Chapter 4 - Servant's Life

Beatrice pov 

Three weeks passed after the inter-pack gathering. Three weeks of pretending my world hadn't ended, of serving meals and cleaning floors while my chest felt hollow and broken.

The servant's quarters had always been cold, but now they felt like a tomb. I shared the space with five other unmated wolves—outcasts and orphans who had nowhere else to go. They tried to be kind after my rejection, but pity was almost worse than cruelty.

"You could come with us to the market today," offered Nessa, a quiet girl whose parents had died in a rogue attack. "Get out of the pack house for a while."

I shook my head, folding another load of laundry. "Too much work to do."

The truth was, I couldn't bear the stares. Word of my rejection had spread to neighboring packs. Everywhere I went, wolves looked at me with curiosity or disgust, whispering about the servant girl who'd dared to dream above her station.

My daily routine had become a prison. Wake before dawn, start the fires in the kitchen hearths, prepare breakfast for sixty pack members. Serve the alpha family first, then the betas and gammas, then everyone else. Clear the tables, wash the dishes, scrub the floors.

Afternoons meant laundry, mending clothes, tending the vegetable garden, whatever other tasks needed doing. Evenings brought dinner service, more cleaning, and finally collapse into my thin bed as the sun set.

I'd been doing this work for years, but now it felt different. Heavier. Like chains around my wrists that grew tighter every day.

"Bea!" Selene's voice carried across the kitchen. "The alpha wants fresh linens in his study. Now."

I gathered clean sheets from the supply closet and climbed the stairs to the second floor. Alpha Riven's study was his private domain—dark wood, leather chairs, walls lined with books about pack law and territory management.

He was sitting behind his massive desk when I knocked. "Come in."

I changed the linens on the small couch where he sometimes napped, hyperaware of his eyes on me. Since the rejection, he'd been watching me differently. Not with kindness, but like I was a problem he needed to solve.

"How are you adjusting?" he asked as I folded the old sheets.

"Fine, Alpha," I lied.

"Good. I was concerned you might have... unrealistic expectations after the ceremony."

My hands stilled on the fabric. "No, Alpha."

"Excellent." He leaned back in his chair. "Because I've been thinking about your future here. A rejected wolf needs purpose, direction. I've decided to arrange a match for you."

The blood drained from my face. "A match?"

"Gerald Ashworth from Ironwood Pack. He's thirty-five, widowed, needs a wife to help raise his children. He's agreed to overlook your... circumstances... in exchange for a modest dowry."

Gerald Ashworth. I remembered him from the gathering—a gruff man with cold eyes and rough hands. He'd looked at me like I was livestock being evaluated for purchase.

"I don't want to marry him," I whispered.

Alpha Riven's expression hardened. "What you want is irrelevant. You're a servant with no family, no prospects, and now the stigma of rejection. Gerald is offering you security and a home. You should be grateful."

Grateful. For being sold off to a man who would treat me like property. For having my entire future decided without my input.

"When?" I asked, my voice barely audible.

"Next month. That gives you time to prepare and for the paperwork to be filed with the Council."

I nodded numbly and finished changing the linens. My hands moved automatically while my mind screamed. Four weeks. Four weeks until I was shipped off to Ironwood Pack to raise another woman's children and warm a stranger's bed.

This isn't right, Luna said weakly. She'd been getting stronger lately, but she was still recovering from the broken mate bond. We don't belong with that male. We belong somewhere else.

Where? I wanted to ask her. Where could a rejected servant possibly belong?

I escaped to the gardens after finishing the study, needing fresh air and silence. The vegetable plots were my responsibility, and I took pride in keeping them neat and productive. Out here, I could pretend I was something more than a burden.

I was pulling weeds when footsteps approached on the gravel path. Heavy boots, confident stride. My shoulders tensed, expecting more bad news.

"Miss Beatrice?"

I looked up to find a man I didn't recognize standing at the garden gate. He was tall and lean, dressed in traveling clothes that suggested money and status. His dark hair was streaked, and his brown eyes were kind but serious.

"Yes?" I stood slowly, wiping dirt from my hands.

"My name is Matthias Grey. I represent certain... interests... who have been looking for you for a very long time."

My heart started hammering. "I don't understand."

He stepped closer, and I caught his scent—something clean and expensive, with underneath notes that made Luna suddenly alert and interested.

"Tell me," he said quietly, "do you remember anything from before you came to Silvermist Pack? Anything at all?"

The question hit me. "I was a baby," I said slowly. "The alpha and luna found me at the border. My parents were killed by rogues."

"Were they?" His tone suggested he knew something I didn't. "Or is that simply what you were told?"

I stared at him, my mouth dry. "What are you saying?"

He glanced around the garden, making sure we were alone. Then he reached into his jacket and pulled out a small silver locket on a delicate chain.

"Do you recognize this?" he asked, holding it out to me.

The locket was beautiful, clearly expensive, with intricate engravings of wolves running beneath a full moon. But it was the scent that made me gasp. Luna went wild in my mind, pacing and whining like she'd found something precious that had been lost.

"I..." I reached for it with shaking fingers. "I don't know. Maybe. It smells like..."

"Like home," he finished for me. "Like family."

I looked up at him, hope and terror warring in my chest. "Who are you? What do you want with me?"

Matthias Grey smiled, and for the first time in weeks, it wasn't a cruel expression. "I want to take you home, Beatrice. To the family that has been searching for you for twenty years."

Before I could respond, Luna's voice rang through my mind with desperate urgency.

Run.

That's when I heard them—footsteps approaching fast, multiple sets. Matthias's expression shifted to alarm as he grabbed my arm.

"We need to go. Now."

"Wait," I said, confusion overwhelming me. "I don't understand what's happening."

That's when Selene appeared at the garden entrance, flanked by three pack warriors. Her face was twisted with rage and something that looked like fear.

"Step away from her," she snarled at Matthias. "That servant belongs to Silvermist Pack."

Matthias positioned himself between Selene and me, his posture shifting to something dangerous. "Actually, she doesn't belong to anyone. Especially not to wolves who've spent twenty years abusing her."

How did he know about that? I stared at his back, my mind reeling with questions.

"You have no authority here," Selene said, but I caught the tremor in her voice. "This is pack territory."

"And I'm a neutral party acting under Council jurisdiction," Matthias replied smoothly. "I suggest you reconsider your next move very carefully."

The warriors looked uncertain, clearly outranked by whatever authority Matthias represented. But Selene's eyes were locked on mine, and what I saw there made my blood run cold.

Not just anger. Fear. Desperation.

Like her entire world depended on keeping me here.

"Beatrice," Matthias said without turning around, "trust me. Come with me now, and I'll explain everything. Stay here, and you'll never know the truth about who you really are."

The locket pulsed warm against my palm, and Luna's urgent voice echoed in my head.

Choose quickly, little sister. Our real family is waiting.

Real family? The words didn't make sense. But as I looked at Selene's terrified face, one thing became crystal clear.

She knew exactly who I was