Chapter 003

Serephine’s POV

They hauled me away like some petty criminal.

We arrived at a door in the main building and they kicked it open, pushing me inside with a brutal force. Not long after, the man I had come all the way from the Ninth Hell for walked in. His flushed face had shed some color, but it was still slightly swollen, as if he were recovering from the aftermath of a gang fight.

He didn’t come alone. A gorgeous woman with haughty eyes, crimson lips, and long black hair strode behind him, only taking her seat after he did. Was that his partner? I wondered.

“Fifty strokes!” he snarled as soon as his weight pressed into the majestic seat.

“Yes, Your Highness!” one of the men barked before ordering me to lie on my stomach.

I obeyed, stretching myself flat on the floor. This will be over in a blink, and I can get back to what brought me here in the first place, I said to myself.

My eyes remained fixed on the woman beside him. For some odd reason, her demeanor reminded me of Sycora, and I instantly took a dislike to her. Whether she was his partner or not, I didn’t care. A wicked grin played on my lips at the thought of her ripping out those fine strands of hair when she eventually caught me in bed with him.

The first whip landed, shattering my thoughts. My voice broke out in a hoarse cry, cracking through the silence in the room. Why did it hurt so badly? Lilith had indeed stripped me of everything. How could she be so…

The second stroke followed, and I screamed even louder.

The woman next to him sniggered, leaning in to whisper, “Her cry is so…soothing to the ears.”

While she watched with a gleam of amusement in her eyes, the brooding mortal ground his teeth together in a simmering silence.

“This is more entertaining than I expected it to be,” she said in a sultry tone when the last stroke finally ripped through my garment.

At this point, my backside had gone numb and I could no longer feel the whip, except for the moisture which I couldn’t tell if it was urine or blood.

“Get her out of my sight, this instant!” he growled.

The man who had just whipped me to the verge of unconsciousness kicked me with his boot. “Get up,” he said, relentlessly ramming his leg into my side.

I tried to move, but my bones had gone stiff and painfully sore. A low whimper escaped my lips with every slight move my body made.

“Take her out of here!” The woman retorted.

“Nooo… don’t touch me, it hurts!” I cried out.

The men ignored my pleas and roughly lifted me off the ground. My screams filled the room as they dragged me out.

“Put her back in the cell and starve her until I say otherwise,” he ordered.

“Yes, Alpha!”

I was thrown back to the cell, as the brooding mortal, whose name I got to know was Alpha Chase, ordered. They dumped me on the hard floor with a careless thud, increasing my pains a thousandfold.

I sprawled on the floor, helpless. Time slowly drifted by, and it proved increasingly impossible to fight the crushing cold that made my blood freeze and my teeth clatter against each other. I curled up on the damp floor; the uniform I wore did little to nothing to keep me warm. A pang swept through my midsection and a loud grumble resounded in the empty cell. It twisted and suffocated my insides, and I wondered if I had contracted one of their numerous illnesses.

“I can’t die here,” the words left my mouth in a quiver. “I have to undo my mistake and leave this place.”

But how could I do that when I was trapped in this place—weak, cold and with no way out? And now, there was a possibility of me being sick. This was too much.

“Demon Lord?” I called out to Lilith in a low groan, my eyes dimming with every fading second. “Help me if you can. I…I can’t. This is…”

A waft of something earthy, like charred flesh and crushed grains infiltrated between the iron bars, causing my mind to recoil. I had fed on souls and energy all my life, but something about this lowly human meal left my mouth watering uncontrollably. My desperate mortal stomach cried out, craving a bit of it as the prison guard walked down the hall with a steaming bowl of god-knows-what. With all the strength I could muster, I crawled to the entrance, waiting for him to return.

“Why don’t you give me some of that ?” I whispered, barely able to hold my eyes open.

“You don’t tell me what to do!” He barked before walking out.

“Stupid mortal. Fragile yet evil,” I cursed under my breath, slowly giving in to my weak body.

But not long after I succumbed to my pain and fell unconscious, the same aroma hit me—except it was closer this time, like it was right in front of me. I flung my eyes open; a bowl of food was staring right back at me. Without wasting a second, I attacked the food, gulping down large handfuls without hesitation.

My stomach grumbled just like the last time, and it dawned on me that I was hungry, not sick. So this was what hunger felt like? For the first time, I understood why these short-lived creatures commit the most heinous crimes just to fill their stomachs.

Just then, a guard ran to my cell. “That is not for you!” he cried out. I quickly scooped more into my mouth, eating as much as I could before he shoved his hand between the bars and seized the meal. By then, I had already eaten my fill. However, my body didn’t seem to adapt to the meal, despite being in my human form.

A strange knot tightened in my belly, twisting even worse than before. The once-cold cell suddenly became hot. Beads of sweat formed on my forehead, gradually covering the rest of my body as my vision blurred.

“Call the physician!” I heard a voice echo from the distance as I slowly slumped onto my side. “She has been poisoned!”

That was the last thing I heard before everything turned black.