Chapter 17

SARA 

"Yvonne, she’s yours. Deal with her. I don't want to see her face until morning." I looked up at Yvonne when Alpha Tristan made that statement and walked out. She wore a smile that I really couldn't figure out. I've always known she didn't like me, even when I returned to the pack as the Healer of the pack, she had been hostile. 

"Well, well, well." Yvonne strode towards me with a big grin. "If you're going to disrespect our Alpha, you should know that it will come with some consequences. So, since you are supposed to be naked, please take off that dirty excuse of a pant that you are wearing." 

I stared at her with shock, and then look at the many men that were lazily standing around in the hall, pretending to be busy while looking lustfully at my exposed breasts. She tugged at my pants and from nowhere produce a pair of scissors and cut through my pants, leaving me fully naked in a room filled with men who were all suddenly massaging the bulge in their pants. 

I Look at her, hoping she'd understand since she was a woman too. "Take her to her cell. I'll deal with her insolence in the morning." Yvonne decreed. "Pour a bucket of water on her before you leave." She instructed. 

That was exactly what the guard did, they used a long hose to spray me water and wet most of my makeshift bed. By the time they were done, I didn't know what else to do, whether to sleep on the wet bed or the wet floor. With no clothes on, I knew I'd get Pneumonia or even a high fever by morning. So I sat down and tried to find a comfortable way to sleep.

By morning, the sun filtered through the high, barred windows of the dungeon like a mocking reminder of the world I could no longer touch. Alpha Tristan had left at the break of dawn like he said he would, his war horns sounding a grim departure as he led the Twilight Zone army to the borderlands to clash with the Moonshadow pack. With the Alpha gone, the pack house felt colder, filled with a different kind of predatory silence.

I thought today my be the day off, a day when I get some reprieve from the pain, when my thoughts flashed back to the events of last night and how Alpha Tristan had given me to Yvonne. I was just thinking about what Yvonne would do to me when the bolt to my cell slid back, and Yvonne stepped in. 

She looked radiant in her tailored leather, her hair perfectly braided, a sharp contrast to the bruised, naked wretch I had become. She looked down at me with a smirk that didn't quite reach her eyes—eyes that were burning with a long, bitter resentment.

Why does she hate me that much. It's not like our paths has ever crossed. "Your little savior is rotting just three doors down, Sara," she whispered, her voice like silk over a grave. "Harlan’s ‘noble’ heart earned him a stone floor and a chain. There is no one left to catch your tears now. No one to hold back the Alpha’s hand. No one to stop me."

I leaned my back against the damp stone, my ribs aching from the cold. I was broken, yes, but I still had my eyes, and I had spent years watching the power dynamics of this pack. It was then that it finally made sense to me. I knew why she was here. It wasn't just for Tristan’s orders.

"You?" I scowled at her. "Do you really expect me to be scared of you? What's the worst you can do to me that Alpha Tristan has not done already?" I asked with a smirk, daring her.

"Well, you disrespected our alpha and spoke back at him, it is my responsibility to correct that error." She bragged. Trying to find a way to justify her actions but I was not going to fall for it.

"Oh please, you’re doing this because you’re a pathetic loser, Yvonne," I said weakly, a small, bloody smile tugging at my lips. "I know your secret, and anyone with keen eyes would have seen it too." 

"My secret?" She shot me a confused look. "What are you talking about?" 

"Don't even try and pretend that you don't know." I scoffed. " I’ve seen the way you look at him when he doesn't see you. You love him. You’ve loved him for years, haven't you? And it must kill you—loving a man who treats you like a piece of furniture."

Yvonne’s face went rigid. "Keep your filthy mouth shut, slave." She snapped at me, which further confirmed my suspicion all along. 

"How does it feel?" I continued, my voice gaining a desperate, sharp edge. "To be the loyal advisor, the perfect soldier, and still have him look right through you? Do you know what I saw last night when I was stripped bare in that hall? I saw his eyes. He wasn't just angry, Yvonne. He was filled with lust, with hunger, with desire. I saw him swallow hard. He was looking at me—at the 'murderer'—with a fire I'm sure he has never once felt for you. I have something you’ll never have. I have his attention. Even his hate is more intimate than the nothingness he gives you."

The slap that came next was so hard it sent my head reeling against the wall. Yvonne was breathing heavily, her mask of composure slipping to reveal a raw, ugly desperation.

"You are nothing!" she hissed. "And by the time the sun sets, the whole pack will know it. That is a promise I'll keep." She motioned for the guards to give me something to wear and then bring me outside. 

Yvonne didn't just want me to suffer; she wanted to continue where her boyfriend stopped and erase the very idea of 'Sara Lockwood' from the collective memory of the Twilight Zone. Perhaps, badmouthing her was the wrong thing to do, especially since she was a woman in love. Or rather, unrequited love.

She had the guards drag me into the Great Hall, where the remaining pack members—those not called to the border—were gathered for the midday announcements. I felt I should probably apologize but I had thought about it through the night before I decided to attack her. A woman who would embarrass another woman in the way and manner she had treated me was not worthy of my apology. How could strip me naked in a room filled with men. 

"Kneel!" Yvonne commanded, standing on the podium where Tristan usually sat.

I dropped to my knees on the cold floor. My body was a map of bruises, and the shame was a physical weight, but I forced myself to stay upright.

"You disrespected the Alpha last night, from now henceforth, you are to speak only when addressed," Yvonne announced to the room, her voice echoing. "You will kneel while answering. And if your words are deemed insufficient or dishonest, you will repeat them until the truth is beaten into your soul. Do you understand, slave?"

"Yes," I whispered.

"I didn't hear you. Start over," she snapped.

"Yes, Ms. Yvonne," I said, my voice louder.

"Better. Now, tell the pack who you are."

I closed my eyes for a second and grinned my teeth. "I am Sara Lockwood."

"Wrong," Yvonne said, stepping down from the podium and circling me like a shark. "That woman died with the Claudia. The one you gruesomely murdered. Try again."

I wanted to deny it, to defend myself, to tell her that it was an accident but I was tired. They were all set in their believe and have made up their mind not to believe me. I'd sooner fall a tree with a razor blade before they believe in not responsible for Claudia's dea

th. It was best to accept it.