Chapter 1

    The copper taste of my own blood was the first thing that registered in my mouth. The second was the heavy, rhythmic click of heels against stone.

    I didn't open my eyes. I didn't need to. I knew the exact dimensions of this cellar, the exact chill of the stone floor against my bare skin, and the exact terrifying weight of the man standing over me.

    

    "Hit the bitch harder," Victor purred, the tip of his polished boot catching me right under the chin, forcing my head up. His cold, grey eyes bore into mine, glinting with a dark satisfaction that made my stomach twist. 

  " Damn it Fiona, you really can handle pains, I will give that to you. Alpha Victor said. Your butt and back is almost peeled off from whipping you and you are still quiet? He smilled down at me exposing his almost decayed brown teeths that stinks so badly whenever he opens his mouth.

  

  You know what? I think it’s time you get a reset."

    He stepped back, and the sharp, terrifying crack of a silver-laced whip echoed through the damp room.

    "Let’s see if your skin handles the silver any better this year," he whispered to me.

    The first strike came down like a line of pure fire, slicing through the thin fabric of my shirt and tearing into my flesh. I hissed, my fingers clawing into the dirt, fighting with every ounce of my fading strength not to give him the satisfaction of a scream.

    Mates. The word was a mockery, a cruel joke played by a Moon Goddess who clearly detested me.

    "Should we do fifty lashes?" The guard who was flogging me asked.”

    

    Victor’s laugh was low, vibrating through the small room as he dragged the heavy leather across the floor, leaving a wet, crimson trail. "I think hundred lashes will be better, It is a celebration, after all. We should do it properly and give her the best birthday gift ever.”

    

    With that, the guard egarly resumed flogging me. The next strike broke my resolve. The silver bit deeper, burning my veins, and a ragged scream tore from my throat. Tears spilled over, blinding me as they tracked through the grime on my face.

    Finally the hundredth stroke was completed and as the guard dropped the sliver chain with a thud breathing heavily. While I lay on the floor my weak body was covered with bruises.

    

    Victor knelt beside me, his fingers tangling in my hair. He ripped my head back so violently I felt the strain in my scalp.

    "Ugly bitch," he spat, his breath hot against my cheek.

    "I hate you! I yelled and spat on his face. You should have rejected me," I wheezed, my jaw aching from the pain of his boots pressing down my face. "Instead of keeping me bound to you like a dog, you can as well just kill me right now!”

    

    The blow to my face came so fast I didn’t see it. My head cracked against the stone floor, the world tilting into a dark, blurry haze.

    

    "You dare speak back to your Alpha?" Victor’s voice dropped to a lethal growl, his grip tightening on my hair until I was forced to look at him again. 

    

    "Reject you and suffer the goddess’s wrath?nah, and also you want me to miss out on the look on your face every time I take another woman to my bed and fuck her mercilessly while you sit in a corner crying from the pains and betrayal of watching us? I want you to feel every single rip in our mate bond, Fiona. I want you to suffocate on it. I want you to suffer.” 

    

    I stayed silent, my breath hitching as the blood pooled in my mouth. Why did he hate me so much? Nothing I did was ever good enough for him. This punishment wasn't about the morning's petty argument. It was never about the fact that I had refused to look at him, or that I had tried to walk away when he commanded me to stay. Those were just his excuses. The truth was simpler: Victor hated that the moon goddess had bound his perfect, powerful alpha lineage to an omega whose family owed him their life. I was his living, breathing punching bag, and a plaything. A debt that could never be paid off. 

    

    "Your wretched omega family knew exactly what you were when they sold you to my pack, they knew you were a filthy whore.” Victor whispered, his eyes narrowing. "A waste. A curse. You deserve nothing but the dirt. You only deserve to be tortured till the day you die.

    

    He didn't give me time to process the words. His grip slid from my hair to my throat, squeezing until the air caught in my chest. My eyes bulged. Through the haze of suffocating panic, I felt the sharp prick of claws digging into my skin. His wolf was right beneath the surface, tasting my terror.

    

    "I am going to remind you exactly who owns you," he growled.

    

    “Please, don’t hurt me. I’m pregnant with your child.” I pleaded with the monster, hoping he would have a change of heart and stop what he was about to do to me.

    

    But that statement earned me another hard slap across my face.

