THE STRANGER

AMARIS

The days that followed that terrible morning were a collection of even worse tortures. 

Alpha Kieran had somehow detected that I was with a man that night. Maybe it was because the stranger’s scent still lingered in the air around me.

He'd questioned me repeatedly, but I'd kept up with the lie about having to take care of something urgent. 

Enraged that another man had touched me, Alpha Kieran had ordered that more workload be assigned to me.

I did all the work meant for at least a hundred slaves. On some days, it was twice that. I wasn't given any breaks. 

Eventually, I began to nurse regrets for ever coming to the estate on that fateful day. Honestly, I would have been better off without the measly sum. Now I was stuck here, serving a punishment I wasn't sure would come to an end anytime soon.

I didn't know how much worse it could get until the fateful early morning I was awoken with a bucket of water thrown into my face. 

I bolted from the iron bed, gasping. 

Mistress Kay stood there with a smaller girl, the perpetual scowl adorning her face so early. 

“Where are the panties you stole from her?”

I blinked, confused for a moment. “I'm sorry, what?” I looked from face to face, hoping this was some kind of joke. Unfortunately, however, jokes were a rarity in this place.

“Don't play dumb with me, you stupid cunt!” The mistress's harsh voice jolted me. “Someone saw you take them.”

“No..” I slowly shook my head as I climbed out of the bed. “It wasn't me. I didn't—”

“We'll see about that,” she cut me off abruptly, storming around me and grabbing the only bag I owned off the table. 

A second of ransacking through, and she dug up a pair of panties I'd never seen in my life.

“Are these yours, Penelope?” she asked the girl who stood there with a smug smile of victory on her face. 

“Yes, ma'am. They're very much mine.”

No one heard me out. 

They dragged me from the room where I slept with the other girls that were already gossiping, down the hallways. No one listened to me as I kicked and begged, as I tried to let them know that I knew nothing about this. 

Something was happening here. Someone had framed me. 

As I was dragged across the foyer, my eyes met the Alpha's across the room. The corners of his lips tilted in a small smirk, and my heart shrank in my chest.

It was him. He framed me. I knew it undoubtedly. 

Why? Was this because I was with another man? What did it matter to him, anyway? Did he not reject me?

A small crowd was beginning to gather, as I was forced to my knees in the courtyard.

“A friendly warning, folks!” The mistress's voice rang out like a rusty bell. “We have a thief amongst us! Protect your belongings!”

“We came here to work and we're not even safe anymore?!” Someone yelled from the crowd, and more murmurs arose. 

“Omegas like her are tiny little thieves because they have no other way of surviving! But it doesn't mean we forgive her disgusting audacity!”

Murmurs of approval grew louder in the crowd. 

“That's alright, folks!” Mistress Kay persuaded. “She'll be punished. Hundred lashes.”

Fear gripped my gut and threatened to split it open. 

“Ma'am, please—”

“Don't you dare touch me.”

I looked around for the Alpha, wanting to beg him to save me from this moment, even though I knew he wouldn't. In the haze of panic, I willed the stranger from last night to ride in here at the last minute, like some theatrical hero.

In the end, no one came to my rescue. I was whipped so hard my back split open in several hashes, and my blood splattered everywhere. 

When they were done, I was thrown into a dark and smelly dungeon and locked away without food or water. The cold that whooshed in from the windows slowly ate away at me the entire night, until my hands and feet went numb. The windows were too high up, so there was no way of getting them closed. I just sat there, hoping I didn't die from the freeze. 

I was released the next morning and immediately assigned to clean the toilets in the East wing. 

I felt nauseous the entire time I worked, especially whenever I bent over to wash the toilet seats. 

It was too easy for me to get sick like humans, because I didn't even have a wolf. 

As I kept fighting the urge to puke and curl up in a corner until I felt better, I realized how much I hated everyone here and this stupid estate. I mean, how could they make me work after they whipped me a hundred times and threw me in a dungeon?

I had to escape from here before I lost it. But there was no way I was leaving without some money. The reason I came here in the first place was to work, and I wouldn't leave without my wage, come what may. 

The problem though, was that the mistress had confiscated my wage after paying everyone else's. 

If I needed money, I'd have to get it myself. It wouldn't be such a bad idea to get it from the Alpha’s chambers. Rumours had it that he liked to keep a lot of cash around. 

That night, however, I decided to get a job instead. Because when I walked into the Alpha's chambers and tried to find the cash, he found me. 

Brown eyes burned into my face as he backed me into a corner in the large space. “You’re not scared to come into my space, are you?”

I shivered with a mix of fear and hatred as he traced his fingers along my cheekbone, and leaned in so close his breath warmed my face. 

“I was just cleaning,” I murmured.

The panic grew as he tilted my chin and tried to kiss me. I nudged away. 

“I've got work to do, Alpha.” The last word dripped venom. 

His brows curved downward in a frown. “You dare refuse me? You know I could make your life much worse than it is presently?” 

Instant dizziness swept through me and I lifted my hand to my forehead. “I'm sorry, Alpha,” I repeated, then I was gone.

°°°°°

I was cleaning the floors the next morning when I suddenly doubled over and puked everywhere.

Matilda had just walked in and ordered me to prepare the meals for the guest that would be visiting later in the day. 

Unluckily for her, she was right in my path when I puked my guts out. 

Her perfume was the worst, always making me nauseous.

“Ew.” She cried, looking down at her stained dress in horror. “Are you pregnant or something?”

Mistress Kay came scurrying then. I half-expected the slap, swaying on my feet. 

“What do you think you're doing in front of the Alpha's guest?” she demanded in a fierce whisper. 

Oh, you mean the Alpha's whore?

“Pack this shit up, cunt!” She shoved me and I slipped on the puke, losing balance. 

Matilda looked really uncomfortable and disgusted, and as she turned to go, she also slipped on the puke she didn't catch and went down with me. 

A shriek of horror filled the hallways, and Alpha Kieran came running in the next minute. 

“What happened?”

“She puked all over the place and I literally got caught in her mess!”

Kieran's brown eyes burned bright flames of rage into my face. Malice read behind the flames. “I've had enough of your nonsense. You'll be whipped for disrespecting my guest.”

Oh, no. Not again. 

But my pleas fell on deaf ears as I was dragged to the pack square and stripped to my waist. I cried and shivered in the cold, hating this life I’d been cursed to live. 

As they prepared to whip my bare ass again, the heavy gates of the estate swung open, and someone stepped into the square. 

Thick silence hung in the air, and paths cleared, revealing a tall, handsome man in a simple royal suit.

His eyes fell on me in the arena, tied to the iron bar. Something flashed in the deep pools of blue. Recognition, anger. I wasn't sure which. 

But as for me? I stopped breathing. 

Because this man was the same one from the bar. Burgundy hair, blue eyes. The man that made me feel things I'd never felt before. 

Alpha Kieran rose to his feet and walked over to him. “Welcome, Ryker. We've been anticipating the arrival of our dear Lycan king. We're sorry you caught us at a bad time.”

The words were a harsh punch to my gut. 

The stranger from the bar was the Lycan king?!

Goddess save me. 

Those sharp blue eyes moved away from Kieran and found me again. Then he looked back at Kieran. 

“Release her.”