6
811 Words
It has been one full year since Gaius stood in the Alpha’s study and rejected me in front of the entire council, his voice like a blade slicing through the mate bond. Three hundred and sixty-five days of being nothing more than a ghost in my own pack.
I move through the pack house like machinery. Wake before dawn. Scrub floors until my hands bleed and heal and bleed again. Serve meals without tasting them. Clean blood from training mats without flinching at the smell. The pain is there—always there—but it’s distant now, muffled under layers of numbness that have wrapped around me like armor I never asked for. My body registers the hits, the shoves, the cold stone against my back, but my mind… my mind has learned to drift away until it’s over.
Gaius’s “nights” have become routine. He no longer bothers with excuses or rage-filled speeches. He simply summons me to his private chambers after the pack retires, chains my wrists to the iron bedpost, and takes what he wants in silence. Sometimes he speaks—cruel whispers about how defective I am, how even the Moon Goddess regrets giving me a wolf that won’t rise. Sometimes he says nothing at all. The silence is worse. It makes me feel like I’ve already ceased to exist.
Tonight is no different. I finish mopping the grand hall, my back aching from bending for hours, when Beau steps out of the shadows near the staircase. He’s shirtless, sweat-slick from late training, his eyes gleaming with the same malice he’s worn since we were children.
“Little rat,” he drawls, blocking my path to the servant stairs. “You look even more pathetic than usual. What’s the matter? Gaius finally tire of you?”
I don’t answer. I never do anymore. Speaking only invites more.
He steps closer, crowding me against the wall. His hand shoots out, gripping my chin hard enough to bruise. “You know, I’ve been patient. Waiting for my turn. But you just lie there like a corpse. It’s boring.” His other hand slides down my side, rough and possessive. “Maybe I should wake you up properly.”
My heart stutters—not from fear, but from the faint, exhausted flicker inside me. The wolf that still hasn’t fully awakened. She stirs weakly, a low whine in the back of my mind. *No.*
Beau leans in, breath hot against my ear. “One day, Gaius won’t be watching. And when that happens—”
A door slams somewhere upstairs. Heavy footsteps. Gaius’s scent rolls down the corridor like smoke—dark, commanding, furious.
Beau freezes. His grip loosens instantly. He steps back, smirking to cover the flash of fear in his eyes. “Lucky timing, huh? Guess your owner’s calling.”
He shoves past me, shoulder checking hard enough to make me stumble. I catch myself on the wall and keep my head down until his footsteps fade.
I don’t cry. I haven’t cried in months.
Instead, I drag myself to the kitchens to put away the mop. Two omegas are whispering near the stove, heads close together. They don’t notice me at first.
“…heard the delegation arrives tomorrow,” one says, voice hushed with excitement. “The Mad King himself is coming. They say he’s bringing an elite guard—hundreds strong. The Alpha’s throwing a massive feast to welcome him.”
The other giggles nervously. “You think he’s as terrifying as the rumors? They call him mad for a reason. Ruthless. Unhinged. But powerful. Even our Alpha treads carefully around him.”
My hands still on the mop handle.
The Mad King.
I’ve heard the name whispered in fear for years—the ruler of the vast kingdom to the north, a lycan so feared that packs pay tribute just to stay on his good side. Stories say he’s destroyed entire territories for less than a border dispute. That his eyes glow like frozen lightning when he’s angry. That he claims what he wants and never lets go.
I’ve never seen him. Never wanted to.
But something inside me—something small and buried—twitches at the name.
I shake it off and finish my work. Tomorrow will be chaos. More eyes watching. More chances for punishment if I step wrong.
I slip back to my tiny closet-room, curl on the thin pallet, and stare at the ceiling cracks that have become my only companions.
One more day.
One more night.
Survive.
But as sleep pulls me under, the wolf inside whispers again, clearer this time.
*He comes.*
*And everything changes.*
I tell myself it’s just exhaustion.
But deep down, in the part of me that still remembers how to hope, I wonder if the Moon Goddess has one last cruel joke left.
- Writer
