Chapter 2

Athena's pov

Whatever was left of my pride meant nothing to me when I heard the cage being mentioned, I cried tears in my eyes and begged my meat to spare me from that experience again.

“Please…anything else but the cage,” the more the tears around my eyes the more his smile grew even larger and larger by the second, as if he was feeding off of my pain. My pleas fell on deaf ears. A silver cage was brought to his office, it was the size for a large dog, but as a full-grown woman when I was shoved in I had to bunch up my legs and hands together to fit in.

 It was a claustrophobic nightmare, but even that would have been more tolerable if this was the extent of his cruelty.

It wasn't.

Since I was indicated he would intentionally schedule meetings with high ranking wolves so that they could come and see me there, trapped inside like a lower life form. The tears wouldn't stop, sometimes I was looked upon with pity but most of the time they would laugh at me, to think that Luna was being made into a public spectacle.

 I spent 5 hours in the cage, my whole body aching and my eyes soaked with tears.

None of these provoked even the slightest reaction from my mate, well not the one I was expecting at least.

He was smiling from ear to ear when someone would walk in, take note of me and then quickly look away like I wasn't there. He enjoyed reminding me that he could treat me like trash without consequences.

When he finally released me from the cage every bone in my body crackled with resistance and pain as I tried to readjust them. Then I went down on my knees again, my eyes red all around and turned it to the ground.

“My alpha, I'm sorry that I disappointed you once again. I will do everything in my power to make sure that I give you the heir you deserve, thank you for having mercy on my pitiful self.”

I wanted to find the nearest whole possible dig as far as the earth would allow me and bury myself there where no one would ever see me again.

Behind me as I performed this humiliating ritual was the pack commander and his right hand, both of them looked at me with disgust. Like this was the life I had intentionally chosen for myself rather than a fate that had been trusted into my arms without giving me a choice to either hold on to it or let go.

Rafael ran  his eyes across my body and I could see it, that primal need dancing in his eyes, his vulgar lust that gave me shivers in all the wrong ways.

“Go get some rest,” he said, but it was a signal between the two of us. What he actually meant was that I should prepare myself for him to enjoy.

Not many people knew this, but the alpha was the kind of man who couldn't get it up without watching his partner squirm and wince  beneath him. At first I had assumed that my skills were just not enough to impress him, a man like he must have seen his first share of women before we got married.

 That assumption quickly flew out the window as he told me to get on all fours and smacked my butt hard enough so that it left imprints of his palm. He looked at it like a work of art and when I turned around it finally clicked when I saw just how excited he was down there; the crazy b* was a sadist.

Even the most pleased woman on earth would not be able to please him unless he had her crying.

I came back to the present, and began preparing myself for him that night. He claimed to be a huge germaphobe. In order to please him I would have to scrub my skin until I was just about to take off the first layer then I was allowed to stop, since he wasn't looking now most people would think I didn't have to.

But he knew.

He always knew, and I had learned the hard way after the first and last time I tried it to deceive him.

Finally I was done washing up, I styled my hair, put on a nightgown and sprayed on some perfume. His favorite, my eyes grew moist. My entire life had been tailored around this man that I hated. I need to make myself sick down to my stomach.

The only way I could escape was if he grew tired of me, or if I managed to give him the son that he wanted so badly.

Yet, I wasn't able to get pregnant.

The medical results claimed that there was nothing wrong with me, and that guy always went at it like a rabbit animal.

Still there was no pregnancy to show for it, all this effort and yet nothing. It was frustrating to say the least. I wanted my freedom back, I wanted to be able to breathe again as my own person and not his glorified slave.

I was so tired of living like this, if I could be so generous to even call this living in the first place.

It wasn't. It was a caricature of life at best and nothing else.

Since I was tired I decided to take a short nap, at least I should be able to replenish a little bit of my energy before he came and sucked everything away from me like a vacuum.

If I knew what was coming for me I would have kept my eyelids wide open, but I was so exhausted that it was less of a mental decision and more of my body finally succumbing to nature.

I was fast asleep when he walked in, a cigar in hand.

“Athena!”