Tempted

Jackson King’s offer of a perfect life as his mate and luna was very tempting, but I knew everything came with a price. Life by the side of a man like him who only cared about himself couldn’t possibly come without misery. 

But that was not what made me reject the offer. If I accepted his offer and got too comfortable, I knew I would get side-tracked and might forget why I was there in the first place. Jackson King had indirectly killed my brother and I was not going to let that death go unpunished. I had to get justice for my brother and prevent more bloodshed for Jackson King’s comfort.

Besides, I did not want his blood money. I could never be happy enjoying money that had been made off the backs of unwilling slaves.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. I stared at Jackson, feeling nothing but hatred and anger towards the man. He seemed shocked by my answer.

“What?”

I repeated my answer and let him know that I wanted nothing to do with him. Suddenly, I could almost feel the room getting colder as he started to move closer to me. I closed my eyes and waited for the worst. 

The pain from the slap spread through my head immediately, and I gritted my teeth. Opening my eyes, I stared at the man who was seething with anger. 

“Guards!” he yelled.

The door opened and two men rushed in. 

“Take her away from here,” he said. “Take her to the dungeon and whip her until she loses consciousness. Don’t give her anything to eat and drink until I say so. Maybe in a few days, she’d have regained her senses.”

The men grabbed my hands and started leading me out of the room. I looked back and glared at me. “You can do whatever you want to me, Jackson King but I will never want you. You’re trash.”

My heart was pounding against my chest and anger kept growing as I was dragged away from the man I was supposed to love. Judging from the loud music blasting out in the night, I could tell that the party was still ongoing. The stars shone bright in the night sky as I got dragged along the grounds towards the other side of the building. There were a few shadows in the backyard, getting involved in all kinds of R-rated things.

I was tossed into an empty dungeon and the door quickly locked with a padlock. The place was dark with a few rays of moonlight coming through the metal bars on top of the door. For a moment, I didn’t feel anything. But when I heard the last footstep of the men as they retreated, the reality of what was happening sunk in.

I looked around and realised that for the first time in my life, I was locked in a room I couldn’t leave. I kicked the walls while screaming for a few seconds. Frustrated, I grabbed the metallic bars of the door and shook them with all my might. It wouldn’t budge. Exhausted, both physically and mentally, I found myself sliding down the wall unto sitting position. Sobs wrecked my body as I thought of my new reality. I remembered running with my brother in the woods as we tried to escape King’s men. I remembered the moment I had watched him die.

“Nooo,” I yelled out loud.

Eventually, I began to relax more and somehow found myself falling asleep. In the morning, I was awoken by the opening of the door. The men who had taken me there walked in. one was carrying a bucket and the other was carrying a long whip.

Scared, I quickly stood up. The man with the bucket started pouring water on me. Only it wasn’t water. It was wolfs bane. I tried to run towards the door but the other man blocked me so I hugged him. He felt the impact of the wolfsbane as well and rudely shoved me. He did it with so much energy that I ended up falling down.

The other man grabbed my hand and started pulling me towards the centre of the room. I tried to bite his hand and fight but all that got me were kicks from him. He let go when we were in the centre of the room and started whipping every part of my body. I felt the whip on my face, my stomach, my side and head among other body parts. To save myself, I decided to lie on my stomach and place my head down, covering it with my hands.

The man was relentless. He kept whipping me as if he had a personal grudge against me. i endured the pain and let the punishment continue without trying to do anything. The physical pain distracted me from the pain in my heart, the pain of losing my brother and family. My tears and blood flooded the floor, and the pain continued to unleash torment of me until a time when I started to feel really weak, close to becoming unconscious.

They stopped and went away. I remained lying down for over thirty minutes. When the healing started to kick in, I began to feel better. i sat up on my aching butt and looked around the room. My stomach growled and at the same time, I saw a mouse moving around in the room. I felt like reaching out for it, but I didn’t like eating raw meat. I only found myself enjoying it whenever I was in my wolf form which was always on the night of the full moon.

A few hours later, the men returned to beat me again. They first asked me if I was ready to give in but when I said ‘no’, they tortured me. I bore with it like I had done before, knowing that it would benefit me in the end. I didn’t think Jackson would beat me forever. Soon, he would realise that I wasn’t going to change my mind and he would give up. I knew he would release me, and I would start engineering his destruction.

On the third morning, Jackson came in. I had not eaten or drank anything for three days and could barely sit up. I was lying near the wall in a foetal position. I could smell the delicious meat he was carrying in a small brown paper bag.

After noticing him, I looked away. He came and crouched by my face.

“I have brought some very nice steak,” he said. “I can sense your wolf wanting to grab this and tear through it.”

He placed the package near my mouth. I could feel my canines becoming sharper and my wolf literally jumping in my head. Involuntarily, I opened my mouth and tried to use it to grab the food.

“Not so fast,” Jackson said and stood up. “I’m not giving this to you unless you fulfil the conditions I set for you.”

By that time, I was not hearing anything. The delicious smell energized me, enabling me to sit down. This made Jackson smile, because he thought I was ready to cave in. As he was still talking, I stood up.

“Wow, now that’s progress.” He said. “What do you say?”

Guided by a primal urge, I lunged at him and reached for the package. My movements were so fast and unexpected that I was able to grab the package from him and tear through it before he could get it back. When he grabbed the meat back, half of it stuck in my mouth and I chewed quickly as he stared at me in shock. I knew I’d made a huge mistake, but I felt better as I swallowed the meat.