Chapter Two

Giselle’s POV

“Whip that ugly cursed creature.” My stepmother’s venom-filled voice made me realise I was once again wrong.

My wolf was wrong. She couldn’t save us. She couldn’t save me. But why was everyone looking at me with such terrifying expressions? Maybe it was because of how ugly Uma looked.

I began morphing back to my human form. I was naked, so it made it easier instead of looking for clothes to hide myself. I wished I had never known Damien. Maybe then I wouldn’t have been crippled.

“Whip her until she speaks the truth—nothing but the truth about that bastard pup she bears inside her,” my stepmother commanded the gamma. I could see a hint of happiness in her mischievous eyes. She was indeed happy about all of this. I guessed she had proven her worth to my father through this.

“You are going to count every one of it, you little slut, and I am not going to be hard on you. You will have to return that favour in the night,” the gamma smiled, his yellowish teeth on display.

Slut. That was what a girl without a mate in this pack but carrying another male’s scent was called… a slut—and right now, I was being called one.

“You can whip me as hard as you wish. I never begged for your mercy. I can’t be with an ugly creature like you.” I spat, foaming as I spat on his face. Because I was suddenly pregnant, he now called me a slut.

“Hundred lashes!” “You can make it a thousand if she still fails to reveal the truth.” In the midst of it all stood my father. I watched him turn his face away in shame. He couldn’t help me. He didn’t want to be a Lycan King who accepted his eldest daughter as a prostitute.

Oh, Moon Goddess—is this how a Luna proves her worth? By asking the pack gammas to whip her naked stepdaughter in front of the entire pack?

The gamma raised the whip and landed it on my bare back. My scream tore loudly from my throat as I shut my eyes. This wasn’t new—it was more like a skincare routine for me. Either I was whipped in front of the male slave quarters by my stepmother herself when my father wasn’t around, or worse.

“Count every one of it, you crippled witch!” my happy stepmother’s voice echoed in the air. Then I began counting. “Tw…enty,” I gasped. He was whipping me harder because I refused his offer.

“Louder, you whore,” the gamma ordered, his voice loud enough for the whole pack to hear. I bet he was enjoying every single one of it—the way my bare breasts jiggled as every lash touched my back and the way my bare butt bounced after every whip.

“Ninety… fi…ve,” I gasped, my voice cracking. The tears in my eyes couldn’t measure how humiliated I felt. “Hund…red,” I cried weakly.

The last lash tore across my lower back with brutal force.

I let out a weak, shallow breath, but my stepmother wasn’t satisfied. “She hasn’t spoken the truth yet. Another hundred lashes.”

My stepmother’s eyes glittered with happiness as she ordered the gamma. I guessed she wanted me and my fatherless pup dead by all means.

“Enough!” a cold, angry voice commanded, making the gamma stop in his tracks. It was my father. Now he remembered that I was his daughter. “This is a total waste of time. I’m certain she won’t breathe a word to us.”

“Call the seer,” he said sternly, his cold eyes flickering in my direction. The weight of shame clouded his grey eyes. He wasn’t only disappointed in my wolf—he was disappointed in me.

“Since she can’t speak, then I guess the seer will save us some time,” he muttered bitterly. “Get that beast something to wear.”

He had acknowledged what they called me—a beast. My wolf was a curse to our kind, and my pregnancy was something the pack wouldn’t accept.

Soon, the seer made her way toward me with a soft smile on her face. Why was she smiling? My condition was a joke to everyone in this pack—but the seer?

“She knows nothing about the pup she bears. Why punish her for her innocence?” she questioned my father, her rough hands wrapping around mine.

From the corner of my eyes, I saw my stepmother shift where she stood. “You are a blessing, darling, and not a curse,” she whispered, her voice inaudible to the rest of the pack. A soft smile formed on my lips. For the first time in my twenty-one years of existence in this pack, someone had called me a blessing.

“We seek the truth about the pup she bears,” my father spat sternly. “And that I cannot reveal,” she replied firmly, her hands still holding my trembling fingers.

Who could possibly be the father of my pup that she couldn’t reveal? Was it my father? Or was it really Beta George, as my stepmother claimed?

“You don’t get to speak to your King in that manner!” my stepmother snapped angrily, her face reddening.

“You don’t speak to me in such a manner, child. I am not your mate!” the seer snapped.

From the corner of my eyes, I saw my stepmother’s eyes fill with tears as she flinched in fear. “Clement, we need to talk.”

Her sudden outburst silenced the pack. My father glanced at me, my body shaking violently. Calling him by his name meant something was wrong.

She whispered something to him, and immediately he looked at me with rage. Something was definitely wrong—but why was my stepmother smiling? For the first time, my father looked afraid.

“You need to get that beast out of you now! A Lycan carrying a wolf’s child!” he roared. I felt it—he was afraid… of the mysterious father of my pup.

“You can’t remove the pup. That simple mistake will cost our lives—every soul in this pack,” the seer warned.

“I can’t let that beast’s seed grow in my daughter’s body,” he shouted, but the seer’s face remained void of emotion.

The father of my pup was a monster.

“None of us want the wrath of Alpha Darven or his gammas,” my stepmother chimed in. Alpha Darven—the one rumoured to be cursed by the Moon Goddess, feared by every she-wolf, every omega, every beta, every alpha of every pack.

“She already bears his pup, and now she is the breeder of his heir,” the seer continued. “A Lycan carrying a werewolf’s child is something we haven’t witnessed in years. Judging from the fact that the Alpha hasn’t visited this pack once, somebody did this to her.”

Silence fell over the pack.

It was indeed strange how I bore a pup without ever having sexual intercourse. “What do you mean, Great One?” someone asked from the crowd.

“Somebody implanted the Alpha’s sperm in her.” she said causally.

I froze instantly.