Jenna

“Make sure you’re not long, Jenna. We have a lot of work to do,” Anna snapped at me before I left the house this afternoon.

I had an hour to pick herbs from the garden and get them back to the kitchen. It wasn’t a demanding job that Anna gave me; picking herbs is easy. An hour was quite a long time when gathering herbs takes but a few moments.

I needed fifteen to leave the mansion, get to the garden, grab what I needed, and get back. Why Anna gave me an hour, I don’t know. Perhaps she knew something I didn’t. Nothing would surprise me where that woman is concerned.

What was hard for me was trying not to wander into the forest for a moment or two. My wolf was itching to get out and run free, but I knew I couldn’t risk it. If Anna had set a test, I would not fail. There would be plenty of time tonight to sneak out and let Shadow have her moment.

Working as a slave at Dalgaard Mansion can be hard sometimes. But as an Omega orphan, I have to take what I can get.

I have no family of my own, having been abandoned at birth. A member of the Zidiahan army found me and brought me to the mansion. The Queen gave me a home with her kitchen staff, making Anna my foster mother.

I’ll never understand why Anna took on that role when she hates the sight of me. But I figured she believed it would put her in the Queen’s good graces.

Whatever Anna believed, she’s never moved on to better things. She is the Royal housemaid and cook, and that’s all she’ll ever be, yet somehow, she believes that to be my fault.

If I hadn’t come along, hadn’t be dumped in Anna’s lap, then she’d be more than what she is now. Anna is deluded, but it’s me who suffers because of it.

It’s not great being an Omega wolf; everyone treats you as though you were shit on their shoe, and sometimes worse. Though the Dalgaard’s don’t put up with abuse of their staff, it’s not to say the staff themselves aren’t abusive to those below them.

Fighting against my status and what happens to me every day never did me any favours. All it ever got me was a beating every time I protested how they treated me.

Why would I put myself in that situation?

Anna is not shy in using her belt on me whenever I do something she deems wrong, which is almost every day.

Anna also isn’t shy in beating me with whatever she can get her hands on, her and her kids. Whatever is within arm’s reach, they’ll use it to hurt me. I’m nothing but scum to them, and it doesn’t matter how hard I try to be what Anna wants me to be; I will never be good enough.

She was given the chore of raising me with her children, but she made sure I knew that I wasn’t her child. I was nothing but a nuisance that she had no choice in raising.

In front of the Royals, Anna smiles and acts as though she’s a good mother to me. A mother who demands respect, which the Queen is okay with.

I wonder what the Queen would think if she knew who Anna really was?

Would she rescue me from the hell I live in?

I roll my eyes at myself because that would never happen. If anyone cared, they’d have sensed the bad things going on within their staff years ago. But they’re so wrapped up in duty that they don’t notice much of anything.

I’ll be honest; I try to be good. But Anna finds any excuse to hurt me because it makes her feel powerful.

I spoke to Princess Lillian once without permission. I asked if she liked the soup I’d made. It was the first time I’d been allowed to serve anything I’d put my hand to, and I wanted to know what Lilly thought. Lilly smiled and answered me without any animosity because I was an Omega servant.

But then, Lilly has always treated me like a sister. In secret, of course, Anna would have killed me had she realised.

Anna once told me just what she’d do to me if I continued to believe Lilly was my friend. Lilly knew something was going on, but I made her think that she’s was imagining things.

I wish I’d been honest, but Anna would have killed me before anyone could have saved me.

As soon as I left the dining hall that day, Anna dragged me to the kitchen, where she beat me unconscious for daring to speak without permission. I woke up two days later, but I wasn’t allowed time to heal.

Being an Omega means that I don’t heal as quickly as those ranking above me. It’s hard sometimes, but you get used to it after a while.

Anna put me on hard labour and ensured that if I ever told another living soul what she did to me, she’d kill me and make it look like a nasty accident.

I knew to keep my mouth shut; Anna had drummed that into me from birth. She ensured that I was too afraid to speak up, no matter who may have begun to guess.

Being with Anna, Philip, her son, and Jessica, her daughter, both much older than me is pure hell. Anna never had a mate but ended up with Philip and Jessica because she mated with a bunch of wolves like a whore. Anna doesn’t have a clue who her kid’s fathers are, and they’ve never asked to my knowledge.

The only time I get a reprieve from their abuse is when doing things as simple as picking herbs. Those are the times that I relish because it’s just me and the fresh air.

I have no friends to call mine; I’ve never been to school and have never gone past a quarter of a mile from the mansion. Anna knows I’ll never run away.

I wanted to more times than I could count. But I have nowhere to go; I have no education except that I’ve taught myself from books in the library, and there is no one to help me.

Lilly once promised to take me away from here, but that will never be because she can’t leave the Royal pack. Lilly will be Queen one day, and maybe then things will get better for me.

There is something inside that tells me, one day, I’ll get away from Anna and her kids, and they’ll be bowing to me.

If only that would come true.

I didn’t get far with picking herbs before something quick and strong grabbed me. It must have knocked me out because I woke up tied to a chair and with a tube sticking out of my arm.

I panicked, of course; who the hell wouldn’t?

I tried yanking my right hand free so that I could rip the tube out of my arm. However, I couldn’t move. No matter how many times I begged the man shroud in darkness to let me go, he said nothing.

I was terrified, and I tried not to whimper in fear, but how could I not?

I prayed to the Moon Goddess to help me, but no help came.

I wondered if I’d done something terrible in a previous life.

Why else would I have to spend this life abused and unwanted?

Now I was being tortured by some unknown person for reasons I knew not.

It wasn’t until the Shadow moved into the light a moment ago did I recognise him. Luther Dalgaard. He captured me in the forest and brought me; Goddess knows where to drain my blood!

I don’t know why Luther wants to kill me, but I do know that I’m terrified of dying. I can’t deny that Luther looks incredibly scary right now. There’s classical music playing in the background, while Luther is barefoot, bare-chested, and wearing nothing but a pair of black trousers. His eyes are red, he has fangs, and he looks outer-worldly.

This isn’t the Luther I know, not that I know him personally, of course. We’ve barely said two words to each other my whole life. I know Luther is a fierce warrior, and he trains the Zidiahan troops. Hundreds of thousands of people look up to him.

I, myself, look up to Luther Dalgaard, even more so since we realised that we’re mates. With just one look a couple of months ago, the mate bond began to form. Of course, Luther promptly walked away from me.

Why the hell wouldn’t he?

Why would a prince want someone like me for a mate?

Having an Omega slave as your mate when you’re the Prince of Zidiah would cause shame and embarrassment. I thought Luther would have spoken to me by now about rejecting me and how he’d expect me to accept. But Luther hasn’t so much as acknowledged that I’m alive before this moment.

Okay, he saved me from Prince Leander’s vampire person, Sterling, killing me a while ago. But other than that, nothing.

Did I really deserve to die for being his mate?

It’s not my fault that the Moon Goddess paired us as one. Luther doesn’t have to kill me to get rid of me, he needs only to perform the rejection ritual, and then I’ll be gone.

Once Luther rejects me, I will die, and he will be free of me.

I can’t seem to connect with my wolf; she’s silent, so she can’t help me. I also don’t understand why I didn’t sense that it was Luther in the shadows.

I read in a History of Wolves, a book written hundreds of years ago about our kind, that a wolf will always recognise its mate. They’ll be able to scent each other from half a mile away, even if they aren’t yet mated.

So why didn’t I?

Am I such a pathetic excuse for a wolf that I don’t even have the ability to sense or scent my mate?

I’m unworthy of Luther, and this right here proves it.