Chapter 60

ALPHA TRISTAN

Paige didn't return to the penthouse with Sara in tow. Instead, Sara slipped back into the room alone, her expression unreadable as she immediately proceeded to tidy the surfaces and adjust the linens. She moved with a quiet, practiced efficiency that usually soothed me, but today, I was restless.

"You’re back," I noted, watching her. "What did you and Natalie talk about? Did she give the girl a proper perspective on things?" I asked, a surge of dark excitement humming in my veins.

I had high hopes for this "education." Natalie hadn’t been a sex slave, per se. In the beginning, she was merely a live-in maid, but she had been more than willing to provide "extra services" whenever the mood struck me. I remembered our first time together with startling clarity, a memory that still held a certain predatory warmth.

Claudia, my former mate, hadn't liked the idea of a live-in maid at first. She was possessive and sharp-tongued, but I eventually convinced her that it was a practical necessity. Since I occupied the top floor of the building, I argued that I needed someone readily available at all hours without the clinical detachment of calling through the intercoms.

Initially, Natalie kept to her own corner of the penthouse. She wore decent, professional dresses, but they were often just tight enough or just short enough to be suggestive. I noticed the rising sexual tension between us, a thick, heavy pull that Natalie navigated with a clever, shy smile. She avoided Claudia as much as possible, acting like a ghost when my mate was present.

The dam finally broke one night when Claudia was away on a trip. I woke up in the dead of night, the air in the room cool, to find the weight of someone lying next to me.

"Hey, sweetheart... so you were just pulling my leg by telling me you wouldn't be back until morning," I murmured, my voice thick with sleep. I reached out and kissed her, but she only groaned softly and muttered something incoherent. I figured Claudia was simply exhausted from the road, even though such a quiet return was completely out of character for her.

I wanted to touch her, to make love to her with a renewed ferocity—especially after the subtle, agonizing teasing Natalie had put me through while my mate was away. But I also knew that Claudia was a terror if woken up specifically for sex. So, I forced myself to let it slide and closed my eyes.

However, a few hours later, I woke to the sensation of someone's lips on me. It was a masterful, searing heat. She proceeded to climb on top, taking control in a reverse cowgirl position that left me breathless. She was incredibly skillful, moving with a rhythmic desperation that felt new. I wanted to ask if something transformative had happened on her trip, but the pleasure was too intense for questions. Eventually, she shifted, and I took her from behind, burying my face in the crook of her neck.

After we both climaxed, I cuddled her close, and we both drifted back to sleep in the quiet darkness. Early the next morning, the bedroom door opened, and Claudia walked in, apologizing profusely for being unable to reach me all through the night because of a dead battery and a storm.

I zoned out as she explained her ordeal. My mind was racing, a cold sweat breaking out on my skin as I tried to understand what had happened in that bed. If Claudia hadn't been here last night, then who had I just shared that intimacy with?

I knew I couldn't tell her the truth; she would never believe it was an honest mistake. I couldn't even defend it to myself. Why hadn't I turned on the lights? I searched for Natalie shortly after, but she was nowhere to be found. That was how our secret, illicit escapade began—a cycle of shadow and silence.

"Thank you for taking the time to come in, Natalie," I said, snapping back to the present. I looked past Paige to see that Natalie had indeed entered the room behind her. "I believe you must have taught Sara everything she needed to know. I called you here because I’d love to see the results of that lesson myself."

I looked around, but the penthouse was still empty of the girl. Natalie stared at me with a hollow, confused expression that sent a prickle of unease down my spine.

"I am here, Alpha," Natalie whispered, her voice like dry leaves. "But I didn't teach Sara anything. As a matter of fact, I haven't seen the girl all day."

My expression shifted from excitement to a hard, worried frown. "Are you saying that Paige didn't bring her to your quarters?" I asked again, my voice low and dangerous.

"No." Natalie stood in the center of my study, a hollow shell of the vibrant woman she used to be. Her eyes were fixed on the floor, her shoulders slumped in a permanent, pathetic curve of submission. She was the perfect teacher in my eyes—a living map of what happens when a wolf’s spirit is methodically erased. "Is there something else you want me to do for you, Alpha?"

I pushed my suspicion aside for a moment, assuming Paige had simply been delayed. "Yes, Natalie. When she arrives, you will tell her," I commanded, leaning back in my leather chair. "Tell her what is expected when I summon her at night. Tell her exactly how to be useful to her master."

Natalie’s voice was a ghostly monotone. "You will be silent. You will be ready. You will anticipate his needs before he speaks them. Your body is the Alpha's vessel, and your will is—"

"This is pointless, Tristan," a voice interrupted, cutting through the room like a shard of falling glass.

I turned to see Sara standing in the doorway, flanked by guards. She looked disheveled but her eyes were burning with a terrifying clarity. I felt the familiar heat of irritation rising in my chest.

"Pointless? I thought perhaps seeing a success story like Natalie would remove any lingering ambiguity about your future. Natalie understands the weight of her role. You will, too."

