Leah's POV
The moment I crossed Alpha Finn’s threshold, his pets slithered in behind me. Annet and Donna - branded vipers with just enough leash to sink fangs into weaker girls.The door clicked like a trapspring.
I kept scrubbing, gouging filth from floorboards until my knuckles split. Soapwater turned pink.
They circled, lacquered claws glinting. Donna’s stiletto cracked across my hand."Lookit this guttermouse playing vixen," Annet crooned. "Sneaking into Alpha Lucas' chambers all night - think we're blind?"
"Maybe she's graduated to bootlicker," Donna trilled. Her heel ground deeper. "C'mon, whore. Demonstrate your special talents."
Blood bloomed beneath her stiletto. I bit through my lip - iron tang kept the scream caged.
"Cat got your tongue?" Annet's slap snapped my head sideways. "You yowled plenty for Lucas. Think Finn’ll enjoy hearing how you serviced his brother?"
"Alpha Lucas wasn't—"
"Liar!"
The backhand left my ears ringing. I spat crimson, kept scouring woodgrain. Words were blades here. I'd sheathed mine long ago.
Their poison pooled in my ribs - old rain in rotted cisterns.
"Bitch thinks she's above answering!" Annet hissed.
Donna fisted my hair, smashed my cheek against filth. "Time she learned her place."
Scissors snipped like jawbones. I counted breaths as curls rained - black snow on bloodstained oak.
"Ugly cunt." Donna's parting kick found ribs. "Snitch, and we'll gift-wrap your whore's tongue for Finn. Understood?"
Alone, I gathered clumps of hair. Bloodied water swirled grotesque Rorschachs.
The mirror showed a stranger - patchwork scalp, hollow eyes. I waited for tears. For rage.
Nothing.
The ghost in the glass tilted her head. I studied her like a lab specimen - this shorn, shattered thing that couldn't possibly be me.
By the time the lunch bell tolled, my tongue felt swollen with silence. The kitchen corridor stank of burnt fat and desperation. The last tray clattered shut as I entered.
"Please," I whispered to the cook - a hulting man with grease glistening in his beard. "Could I have some leftovers?"
"We're closed," he said and saw me. "What the fuck happened to your hair? Can't lick Master's boots properly?"
I bit my lips and ignored his taunt. "Please... Some crust will do... I haven't been eating for days..."
"You wanna something to eat? You know the rules," He grinned, thumbing the knife at his belt. "Come here and I'll feed you."
The kitchen crew snickered. Heat crawled up my neck as he laid his hand on me.
"Somewhere else... Please..." I lowered my head and whispered.
"Why?" He spread his arms, the room leering with him. "I saw you with the Lycan King the other day. King's whore got standards now?"
Memories flickered - cold hands under banquet lights, people's laughter as the man pinned me to the feast table. I turned to flee, but bodies blocked the door.
They didn't ask. Didn't speak. Just pressed me into the grime while the cook undid his buckle. My cheekbone cracked against tile.
Fear first stirred coiled in the pit of my stomach like a hibernating serpent jabbed awake. My throat constricted around the sour tang of bile as I stared at the dropped pants in front of me.
Cigarette-roughened laughter drifted down the corridor, its timbre like a rusty blade dragged across the kitchen.
"What? Are you playing shy?" the cook grinned and fisted my hair. My hair was cropped, so he couldn't have a firm grip.
He roared in anger and slapped me. "If you dare to cut your fucking hair again, I will chop you into pieces and feed you to pigs! Do you understand?!"
White noise shrieked through my ears like some sort of cable snapping.
I could have taken it, as I always did in the past.
I would do everything in order to survive.
But on that day, a thought flashed across my mind.
Please help me. Someone. Anyone.
Somewhere between the pain and the tearing, a face surfaced in the dark - a man's shattered image.
I couldn't see his face, but I could hear his voice.
"You regained your balance by yourself," he said. "And I'm happy to witness the whole process."
All of a sudden, heat detonated in my ribs, wild and silver. When I opened my eyes, men writhed on the floor, blood blooming from their eyes like poppies. My knees buckled, but arms caught me - firm, comforting.
I instinctively tried to push him away, but those arms wrapped me even more tightly.
"Easy," a voice murmured.
Memory flickered. A cliffside. This same grip hauling me back from the edge.
I blinked up at the sharp angles of his face - Alpha Lucas' pet. The one who chained me up to Alpha Lucas' bed last night.
"I like your new haircut," he smirked. "You look like a very pretty boy now."
I looked indignant.
"It's a compliment," he winked. "There's nothing wrong with a boy being pretty."
"Stay away from me!" I rasped and tried to break away from him, but I was too weak to do anything.
He ignored me, turning to the cook, who was bleeding from every hole on his body. "What the fuck were you doing to her?"
The cook panicked and gagged on his own blood. "A-Alpha Lucas, I didn't... We didn't... She came here late and she seduced me..."
Alpha.
The word cracked the world. I stared at the man holding me. The dark, mysterious smirk on his face. The effortless elegance in doing pretty much everything. Not a pet. Never a pet.
He held me in one arm and pressed two fingers against the cook's throat. "What did you just say?"
The cook looked horrified and couldn't say a word.
I saw piss coming out of his half-naked ass.
Soldiers swarmed into the kitchen and took everyone out.
The kitchen emptied like a gutted thing.
When he wrapped both his arms around me, I clawed at his chest. "You..."
"What?" He lowered his head and frowned.
I lowered my head as our eyes met. "You let them think you were less, Alpha Lucas."
"And you," he whispered next to my ear, carrying me into the light, "have always been more."
His scent deepened - musk and thunderstorms. Familiar.
Somehow it smelt dangerous.