PET

Freya's POV:

It's been a week ever since Lord Lucien got me back, and it's been bittersweet. The sweet part? I had the kitchen and laundry slaves to talk to while the snobbish pets — that's what the blood slaves are referred to - love to hold their head high and relate to only themselves. The bitter part? I still couldn't get over my father's betrayal.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night hoping that he will come for me, but there has been nothing. 

“Freya,” Nora's voice snapped me out of my thoughts.

Dusting the flour off my hand on the blue apron that formed the kitchen slave's uniform, I ran in the direction of her voice and came to a halt when I saw the red-haired from the other day, who I found to be Laura and beside her was the werewolf that had sold me out. 

Duncan.

“Come here,” Nora beckoned to me with a sweet voice even though Laura's face was the exact opposite.

Duncan had his head cocked to the side and was staring at me intensely with his green eyes… the same eyes that reminded me of the night I got kidnapped. 

There was something ethereal about him that matched the female vampire beside him and I would have confused him for one if not for his olive skin and much bulky build compared to all the vampires I've seen so far. 

I hesitantly walked towards them while thinking about how I've been actively avoiding Laura just to end up in this situation. As for Duncan, from what I heard, his father was an Alpha, and he was next in line to lead the pack, so he was hardly ever around.

The fact that people referred to him as ‘the hostage’ was something I still couldn't wrap my head around, but that was the least of my concern right now.

“Yes,” I said when I got to them with my head bowed down like Nora had taught me.

The only thing going through my head was what they wanted from me and, for some reason, I felt like it wasn't something good, since nothing good comes from these two.

“Laura over here just lost her pet,” Nora started, and that was enough to drain the blood on my face. 

I've heard of stories like this, where a vampire loses their pet and requests a temporary one from the head of other slave departments, but it is never temporary. 

“And she wants you but Lord Lucien doesn't want her to take you, so he sent Lord Duncan here to ask for your opinion. If you want it then you can go with Laura, but if you don't…”

The trail off was obviously my second option and the way Nora shuffled uncomfortably showed that she was being intimidated. 

“I prefer the kitchen,” I said almost immediately after Nora's statement, and a deep chuckle followed.

It was obviously from Duncan, who I had no idea why they were calling a Lord. Laura was definitely not going to be happy about it, but that wasn't my business. All I wanted to know was why Lucien was giving me an option. 

“One thing I'm never going to understand is why Lucien is giving a human an option,” I heard Laura say stiffly, her tone making me want to shrink back, so I bent my head down further.

I was extremely grateful that we constantly had to bow our heads because I couldn't even imagine how I would have sacrificed myself with just a look from Laura.

“It is what it is,” Duncan replied dryly, his attention seeming to be somewhere else.

I wish I could have the opportunity to stare at him for a long time and study every one of his features just to satisfy my curiosity. 

“They'll soon start revolting,” she muttered, and with a ‘tch’, she left the kitchen.

My shoulders sagged as soon as she was out of sight and, for some reason, her absence seemed to have carried away some type of tension in the air.

“Follow me,” Duncan instructed, and I stayed rooted to the spot as I tried to figure out who he was talking to.

It couldn't be me since I had nothing to do with h-

“Umm what's her name again?” 

My brows furrowed at his question as my heart started to race because, as much as I wanted to believe it, there was no way he would be asking for Nora's name. 

“Freya, my Lord,” Nora replied, and my head snapped up on its own with my eyes wide open.

My brown eyes locked with his green ones and I stared at him for longer than I should have, my eyes falling to his sharp nose before staring at his lips that were… lifted?

The action made me stare back at his face completely and there he was, smiling. A part of me was perplexed and another part was angry that the same man who put me in this misery was smiling at me like we were friends.

“What's funny?” I wanted to ask him and it was just at the tip of my tongue when his next words reminded me of the power he had over me.

“Follow me,” he commanded, and I nodded and made sure my head stayed down just like that. 

I had no idea where he was taking me to, so when we got to the elevator, and he pressed the button to the seventh floor, which belonged to only Lord Lucien, my heart found its way to my throat.

Lord Lucien has been nothing but nice to me, but that didn't change the fact that he was intimidating and kidnapped me and the fact that we were currently in an elevator filled with werewolves made anxiety eat me from the inside.

Werewolves always take the elevators because they love to and the vampires never did because they were way faster than the elevators. For the slaves? We didn't have the liberty and had a tunnel instead. 

The elevator soon became empty when we got to the fourth floor since the second to the fourth one belonged to the werewolves and the rest to the vampires. 

“How has your stay been so far?” Duncan asked me the moment the elevator was empty.

Without thinking twice, I raised my head to glare at him since I was certain that he couldn't see me because I was behind him. It was ridiculous that he thought it was okay to call being a slave a… stay.

If I were to take a guess, I was sure that he had no friends and the reason was quite obvious.

The elevator soon dinged as we got to the seventh floor and my mind went back to Lord Lucien. The thought of him standing over me with his red eyes boring holes in me made me involuntarily shiver.

Duncan was also supposed to be intimidating, but the air around him was definitely different. He gave off more of a golden retriever vibe while Lucien's was a Doberman.

“He simply wants you to be around during the blood rage, since the full moon is in the next few days and he's going to need assistance,” Duncan explained my purpose but still did a good job at explaining literally nothing as he punched in the code to the front door.

How close were they exactly for Duncan to know the password to his door?

“He's going to explain the whole moon blah blah blah because I can't bore myself with that,” he continued with a smile and pressed his back against the door while beckoning for me to go in.

So much of a gentleman for someone who was standing at a corner when I was about to have sex with my boyfriend.  

Lucien seemed to be expecting our arrival, or at least that was what I could see from the way he was staring at us intensely.

I had been so carried away so I didn't notice when Dumcan walked right behind me until he whispered, “Next time you want to glare at me, don't do it in a metal elevator.”

My eyes went wide in shock at the same time the door shut loudly with a bang, leaving me in the apartment with the same men that had taken my life away from me.