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Pov Lucie

The metal chains slammed against the wall to the sound of punches. My hands were tied together at the wrists, suspended from the ceiling by the cold metal, burning my skin with every movement. The blows rained down frantically, giving me the same punishment I knew all too well.

After a few minutes, the torture finally ended. My tormentor looks at me with hatred, an expression of pure malevolence on his lips:

"Learn your lesson. You must never challenge me! I'll let you off the hook for now, Tomorrow the punishment will be more".... Tantalizing.

The man licks his lips with desire and leaves my room satisfied, leaving my blood flowing from my new wounds. The room reeked of the mixed odor of hemoglobin, urine, and sweat. However today I was somewhat lucky, I only had the right to blows in the face and stomach. Sometimes I received cuts made by a knife, or one of my tormentors decided to complete their sexual torture... My eyes closed with fatigue, I no longer feel anything, no more pain, no more emotions, nothing. My painful body only seeks eternal peace, I no longer have the strength to fight and end up plunging into beneficial unconsciousness.

My memories take me back to the past, I fly over the scenes in my memory, without really understanding them, letting my mind wander as it pleases.

So many years had passed, and I had finally convinced myself that no one would come to help me. This house, and especially this “room” would become my final home. Well, if we could call this cellar a bedroom. Had I ever been happy? Could happiness exist? I didn't know anything about it.

My last memories of a different life were when I arrived here. I must have been 5 or 6 years old, my uncle was the alpha of his pack and reigned with terror over it. My mother had decided to give me into her care after the death of her companion because she knew that she would not survive his loss for long. She was right, a week after I abandoned her, she had died of grief. I only had a few images of her in my memory. She was a beautiful woman, tall, and slender, with a smile that could light up a room.

His eyes were kind and always gave me lots of love. My father called me “his beloved little princess.” Sometimes in my dreams, I remember the feeling of his arms around me, that feeling of protection. My parents had been close to the end, so it was nothing extraordinary that my mother couldn't survive the loss of her other half. They had been connected by an eternal bond, that of soulmate.

I didn't know this term, or rather I no longer understood it. My only information on the subject was what my memory told me about it. Two people are linked by an invisible and indestructible bond. When they meet, they are immediately attracted to each other and will spend their lives together. My mother loved to tell me stories about this connection, reminding me that it was sacred and that one day I would find the person who would perfectly complete me.

When I was a child, I believed in this fairy tale. I thought the other half of my soul would come and free me from my metal prison. Unfortunately, the tales remain what they are: stories to make children dream. When I turned 18 and could meet the person who was destined for me, I had the shock of my life. The beta's son, one of the people who loved to torture me the most, had declared that I was his, and therefore I had to do whatever he asked of me. On my birthday, he took me by force in front of part of the pack, ignoring my protests and my tears. I had felt no attraction towards him, no connection that would pull me into his arms. The soulmate bond did not exist, it would never deliver me from this place.

Men were all nothing but wild beasts, murderers, infamous beings. How could I be attracted to any of them? This would never happen, I promise!

During my childhood, I had often been locked up in this cellar which served as my “room” and which contained almost nothing, a mattress on the floor, a few pencils and notebooks to learn to read and write. Three books had kept me company since my first days here, containing stories about werewolves, and their transformations. I had always known what I was, a creature of legend, who should not exist, and yet here we are... My first metamorphosis, I had done alone in this room, the day after my rape. My wolf was weak, had no desire to live, and so left me alone most of the time, retreating to the back of my mind to protect herself.

At least that's what I was told, because I had almost no connection with her. The dominants then declared that I was probably a submissive wolf, without any will or ability to fight. “ The weakest of the pack,” that’s what I was. My father had been the first lieutenant of a powerful pack, one of the best fighters, but he had died before he could teach me anything. I remember a sentence he said to me while I was playing in our garden: “ You will be a strong wolf, I can feel it. ” No one will be able to defeat you, my daughter. » How wrong he was, I was nothing. The most submissive of the wolves, that is what I was and what I will forever be.

My activities within the pack had always been the same before I became an adult, I took care of the cleaning, the laundry, and the cooking. I had become a real cordon bleu over time. My head hadn't yet gone beyond the hotplates that I already knew how to make pancakes and eggs. The alpha, my uncle, hadn't been too bad at first, he didn't speak to me but gave me a certain freedom. The beatings and confinement began in adolescence. I only left my room for a few hours a day to carry out my daily tasks, which had always been the same since I was 6 years old.

The whole pack knew that I was locked in this prison made of metal, but no one came to help me, either they didn't want to or they didn't have the courage. Opposing your alpha meant dying in excruciating pain, I understood that unfortunately.

A young servant decided to help me when we were 16, she treated my wounds and gave me the strength to continue fighting. During the few months that our secret friendship lasted, I had regained a little taste for life. Then one day she disappeared, and I was told that she had decided to be transferred to another pack to serve her. I didn't believe it for a single second, I had this impression that she was dead because of me. My friend Kira was probably buried somewhere because she decided to help me. My tears were inexhaustible at this memory. My only comfort was gone...

After I became an adult, my life was a little different. I hardly left that room anymore. I slept on the filthy mattress, had to do my business in a small hole in the far corner of the room, and had nothing to do. My days were punctuated by beatings, rapes, and other physical torture. Sometimes they gave me food so I wouldn't starve. I had tried several times to end my life, but they would not let me go in peace. So what did they want from me? Why did he persist in keeping me alive if it was to treat me like this? I was of no use to them in my current state.

How many people came to torture me? I can't say it, I had the impression that ten men were taking turns to subject me to more and more horrible torture. The worst was still my uncle, my cousin the future alpha Ray, and the beta's son, Bruce... I rarely said their first names, I had no right to do so. They wanted me to call them by their title or other sadistic names, like master. The details of the last scenes come back to my memory but I decide to repress them in a secret box that I created in my mind.

My tormentors had never left a permanent mark on me. I was a wolf, so I healed faster than any human. But a week ago, he bought iron chains and knives specially designed to leave lifelong scars on a wolf's body. On my wrists, I already felt the burn of the iron that would eat away at me even in the afterlife. I will never be able to get rid of these traces. The knives had been left in plain sight in a cage outside my door, to remind me that at any moment they could be used to punish me.

Leaving the different memories in the depths of my memory, I gradually regain awareness of the world around me. I was still tied by the wrists, bruises were already forming on my exposed stomach. A line of blood cascaded from a wound on his brow bone. My vision was partially blurred, but I managed to see a man approach me and undo my chains. I fall heavily to the ground, and yet the pain doesn't seem very serious to me, nothing else does anymore. I had gotten used to it over the years. Instinctively I put myself in the fetal position to cover my nudity. They wouldn't let me wear clothes during his sessions. Another way to torture myself psychologically.

I try to find a landmark around me, what time is it? How long had I been unconscious? Minutes, hours, days? No way of knowing the time in this prison. The man, with a fairly slender build, places himself in my limited field of vision. His golden brown eyes look at me with pity, his mouth twisting in disgust. I couldn't tell if it was due to my condition or to me. His hand comes to my cheek to wipe away a trace of blood:

- You have until tomorrow to get over it. In the afternoon, a powerful alpha will come to visit us. We need you to make this house spotless and prepare a dinner worthy of the greatest. Rejoice, I managed to negotiate with the alpha so that you won't be beaten for the next few hours. Now sleep, and regain your strength!

His powerful first lieutenant voice has its effect. He never touched me in any way. So I learned to trust him little by little and decided to close my eyes until the next day... Who knows what this alpha will want to do to me?