Pretty Rogue: From Unwanted Mate to Royal Pet

∆JULIAN’s POV∆

  "Bring out the wine for our honored guest, you useless piece of trash!"

  Rook’s roar cut through the hallway. He was the manager of this club, which belonged to Alpha Blake’s Frost Pack.

  "Coming! You pathetic weakling who can't even get hard without alcohol!" I muttered under my breath. I kept my voice low so no one in the corridor could hear me.

  I held the cold glass bottle with both hands, my palms slippery as I moved fast down the hallway. One million dollars. That was what Rook kept bragging this red wine was worth. To me, it was one million reasons for Rook to peel my skin off if I dropped it.

  I knew how ugly things got when a guest lost his temper. Just last month, another Omega servant had his eye cut out with glass simply because he didn't put on the exact dress a guest wanted.

  This underground trading club sat deep inside the Frost Pack's forest territory, hidden behind secret doors. To the outside world, we didn't exist. To the trainers here, we weren't even human. From the day they dragged us in, they pounded the same brainwashing trash into our heads every single hour: A guest’s notice is a favor. A guest’s words are the truth. Their insults and beatings show you are falling short. Displease them, and you become worthless, everyone will abandon you. 

  They wanted us to be sweet, quiet toys who smiled even when we got hit. The younger boys actually fell for it. They learned to bow and apologize for existing.

  I never did.

  I was twelve when the Frost Pack conquered my home. I still saw my adoptive parents' blood on the grass every time I closed my eyes. I hated everyone who had taken part in what happened to my family. 

  If it weren't for Theo, my dead friend Aiden's little brother, I would have long plotted my second escape, even if it meant being torn apart by claws.

  I was barely three feet from the room when a whip whistled through the air and struck the back of my right leg.

  It tore straight into my skin. My knee buckled, and I slammed sideways against the wall, my teeth grinding together until my jaw ached. I hugged the bottle against my ribs, keeping my body between it and the floor so I wouldn't accidentally break it.

  "Move faster! Didn't you hear the guest calling for you?"

  I squeezed my eyes shut, taking a shallow breath to keep from screaming. When I opened my eyes, the smell reached me before I saw her, raw onions, thick and foul, coming straight from Mara's mouth.

  Mara was the head servant under Rook, but everyone secretly called her Red Onion because she loved eating raw onions like apples and never bothered to clean her teeth. Today, she wasn't wearing her servant clothes. She had squeezed herself into a tight pink dress, covered her face in so much cheap powder that she looked pale as a corpse, and drowned herself in perfume.

  "What is wrong with you?" I hissed, touching the bloody tear in my pants. "Are you insane?"

  "I'm helping you move, you lazy bastard," Mara sneered, her small eyes fixed on me. "This is Lord Rook's top guest. If he gets angry, a few lashes won't be the end of it."

  "Forget Rook," I sighed, pushing myself up against the wall, spitting on the floor right beside her shoes to show my total disgust for her and her masters. "Even Alpha Blake has no right to put a hand on me. When they dragged me here, I flatly refused to join the Frost Pack. Legally, Blake is not my Alpha, and he has zero authority to punish me!"

  Mara’s face turned bright red. "How dare you speak his name like that? Alpha Blake owns your life!"

  “Alpha Blake is selfish and arrogant! He doesn't give a damn about our lives! To him, we are nothing but disposable ants he can sacrifice or crush whenever he wants! He is a fucking beast. He’s ruled by lust. All he thinks about is women and his filthy desires! Only an idiot like you would worship a cruel bastard who permits this filthy club and lets his men treat us like animals!” I frowned, curling my lips in contempt as I shoved past her shoulder.

  I still remember how I was treated, when I refused to submit to the Frost Pack as a child, they took away my bed, cut my food rations, and made the guards use me as a target during combat training.

  They made me clean the dirtiest toilets and sleep on the wet floor right next to the sewage pipes. They thought hard work would break me. They thought I'd crawl on my hands and knees to beg Blake for mercy.

  They were wrong. The heavy lifting made my arms strong. Starvation taught me how to grow herbs in the dirt behind the kitchen and raise chickens in secret. I listened through the schoolroom windows while scrubbing floors, teaching myself math until I could calculate numbers faster than the noble kids sitting at the desks. 

  They treated me like trash, but inside my own head, I belonged to no one.