Sara stepped toward me, completely ignoring the broken woman standing beside her. "I am no sex slave. I will never be your plaything, and I will never, ever be like her. You can kill me, you can starve me, but you will never own the part of me that matters. You're trying to break something that doesn't belong to you."

Her defiance in front of Natalie—and more importantly, in front of my servants—was a resounding slap to my authority. My inner wolf snarled, pacing the confines of my mind, demanding blood for the public insult.

"Is that so?" I stood up, the legs of my heavy chair screeching against the marble floor like a dying animal. "If you won't learn the easy way in private, perhaps the pack needs to remind you who holds the leash in the Twilight Zone."

I reached for the intercom on my desk, my finger pressing down hard. "Harlan, get to the penthouse. Now." When he arrived moments later, he looked from me to Sara and back again, sensing the volatility in the air. "Summon an emergency meeting in the Grand Hall," I ordered. "I want everyone there. Every soldier, every worker. Now!"

Within thirty minutes, hundreds of my people were gathered in the hall, their murmurs creating a low, rhythmic roar of curiosity. I stood on the raised podium, dragging Sara out beside me by her arm.

The moment she saw the sheer size of the crowd, she collapsed to her knees, her strength finally failing her. Her eyes were wide and frantic, darting toward the soldiers in the front row. "Please," she whispered, her voice trembling so hard I could barely hear her. "Tristan, please... not again. Don't let them touch me..."

She thought I was going to turn her over to the pack again. I let her beg for a long, agonizing moment, savoring the sight of her spirit finally buckling under the weight of public shame. I let the suspense hang in the air until the silence in the hall was absolute.

"People of the Twilight Zone!" I shouted, my voice booming off the rafters. "Sara Lockwood has suffered for her crimes! She has been humiliated, beaten, and broken! I have decided she has atoned enough for the blood on her hands!"

Sara looked up at me, a flicker of hope—or perhaps just profound confusion—shining in her eyes.

"Therefore," I continued, my voice turning cold and possessively sharp, "I am ending her public penance today. From this moment on, she is mine and mine alone. She will be my personal sexual slave. Her body is my right, and her life is my property. No one else touches her. No one else even looks at her. She is the Alpha's reward for his survival."

A roar of mockery erupted from the crowd. My warriors laughed, shouting crude insults at the girl shivering on her knees. But as I scanned the room, I saw three faces that weren't joining in the revelry. Harlan looked away in visible disgust. Paige was deathly pale, her knuckles white as she gripped her apron. And Yvonne... Yvonne looked as if she wanted to jump onto the stage and tear Sara’s throat out with her bare teeth.

Sara’s face shifted from horror to a sudden, chilling stillness. She realized then that the "mercy" I offered was just a different kind of cage—one where she would be destroyed behind closed doors instead of in the streets.

She raised her hand. The movement was so small, yet the hall began to quiet as if by some invisible force.

"The whore wants to speak!" a voice shouted from the back. "Whores don't have a voice! Just lay down and do your job for the Alpha!"

The laughter redoubled, a cacophony of cruelty, but Sara didn't lower her hand. She stood up slowly, her legs shaking like a newborn fawn's, but her chin was held high.

"Let her speak!" someone else called out, followed by a chorus of jeers. They wanted to hear her beg for her life. They wanted to see her break.

Sara looked at me, then turned her gaze to the crowd. "You call me a whore?" she asked, her voice echoing with a strength that shouldn't have been possible for a human girl in her position. "You mock me for my position? You follow a man who claims strength, yet you all seem to have very short memories."

She pointed a trembling finger directly at me, and for the first time in my life, I felt a flicker of genuine, burning embarrassment.

"Do you remember the war with Moonshadow?" she shouted, her voice rising to a crescendo. "Do you remember your 'Great Alpha' lying in the dirt, rotting from a toxin he wasn't strong enough to fight? He was a corpse waiting to happen! He was weak! He was helpless! And it was this prisoner—this 'whore'—who reached into his chest and pulled him back from the brink of the grave! You follow a man who owes his very next breath to the woman he now tries to treat like a dog!"

The hall went deathly silent. My face burned with a heat so intense I thought my skin might blister. The humiliation was a physical weight, pressing down on my chest as the warriors looked from her to me, the memory of my vulnerability suddenly fresh in their minds. She had stripped away my armor in front of everyone.

"Silence!" I roared, the sound vibrating through the steel beams of the hall like a thunderclap. I lunged at her, grabbing her by the hair and pulling her face inches from mine. "You dare? You dare speak of my weakness in my own house, before my own people?"

I was beyond logic. I was infuriated. I wanted to crush the life out of her right there on the podium, but I couldn't. The dark, twisted need for her was still there, warring with my rage.

"Guards!" I barked, my voice cracking with fury. "Take her to the dungeon. Not the East Wing. The deep cells. No light, no food, no water, and double the labor until she learns proper manners. If she wants to act like a common prisoner, she will be treated like one until she begs for the slave's collar!"

As they dragged her away, she didn't scream. She didn't beg for mercy. She just looked back at me with a look of profound pity that cut deeper into my soul than any blade ever could.