spread her legs for others and crushed her own pack beneath her heel? The idea almost made me laugh.

“I was asking the servant why the hallway was wet,” the Alpha explained, his eyes sweeping over the floor.

Jennifer followed his gaze, her lips curling into a sneer when she saw the filth staining the marble.

“Why is this place like this!?” she shrieked, her voice shrill and commanding.

I opened my mouth to explain, but she didn’t wait. With a flick of her hand, she summoned servants to drag me away.

The Alpha said nothing. Not a word.

And why had I expected him to?

Even if I wasn’t guilty, they would twist the blame until it sat squarely on my shoulders. I knew better. So I kept my peace.

At the punishment grounds, Jennifer’s cruelty unfolded in full. She ordered two servant girls to whip me thirty times with a wet lash—thirty lashes for failing to finish my duty, and another for what she accused me of: daring to look at what I was meant not to, with hope, with a glimmer of forbidden feeling in my heart.

Whatever that meant.