Selena's pov.

"You filthy wench!"

 The whip bit my back again, tearing through my flesh. I swallowed down my screams-down my throat away from their ears.

"How dare you go after my man again?!"

 Squeezing my eye shut, I blocked the tears as pain and blood speared through my back that was almost the same fiery shade of my hair. Melinda, the woman who called herself my mistress kept throwing one whip after the other until she was the one that needed to catch her breath between in the cold underground wine celler.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" She hissed with venom her heel digging to the side of my rib. I remained slouched on my knees, feeling the vile stare of her chosen mate who had followed me down to the wine celler several minutes ago.

He was the one after me. He's always been ever since I was brought to Clawsbane pack.

He was known to chase everything in a skirt, but Melinda was too buried in denial to see it. 

She walked in here earlier, probably to yell at me for dragging my feet at getting new drinks for the occasion currently going on at the pack hall.

Then she found him tugging at my rags while I clearly resisted. 

But she filtered out what she needed to see to blame me and unhooked her whip that she kept strapped on her in case she ever needed to dish out punishment.

And at this point, I was as close to her whip as a bosom friend.

"Sweetheart, we shouldn't keep the grand alpha waiting forget about the slave, okay?"

She gave him a stern look, "Don't think you are off the hook either. Didn't I tell you to not allow her to come close to you?"

He rubbed her shoulders massaging the tension out of them and as always she folded like a paper clip in his hold.

"Sweetheart, I said I'm sorry, also remember? We are hosting a grand alpha tonight! With this we could establish firm relationships and solidify our positions as the future alpha and luna of this pack. Don't let this mere slave ruin tonight for you..."

Her breathing slowed down, mine was still raggy the sting from each individual whip that tore through my rags and my skin shooting pain all over.

"You're right,” she conceded "...but I'll have to change to a new attire..."she mentioned gesturing over to my blood that has splattered on her sapphire V neck dress.

She snapped her fingers at me. 

"Slave! fetch me a new dress! Hurry up! If I don't have it back here in the next 5 minutes I'll make you regret being born and-"

"One...two...three..." I said slowly straightening my back she looked at me eyes bulging like they were ready to pop out.

"Have you finally lost your mind, slave?!"she hissed gripping the whip with awful intent, "I don't have much strength left to waste on you but do not test me..."

"...eight...nine...ten..."

It finally clicked in her head what I was doing.

"Are you counting the 5 minutes I gave you?!" She said her face going red. 

"Maybe," I said with a click of my tongue, "fifteen... sixteen... seventeen..."

She was about to descend the weapon me again once more, then clearly more for her own benefits rather than mine her chosen mate Mason stepped between us going as far as to grab her arm.

"Melinda! You are the beta's daughter...and... My future Luna, surely you will not allow yourself to fall for this sl*ts tricks?"

"What tricks?!" She demanded to know staring past him to look at me with murder in her eyes.

"Clearly she wants us to waste our time here so that we can fall out of favor with a grand Alpha, you can punish her properly once tonight is over...but when are we going to have another chance to meet with a grand Alpha?"

Ugh

If only Mason could be a stupid as he looked.

Melinda's anger was beginning to subside, he was slowly herding her up the stairs.

I gritted my teeth, there is only one thing I can say to drag her back and if I do say it I'll probably spend the next week healing the damaged skin on my back but it will be worth it. 

"Melinda, you're always doing what Mason wants, Maybe if you were his fated mate he could try harder to zip his pants when he sees another woman,"

Everything happened so fast.

1 second she was at the center of the stairs, her eyes looming turning completely black until it looked like darkness had consumed her consciousness. 

And then in the next I had my head slammed against a concrete wall blood trickling down from there too.

"How dare you-a mere slave!" 

Her voice rang with spite, anger and undoubtedly shame. That I, who she thought no better than the dirt under her shoe could point out her greatest insecurity poking it right in the face. 

My shackle was always tight and suffocating but now with her grip there I could feel my lungs clawing for air that wasn't reaching them. Wasn't she going to stop? If she kept going like this she would break one of werewolves greatest laws-Killing a slave.

Yes we were regarded as property, but in some senses we were not completely stripped of our personhood.

But right now looking at the two welling pits that were melinda's eyes, her wolf had taken over completely. There was no reasoning with her. 

I gritted my teeth as darkness began to splot spaces in my vision.

After everything I've endured is this it? Is this where the curtains of my life gets pulled closed?

I clenched my eyelid shut, my mother's voice clear and full of strength as when she was alive said to me.

"You are a Wrath, Selena, we never fall... We never surrender..."

No…I couldn't, never!

Stealing the scraps of breath that I could, I musterd my strength and threw my feet at her face, hard enough that I'm sure she tasted blood in her mouth.

She groaned and released me, the balls of my feet had barely touched the ground before I was already running shoving past her useless chosen mate.

Everything was a blur, smudges of what used to be a world until it hit me the smell of Winter, ceder and raw power, the scent of him.

And I knew the pounding in my heart was not just the adrenaline. 

The words spilled out of his mouth first before they could come out of mine.

"Mate..."