  "You arrogant rat!" Mara raised the whip again, her arm shaking. "I'll teach you a good lesson on behalf of our Alpha, right now!"

  The whip came down hard.

  Riven, my wolf, spoke inside my mind. 'Drop the bottle! Let her hit it! Rook will break her jaw if she smashes one million dollars!'

  'Rook won't listen to a servant,' I responded. 'He'll just say I dropped it on purpose and try to frame her.'

  I jerked my body to the side. The whip cut through air, missing my ear by an inch.

  Mara lost her footing from the hard swing. When she saw she missed, her face turned dark.

  "You little piece of shit!" she screamed. She dropped the whip and threw her whole body at me. Her full weight slammed into my chest, knocking the air straight out of my lungs as we hit the floor together. The smell of onions filled my nose, turning my stomach upside down.

  "Get off me!" I choked out, pushing her heavy shoulders away while keeping the wine bottle tucked against my belly. "Are you crazy? Get off!"

  "You think you're better than me?" she screamed, pinning my wrists to the floor. "You think having a pretty face means you can look down on everyone?"

  "Calm down!" I said, turning my face away to get a breath of clean air. "You spent hours getting dressed like that. You're really going to ruin it on the floor?"

  Mara froze for a second. My words hit her pride. She looked down at her wrinkled dress, then looked at the glass bottle trapped between our bodies.

  An ugly smile spread across her face.

  "I just thought of a great idea," she whispered. "Something that lets me vent my anger and gets the guest's attention at the same time."

  My blood ran cold. "Mara, don't—” 

  Before I could move, Mara grabbed my hair, pulled her head back, and slammed her forehead straight down onto the wine bottle.

  CRACK.

  The sound echoed down the hallway.

  The glass shattered into pieces. Red wine poured over my chest, soaking through my shirt and splashing across my cheeks. A second later, blood poured from a deep cut on Mara's forehead, mixing with the costly wine, and dripped down onto my face.

  I lay beneath her, completely still. I stared at her in disbelief. This foolish, raving bitch! She would crack her own head open just to frame me for ruining this precious wine!

  The door beside us swung open.

  The exact second the door opened, Mara’s face twisted into an expression of agony. She let out a loud, piercing scream, tears instantly streaming down her face as she clutched her bleeding forehead, rolling on top of me like a helpless victim.

  "Help! Please, help me!" Mara sobbed hysterically, her voice shrill and trembling. "He smashed the bottle! He tried to kill me and ran away just because I told him to hurry!"

  I stared up at her hypocritical performance, my chest tight as a sickening realization hit me. I was completely trapped, pinned beneath a lying bitch with one million dollars of ruined wine pooling around my back.

  The guest stepped into the hallway. The moment he saw the pool of wine on the floor, the anger on his face was instantly replaced by gut-wrenching horror. Ignoring Mara's screams, he dropped to his knees and frantically tried to scoop up the spilled wine with his bare hands. A wild, heartbroken scream ripped from his throat.

  "My wine! One million dollars! Even if I sold every one of you, you couldn't make up for a single drop of it!"

  Watching this grown man scramble through the dirt, desperately trying to cup the ruined alcohol in his palms like a lunatic, made my stomach turn. It was terrifying, but it was also utterly pathetic. He didn't care about a woman being "attacked." At that moment, all he cared about was his expensive drink.

  I stared up at him, my heart beating fast each second, but my gaze stayed cold. Panic tried to claw its way up my throat, but disgust won. 

  In this filthy hellhole, it didn't matter how horrific an attack Mara, I, or any of the other servants suffered, we were nothing to these guests. They only cared about themselves. To them, our lives were worth less than a drop of wine.

  I suddenly burst into laughter.

  I collapsed onto the floor, my shoulders shaking violently as broken, hysterical laughter tore out of me. I couldn't stop. The more I laughed, the harder it became to breathe, until tears spilled from the corners of my eyes.

  How ridiculous!

  How fucking absurd!

  His heavy breathing filled the hall. Slowly, he lifted his head, his bloodshot eyes shifting from the mess on the floor to lock straight onto mine. The hatred in his gaze sent a chill down my spine. 

  “You son of a bitch! You think this is fucking funny? I'll break every bone in your body! “

  He raised a massive, tight fist into the air to my face.