Chapter 4

Can you please disobey my father on this? You can't strip me! Just wash my face with water so I can open it again," I pleaded as my feet felt the floor of the bathroom.

"We never planned on obeying him. We won't do that," one of them said, and I exhaled heavily in relief.

I never knew there was anyone who had a glimmer of pity for me. They poured a full bucket of water on my face and gave me another to soak my face in as it was all covered in splatter from the stew.

I hurriedly washed my eyes thoroughly until I could open them again. Although I still feel the stinging pain, I was so happy I could open my eyes again.

I turned to the guards with a wide smile and was about to thank them when I heard the door of the bathroom creak and open. Scarlett stood right at the door with an angry look.

"You disobeyed my father, the Alpha!!" Her voice squealed through the walls, and the body guards quickly fell to their knees, pleading that she shouldn't report them. They were all frightened to the core, shaking so hard.

"You see what you will cause them? Death! No guard disobeys the Alpha; stay alive!" She bellowed, and I stood transfixed.

"Please, Scarlett, just this once. Please don't do this to them, I beg. You can punish me, but don't drag innocent lives into my miserable one."

"Nothing will ever stop me from telling my father! I'm glad to have a witness here!" She huffed, and I looked beside her to see Laura snickering tauntingly at me as she walked in, swaying her waist under the royal robe she wore.

Anger swelled up in me as I locked my eyes with hers. My mother's best robe, as it most dignified her as the Luna. The sparkling gems around it and how expensive and beautifully it was designed made it exceptional.

It irritated me to see this demon, Laura, wear it as a Luna, and I could only sulk in sadness because there was nothing I could do.

"Please Luna....we..."

"Strip her now while we watch!" Laura ordered, cutting them off as she giggled and wrapped her hand around Scarlett's shoulder, watching me with a smug look.

My brow furrowed as I wondered if I had heard her well. My ear must have sent the wrong sound to my brain to interpret, or my brain failed to interpret the message well. One of these must have occurred, because It can't be true.

"Don't you dare!! Don't ever touch me!" I warned the royal guards, but their eyes only glazed over my face as they went on like I didn't say anything.

I tried running, but I couldn't even take three steps away before I was caught and slammed to the wall.

"You all leave her, but go get a wolfsbane whip so I can give her some strokes before I go to school." Scarlett ordered, and my heart skipped a beat as I cringed in fear. I could remember how much it hurt, and now I couldn't think of having them again.

The bodyguards all left me lying there in pain, but I knew those pains couldn't be compared to what I would feel when Scarlett hit me with the wolf's bane whip.

I don't think I could survive, so I needed to beg for my life.

Rising to a kneeling position, I began to plead with Scarlett, and even as she dropped her phone, she had it up again to record me begging her for mercy while laughing hard, but I don't care about the shame, even when it breaks me. My life mattered the most

"Please, Scarlett, stop torturing me. Please. I didn't maltreat you or do you any wrong in the past. We aren't enemies. Why turn back at me because you are now in a higher position. I beg you to please stop..." I whimpered, sobbing like a baby as my hair scattered around my face, untidy and disheveled.

My stomach burned and churned with pain and hunger, and not even my head could stop banging. Alongside the soreness from many parts of my body due to how hard the bodyguards had beaten me earlier.

"I love seeing you cry hopelessly. It gives me joy and satisfaction. It makes me feel more like the Alpha's daughter..." She grinned and shoved her phone behind her back.

Just then, the guard returned with the whip, which was sizzling like boiling oil. It had been soaked in wolfsbane and would tear my skin at a touch—not to mention being flogged with it.

"You can leave." She smiled at the guard as she took it from him and turned to me, but the guard was reluctant. He seemed to have a message to deliver to her, but he was scared a bit.

"What are you still standing there doing?" Scarlett barked with a glare, and he shuddered but still drew closer and leaned closer to her ear, his eyes glaring with pure fear over something I couldn't tell.

Scarlett listened as he whispered something into her ear—it was something that made her cringe and tremble with a loud gasp as her eyes widened in the same alarming fear the guard exhibited.

"Lycan?" I heard her mutter under her breath.

I was confused and stared at them, wondering what the guard must have told her to make the almighty Scarlett shiver in fright. Even the whip in her hand fell off from the shock at whatever he had whispered to her.

My lips parted as I tried to inquire and get a sense of what was going on, but something strange and unexpected happened just then.

My nose caught a scent. A sweet smell which embodied everything beautiful my mind could think of. A smell of vanilla and sandalwood with a citrus note that really grasped my soul and drowned me in its intense warmth.

"Mate!" my wolf screamed.