Bastard Luna: Tribute Bride For The Nothern Alphas

Chapter 6

Francine’s POV

I was jolted awake by a bucket of cold water poured over my body as I slept.

I whipped up in shock, blinking rapidly, realizing it was still late in the night and not even morning, not even the usual time when servants were supposed to be working.

Besides, I had already finished every assigned duty for the day.

“Lady Jennifer demands you serve her a cup of coffee,” the servant who had drenched me said flatly, standing over me as I sat up, bewildered.

I glanced around the soaked mat beneath me, the floor dripping with water, the tiny space I had been given as a room. A cramped storage room meant for servants to stash weapons in case of an attack. Now, thanks to her, I would have to mop this place dry even though exhaustion weighed down every bone in me after working since morning without rest.

I stared at her as she turned to leave. Was it truly so impossible to wake me gently? Must she resort to the same cruelty Jennifer always inflicted?

Even though I usually woke before anyone else earlier than the other servants, to be precise, Jennifer had made it her personal sport to rouse me first, pouring cold water on me every morning. And now? The others were beginning to follow her lead.

“She’s waiting! Don’t keep her waiting, you western mutt,” she whispered, her tone sharp and deliberate, loud enough for me to hear before leaving completely.

My fingers curled into fists, but I forced myself to unclench them.

Rabid dog. Western mutt. Bastard from the West. Abomination. Plague. Cursed westerner. Every day Lady Jennifer gifted me a new name and every day the servants eagerly carried it like wildfire. Each insult traveled far, used in every possible context to cut deep yet none of them pierced me.

Perhaps because Zane’s betrayal had already hollowed me out. Perhaps because my mother’s cruelty had finished the work.

They say betrayal digs a hollow cave into the soul, an emptiness one never knew existed and it stays there forever, numbing you to every other wound because pain itself has mastered you. Perhaps that was what I had become.

Without another thought, I pushed myself up from the wet mat and strode toward the door the servant had left through.

One week in this place was already enough to know Jennifer was not a force to provoke.

Five times. I had tried escaping from here five times now, but each attempt ended the same as Jennifer always caught me before I could get far. And because she was the one in charge of the servants, it only made everything worse. I didn’t even know how else I had wronged her, except for the one thing I could not change, that her father, the former Beta of the pack, had been killed by mine.

I had even heard whispers that it was she who convinced the Alpha and his council to release me from the dungeons. She had claimed that keeping me locked away would bring no benefit to the pack. To her, I needed to suffer, to pay for the Westerner’s sins not by rotting in one place, which she considered luxury, but by working myself to the bone as their slave.

Since then, I hadn’t been given a single moment of breathing space. Even the servants’ food never reached me. Most times, I had to rely on the scraps they left behind—if there were any scraps at all from the measly portions they were offered.

“Here. I have made the coffee. You’ll take it to her, then you can return to sleep,” a low voice said as I entered the pack’s kitchen, dozens of watchful eyes tracking my every move, eager to catch any mistake they could run back and report to Jennifer.

It was an elderly woman. Nanny Brielle—that was her name. I had noticed this wasn’t the first time she had helped me. Our first encounter had been one lonely midnight when she brought food to me in the storage room after an entire day of starvation. I had never done anything for her in return. Nothing to earn her kindness.

And yet, she continued.

I had heard her story, though of how she lost her entire family in my father’s attack on the North. Her mate, her children, even her grandchildren were wiped out. So why… why would she ever choose to help me?

“Jennifer is a picky one,” she said quietly, watching me hesitate to take the cup from her hands.

Perhaps she had guessed what I was thinking. That this could be a trap, like in the royal courts where they poisoned food and sent unsuspecting maids to deliver it. If the deed was discovered, it was always the maid who was blamed, the scapegoat, the one punished. I was already branded the enemy’s daughter. I didn’t need another reason for them to hate me.

Still, she pressed the cup toward me.

“She’s waiting, Francine. You wouldn’t know how to prepare the coffee to her liking,” she added and somehow those words seemed like the only confirmation I needed.

