Chapter 1

Claudia's POV

"Bitch! Slut!"

The heels crushed hard against my palms and I curled up on the floor. I've heard these insults so many times that they couldn't even divert my attention from the physical pain.

Fiona grabbed my hair and yanked me up off the floor so that I had to look up at her and her minions' gorgeous and arrogant faces. "You know very well why you're getting beaten." She looked at her friends.

The minions echoed Fiona with much more exaggerated expressions. "Of course, because you're the daughter of a traitor, bitch!"

"You don't deserve to live in a wolf pack, so go to hell."

With that, another slap came to my face and Fiona let go of my hair as my body slammed hard into the ground. I could still feel the sharp pain of Fiona's four-foot heels kicking me in the back during the flurry of punches and kicks.

"No..."

They obviously didn't expect my sudden outburst, and Fiona questioned, "What did you say?"

"I said, my parents are not traitors."

I tried to say it as firmly and forcefully as I could, but someone had just kicked me in the throat and the defense sounded very weak.

Even though I was beaten to the point of unconsciousness at this point, I could feel the anger in them. They were angry at my defense of my parents, and what made them angrier was the fact that a slave of low status had dared to defy them.

Actually, I would have been much less abused since childhood if I hadn't believed so strongly in my parents.

As loyalty was very important to the Crimson Shadow pack, they were angry with me, the daughter of a traitor. I would have died in the wild if it was not so cruel to exile an unsuspecting little girl. Crimson Shadow's Alpha allowed me to work in the pack house in exchange for staying alive until I left the pack at 18, but that didn't stop them from hazing me, just like today, and every day before.

In fact, I couldn't hold it up before they launched their first "attack". But if I passed out too soon, the she-wolves would continue their abuse when I woke up. After a short time, the sounds of their cursing grew distant, the pain in my body subsided, and the cold and darkness wrapped around me.

"I may die." With that thought, a faint "Stop!" reached my ears before I was completely plunged into darkness.

Whether to call it luck or misfortune, I awoke from the embrace of death. I braced myself to get up from the floor, only to realize that my right hand was broken, and I tried to see myself in the reflection of the stainless steel pan next to me.

The reflection in the stainless steel pan, there was a girl with bruises all over her thin and dry body. I didn' t know if it was because of malnutrition or my long dry hair that was dusty and gray covering half of my face. I suddenly remembered the reason I was still alive. Had I been hallucinating before I passed out? I heard that someone saved me. The voice sounded familiar, but would anyone in this pack house dare to contradict Fiona to save me? I couldn't help but scoff at the stupid idea.

I was about to leave the kitchen when I realized that the door was locked tightly. Without thinking I knew that it was a prank by Fiona and her friends and that I would have to wait until tomorrow morning. The temperature in the kitchen was getting colder as the night wore on, and I had to curl up into a ball as much as I could, but my teeth were still clinking together uncontrollably.

I often remembered my parents, the "traitor" parents who gave me a happy, warm home until I was six, who looked after me like a princess, just like Fiona, except I wasn' t as mean and vicious as Fiona.

Fiona had actually shown her dislike for me when I was a child and my father was a Beta of the Crimson Shadow wolf pack. I was still so naive to take her as a friend back then, until that thing happened. It was only when I became a slave and she became a Beta's daughter that she showed her true face.

In fact, most of the wolves in the pack were avoiding me like some kind of plague. But only Fiona often organized her friends and tried to torment me in every way possible.

My heart sank again at the thought of my parents. They were the most gentle people in the world, and memories of my mother's soft embrace and my father's broad palm made tears well up from my eyes. I sobbed and couldn't stop, and then I didn't know if it was the lack of oxygen or the pain in my body that made me pass out again.

The early morning sun woke me up. It was already time to make breakfast. If I delayed the meal, I would be beaten again. I looked at my right hand, which was swollen from the fracture. There was no choice but to use my left hand to prepare as best I could.

"Crack"

The door was suddenly opened and the person who came in was definitely in the top three of the "People I don't want to see" list. Isaac was Alpha Andre's son and he was not as vicious as Fiona when it came to bullying me, he's just casual. But as soon as his golden brown eyes saw me, I was going to suffer, just like I was now.

Isaac looked like he had just woken up from a nap. His messy long chestnut hair added a wildness to his deep, handsome face, and even if he wasn't the son of an Alpha, the girls surrounding him would continue to be infatuated with him because of his appearance.

He ordered me to make a bacon and scrambled egg, which I struggled to do with my left hand to serve to him. He looked at me with a disgusted look and reached over and knocked the plate out of my hand.

"You look too dirty. How am I supposed to eat the food you make?"

He pointed to the food and broken plates on the floor, "Now you've made a mess of the floor too. Clean this place up before someone comes."

I had to put up with the Alpha son's nonsense and grabbed the mop in the corner, but my broken right hand and the pain in my body made it impossible to check the floor carefully, so I could only wipe it haphazardly with the mop. I propped myself up with the mop. However, it felt like walking on jelly on my weak feet, and in a trance, just as I was about to make close contact with the floor, a sudden force lifted me up.

Isaac lifted my entire body off the ground by the back collar of my shirt, making me shake subconsciously because of this difference in strength and size. Also, the collar of my shirt strangled me so much that I couldn't breathe. I begged Isaac to put me down, but he just let me hang in the air and turned my face towards him, and the next moment Isaac's statue-like face appeared right in front of me.

"Oh no," I thought to myself, rushing to cover my eyes.

There was some silence across the table, and even without looking I knew he was puzzled by my actions now, but it was the key to saving my life, and the next second Isaac did ask a question.

"What are you hiding? Don' t your eyes look worse than your body?" And he snickered after that.

I could only answer in silence, but that was clearly not the answer he wanted, and he impatiently tried to move my left hand away that was blocking my eyes, and I felt terrified that the color of my pupils that I had hidden for so long was just being discovered.

"What are you doing?!" A sharp question interrupted Isaac's movements.