Chapter Five: He acts as if I am not there

Selene’s expression hardens, letting us know she was done messing around. 

I look at the cook, telling her with my eyes to trust me, that I will be alright. 

I hope. 

She accepts my assurance and backs down. 

"I will," I finally answer Selene. 

"Good. Now, let’s get this show on the road." She walks out of the kitchen with her usual elegance, the servants following behind her like packs of puppies following their master.

The guards reached their hands to grab me, but I shrink from their touch. "I can walk," I say firmly to them. 

They nod and back away. 

"I am sorry," the Cook mutters to me when I pass her by. 

"It is not your fault," I say to her, before following the guards to the front yard. 

We came out to see that Selene had found herself a seat. She perched on the wooden carved seat like a queen in her throne. 

"Kneel," she orders, pointing to the mawned front yard, without looking at me. 

I walk slowly, my head bent and does as she commanded. 

The tall guard whom Selene has selected to wield the whip approached me, and I couldn’t help but shudder in fear. 

No one has ever laid hand on me like this. Yes, the Pack mocked me for being without a Wolf, but most of their taunts were verbal, hardly physical, and if ever nothing of this magnitude, and my parents never laid hand on me.

I was scared, but did my best to look brave. I had to with all the eyes watching me. Especially hers.

She might think me nothing, but I will not let her think me a coward. 

The guard raised his hand, and I stiffened, bracing myself for impact. Despite preparing myself for it, the pain when the cane struck my back was agonizing. 

I clenched my eyes and fist tightly as I fought not to make a sound. 

The second one came again, and braved the wave of pain that rocked my body. 

Third, fourth, fifth and my body began to tremble from the agony eating at my back, yet I held on, not making a sound. 

My resolve not to appear weak in front of her was like an armour shielding me from the brutality of the strokes as they ate at my back. 

"You have to count out loud or the previous ones are null and void." 

Now, she tell me. 

"Start again," she tells the guard, and I look up to glare at her, but when she looks my way, I quickly look away. 

"One, two, three, four—" loudly, I counted as the guard resumed his duties, the sound of his strike echoing loudly in the courtyard. 

By the tenth one, my resolve failed me and I began to cry out when he got to the fifteenth I couldn’t bear it any more and weeped openly, but I still refused to scream. 

In that regard at least I denied her something, I thought to myself, as my tears shamelessly ran down my face.

The sound of car approaching announced Victor’s arrival. He had left to his company after bringing Selene home. 

The guard didn’t stop wielding the cane, even as the car stopped and Victor emerged from within.

"Stop!" His deep voice echoed through the front yard. 

The guard’s cane immediately froze in the air releasing me from the shackles of horror he once held me, and my body, unable to support itself fell to the ground, while my heart exhaled a bitter sweet relief. 

Victor’s strong and confident stride began to match towards me, the sound throwing back down the memory lane, reminding my poor heart the days when he came to my rescue.

The fluttering that stirred deep in my heart couldn’t be helped. Because it was for this reason I lost my heart to him. 

I forced myself to open my eyes, to see my hero once again come to my rescue.

His features was blurry to me, but his impressive height I could see clearly under the evening sun. 

The fluttering turned into a loud beat as he drew closer. Oh how I have missed him. It is been only hours, and despite his betrayal, my heart hummed with my feelings for him. 

I braced myself, ready to receive his embracing warmth. For whenever Victor rescues me from situations like this, he always takes me in his arms to reassure me I was special. 

But today it was different. 

Today, those mesmerising brown eyes that have drowned me in their depth, and stirred my passion for years, did not look in my direction. 

It was as if I wasn’t there. 

His blatant lack of acknowledgment hurt more than the strokes I have received, and for a second, I wished to go back under the cruel strike of the cane. 

At least the physical pain I could take but the emotional one threatens to kill me. 

He walks up to Selene and I see his features soften, his eyes staring at her the way he used to.

Tender with so much and adoration.

A sharp pain pierces my heart to witness the man I love adore another woman right in front of me. 

"What happened?" He questions, with no spec of anger in his voice. He is acting as if it is totally fine for him to come home and see one of his pack members being punished this way.

As a Pack we have our rules, and ways we punish those who flaunt them, but never something so extreme, after all we are one, and would never deal with each other so callously. 

Or so I thought. 

I breathed through my nose, trying to ease the ache at my back, but it wasn’t working. 

"She disobeyed me," Selene comments causally, with no emotions on her beautiful face.

I see Victor’s expression tighten, and my heart flipped. 

Is he going to demand more punishment when he learns what happened? 

"That is not acceptable. What did she do?" Victor questions tightly, his tone slightly angry, like he blames me already, and it doesn't matter what I had done. He acts like I am some naughty toddler who always gets in trouble. 

"Nothing for you to be worried about darling," Selene says sweetly. "I am your Luna, trust me to handle these affairs. Unless you don’t trust me?" She adds, staring coyly at Victor. 

Victor’s hardened expression melts away quickly at her question, and he stares at the blonde fondly. 

The expression on his face a dagger to my chest. If I am being honest, despite being mates, Victor has never looked at me the ways he looks at the blonde. 

I know we loved each other, at least I thought we did. But with the blonde it transcends mere feelings and bothered on adoration. Like she is a goddess he has placed on high pedestal and he worships her. 

"Of course, I trust you," Victor whispers gently, his hand reaching out to caress Selene’s cheeks affectionately, before he turned his attention on me.

His tender expression evaporates as soon as his eyes meets mine. He stares at me with something short of disgust.

My heart squeezes in my chest, and I hold my breath waiting for his reaction. 

His eyes moves from me without acknowledgment to the guards standing around. "Help her to her room," he orders. 

His cold attitude when he ordered the guards to take me away made me feel like I was a pest he can’t stand to look at. 

I was a little confused by his referral to my room. 

Does he mean the guest house? 

I got my answer when the guards bypassed the main building and headed towards the servant quarters. 

So, he actually meant it when he said I was a servant in his house. 

After he introduced Selene to the Pack, Victor lead her to where I stood gawking with a dumbfounded look on my face, and when the blonde asked who I was. 

He told her I was one of the servants. 

His words had hurt then, and they hurts still, the pain magnifying as the guards throws me into the small room that the servants inhabits, their actions not very gentle. 

How could they stand to treat me like this. 

Like I am a stranger they picked from the street. Even a stranger from the street is afforded more courtesy than my Pack is giving me. 

I couldn’t lay on my back, so I lay on my stomach and wept bitterly. 

I don’t know how long I lay there crying my eyes out when the door opened. I looked to find Victor standing by the door.