FIVE

Elara blinked open her eyes expecting to see her creaky old ceiling fan twirling slowly above her and creating more heat than air but instead, she was met with a chandelier with low lights hanging over her head as the frigid air bit into her skin.

She pressed her eyes shut as if trying to dissipate the confusion and her eyes flew open as the events of the past few hours came rushing back to her head, her hands gripping the bedsheets.

“I think you should sleep some more.” A deep voice said from the shadows.

“Fuck!” Elara cussed as she flew back into the bed. Her brain quickly registered the voice and she squinted her eyes in the direction it came from. “You know, you are a disgusting creep! What are you even doing watching me sleep?”

Kael shrugged, even though Elara couldn’t see him. “You are the one in my bed, in my room. I know you are hot for me, I can tell by the way you have looked at me all night, but there was no way I was getting into that bed with you in it. And if you were to ask me, I would say manipulating someone into sleeping with you is psycho level creepy.”

“Well, I didn’t ask you. And the only thing I would be doing when I get in bed with you is stab you in your sleep, creep.”

“Oohh,” Kael sang. “So you do want to get into bed with me. I am really not a difficult man to please, Elara. All you have to do is ask softly and I will give you the night of your life.”

“Is that what you say to all unsuspecting girls before ripping out their hearts and feeding it to them?”

Kael chuckled softly, “Just you, darling.” He clicked on the reading lamp on the desk in front of the chair where he was sitting and illuminated the room a tad bit and Elara blinked to welcome in the brightness. “Now, get out of my room.”

Elara sat unmoving in the middle of the king size. She had finally let go of the beddings and had her arms crossed under the duvet. “Why?”

“Because it’s my room and I don’t want you in it.”

“No. Why did you allow my parents to sell me to you? Why couldn’t you have just waited till they paid you back everything in cash. The fact that you are the Alpha leader of the three packs still does not give you the right to buy people. I am a person with my own dreams and ambitions and it does not include serving as someone’s slave for the rest of my life.”

Kael nodded. “I am glad you understand the status we both hold. Master and slave.”

Elara scoffed as tears began forming in her eyes. A knot tightened in her chest and in her throat. Her whole life has been upended in just a few hours. The man whom she planned on eloping and spending the rest of her life with dumped her for someone else and her parents, her terrible parents she believed would change their attitudes towards her sold her to a tyrant Alpha.

“It is funny to you, huh?” She swallowed down the knot in her throat and climbed off the bed. She was still in the same clothes she had all night only with a God-awful smell since all the rain that beat her mixed with her sweat all dried up on her body.

Elara dragged the beddings off with her as she climbed down the bed, leaving the mattress bare. She took two pillows and stuffed them both under each arm.

“What are you doing?” Kael kept his composure as he watched Elara with only but a raised brow.

“If I am going to be staying in that disaster of a room you showed me, I will need some exquisite beddings to soothe my body in order to be in great shape while outlining my plans to kill you.”

“That is the third time you are threatening to kill me, Elara. You do know what will happen if I die, right?”

“Yes. The world will be one asshole short.” She reached for the doorknob but with the pillows stuffed under her arms, she couldn’t reach it. Huffing out loudly, she dropped one pillow to the floor, opened the door, glared at Kael one last time and banged the door behind her.

Elara’s assigned room was just two doors away from Kael’s. With everything she gathered from his room, she stood in the middle of the room and looked around. It was still as she saw it when Kael showed it to her some hours ago.

Bare. Save from the lamp on the desk in one corner of the room.

The wind rocked the windows back as the cool air blew into the room. Elara dumped the beddings on the bed and shut the window. She looked out to the sunrise as she pulled the curtains together and the memories of her conversation with Sean came rushing back to her head.

“You are the last ranking omega without a wolf…”

“…Farrah is fit to carry healthy cubs…”

“Nobody loves you…”

“That’s on you for being foolish.”

A cry choked out of her mouth as she slumped to the floor. The cold floor was biting into her knees, threatening to give her an early health issue but she didn’t budge. The carpet was barely cushioning the cold but the pain in her chest was bigger than the cold biting her skin.

Tears pumped down her cheeks and she swiped them off angrily but the harder she swiped, the harder the tears fell…and fell…and fell. Slowly, her body toppled over and she curled into a small ball on the floor, her sobs coming shorts.

She allowed her tears to flow freely this time and slowly, she drifted away.

“Hey…hey.” Elara heard the soft voice pulling her back from the darkness she was drifting into. The voice was soft against her eyes, like a velvety cushion landing. “Elara!”

She blinked her eyes open and saw a figure hovering above her. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. Can you not be a creep!” She yelled when she registered the figure above her.

“Run her a hot bath in my room. She is freezing.” Elara looked to her side and saw two women looking at her with widened eyes.