I had never prepared coffee for Jennifer before and that alone made me skeptical. What sort of coffee would she accept? The taste? The strength? The exact amount?

With these uncertainties pressing me down, I had no choice but to approach the old woman, take the cup from her hands and head toward Jennifer’s room.

There were servants who had seen this and if they chose not to stand by me should anything go wrong, at least I would be content knowing there had been witnesses.

When I arrived at the front of Jennifer’s quarters, I was greeted by moaning noises.

At first, I thought I had heard wrong. Jennifer had made it no secret—boasting countless times—that she was the Beta’s daughter, the next in line to become Luna of the Northern Pack.

According to tradition, the daughters of Betas were fated to be mated to the Alphas. Because of this, chastity was a sacred law, a test of worthiness. So it shocked me to hear moans spilling from her chamber.

I looked around at the servants lined outside her doors. None of them said a word, none offered me a glance of sympathy. Perhaps they were leaving me to my fate. Perhaps they enjoyed it, Jennifer turning her venom on me absolved them from having to taste it themselves.

I knocked, but there was no response.

I thought to stand aside and wait until she was done with whatever she was doing inside. But I had not imagined she would call me in the very next moment.

Skeptical, hesitant, my body tight with unease, I forced myself to enter. She knew it was me because I had announced myself while knocking.

Keeping my head low, I stepped in and moved toward the side table, determined to ignore the sounds around me. But the moment my eyes flickered up, my breath caught.

Jennifer was on the bed, her body twisted in lust as a man pounded into her, while another one with a bandage across his eye fondled her breasts with greedy hands.

They were so consumed by their desire that for a moment, I silently thanked the Moon Goddess they hadn’t noticed me. I placed the cup carefully on the side table, hoping to slip away unseen.

But before I could leave, her cold voice sliced through my haze.

“I’m still waiting for the coffee, western mutt,” she said icily.

I froze, then hurried back to where I had set it down, lifting the cup into trembling hands. She was close enough to reach it herself, but still, I carried it to her.

She brought it to her nose—only that—and then, without a flicker of hesitation, poured the scalding liquid straight onto me.

I gasped as the heat seared my skin, blisters already forming.

“Is this how coffee is made? It’s not hot enough!” she sneered.

“Not hot enough?” I whispered, staring between my reddened skin and her mocking eyes.

None of them knew the truth—that I was wolfless and thus couldn't heal. And I wasn’t ready to let them know. If they did, they would only use it to taunt me further, to strip away what little dignity I had left.

Jennifer’s voice rose, her face twisting with feigned fury.

“I love my coffee hot, with heat pooling over it! How dare you serve me this and then question me?” she snapped.

She looked at the two men with her, then rose, tying a towel loosely around herself as if the act of covering up gave her authority.

“Kneel down and apologize, you western mutt. Kneel!”

I could have gone back to the kitchens and prepared another, hotter coffee. That would have been enough. But why did she need me to kneel? Why did she crave that humiliation? I said nothing.

“Is she the slave Rafe brought from the West?” the man with the eye patch asked.

Jennifer nodded, smirking.

“Then why isn’t she kneeling? Does she think she’s still a princess?” the other mocked, his gaze crawling over me like filth.

“Guards!” they barked in unison.

Two warriors appeared instantly, answering their call as though they were royalty themselves.

“Have her on her knees,” one ordered.

And just like that, they forced me down.

Jennifer’s smile curved with satisfaction. This was what she wanted. To humiliate me at every turn, to disgrace and embarrass me as if my situation were not already a living shame.

A slap landed hard across my cheek, snapping my head to the side.

The three hundred and twenty-fifth slap. I had been counting.

Three hundred and twenty-five slaps in the single week I had been here in the North.

And that wasn’t including the ones from servants, or from any other member of this pack who thought it fitting to strike me. If I were to add theirs, the number would climb to six hundred and seventy.

Six hundred and seventy blows to remind me what I was in their eyes. Nothing.