    

    “Your wretched shameless whore!” Victor roared. How dare you say you are pregnant with my child? How dare you say that bastard in your stomach belong to me when all the men in my pack has fucked you? How dare you get pregnant for a random wolf and try to pin on me?”

    

    “B-but that’s the truth. This child belongs to you. You ordered the men in the pack never to touch me without protection, you are the only one who has been having sex with me without protection.” I said tearfully.”

    

    “Liar!” He yelled, and slapped me hard across my face again. I know what you are trying to do and after I’m done teaching you a lesson, I will call the pack doctor to get ride of that tiny bastard growing in your stomach. He threw me onto the mattress in the corner of the cellar. The impact rattled my ribs, and the scent of iron and old sweat filled my nose. I didn't fight as his shirt hit the floor, followed by the heavy clink of his belt unbuckling. I didn't beg. Begging only made him cruel and use more force on me. Instead, I stared at the ceiling, dissociating from my own skin, letting the tears track silently into my hairline as he forcefully slammed his huge cock inside and started thrusting inside me wildly without giving me time to adjust.

  

  “Take it slut! I know you like my cock! You are thirsty for my cock! He yelled slapping me hard across my face as he continued ramming into me mercilessly.

  

  I remained silent as he continued his assault on me, and by the time he was done, I had already passed out from pains.

    

    When I finally woke, the cellar doors were wide open. I felt a very sharp pain in my lower abdomen, and my body felt lighter too. There were traces of dried blood on my thighs. I touched my stomach.

    “My baby! No-no!” He aborted my baby.” I cried, my voice barely audible. 

    The cold night air hit my bare, bloodied back, making me shudder. As I looked around my environment. As expected, Victor’s warriors had dragged my unconscious body out of his quarters and dumped me in the dirt alleyway behind the pack-house like common trash.

    I pushed myself up, the pains in my abdomen intensifying and  every muscle screaming in protest, when a sudden commotion broke the silence of the night.

    

    "Bring them out!" Victor’s voice boomed through the courtyard, cutting through the dark.

    I stumbled out of the alley, gripping the stone wall for support. My heart dropped into my stomach.

    In the center of the courtyard, surrounded by the entire pack, a dozen warriors were dragging my family forward. My father, my mother, my siblings—all of them looking haggard, bruised, and broken. They were forced onto their knees in a ragged line in the dirt.

    "No..." The word left me in a breathless, panicked sob. I tried to run forward, but two heavy hands clamped onto my shoulders, pinning me to the spot. "Mom! Dad!"

    "Never cross me again, Fiona," Victor called out, his voice echoing over the silent crowd. He didn't even look back at me as he walked down the line of my trembling family like an executioner selecting a crop.

    "Leave them out of this! Please I promise, I will never disobey again! Please don’t hurt them!” I screamed, my voice cracking with desperation. The pack members gasped, whispering at my audacity to yell at the Alpha, but I didn't care. "They have nothing to do with this! I'm the one who angered you! Punish me! But spare my family!”

    Victor finally turned, his signature, sinister smirk cutting across his face. "No, dear mate. Physical pain heals too quickly. I want you to live with the guilt forever. Every single time you look at what's left of them, you'll remember it was your defiance that did this. You killed your entire family. I want you to live with the guilt forever.”

    What guilt?

    Before the question could fully form on my lips, a deafening crack of bones exploded through the courtyard. Victor shifted instantly, expanding into his massive, shadow-brown wolf. Time slowed down. I watched in horrific, paralyzed silence as the beast lunged. A single, brutal snap of his jaws. Then another. The sickening, crunching sound of tearing flesh and breaking bones echoed in the quiet night. Blood splattered across the dirt, dark and hot, soaking into the earth as screams tore from the crowd. He tore through my family like a monster unleashed, leaving a trail of absolute devastation. I watched my family massacred before my eyes. 

    The warriors released me, and I collapsed to my knees, staring at the empty, lifeless eyes of the people who had raised me. A raw, inhuman howl tore from my chest a sound that didn't belong to a weak omega like me, but a broken wolf finding its teeth.

    Today was supposed to be my birthday and Victor’s gift to me was the blood of my unborn child and the massacre of my entire family. And as I stared at my family's blood staining the courtyard.