This Mate Bond Is Poison

Chapter One

She had forgotten what warmth felt like. The cold, the darkness… they were all she had left.

The damp walls of the dungeon reeked of filth and rotting straw. Shackles clanked as Eileen Sanders stirred, her limbs too weak to resist the pull of gravity. The wounds on her wrists had dried into cracked, angry lines, and a testament to her three weeks of suffering. 

She didn’t know how long she had spent curled against the cold stone floor, only that she no longer flinched at the scurrying of rats or the dripping of water that never reached her parched lips. Hunger had gnawed at her for days, but the pain had dulled into an emptiness she had grown used to. 

Then, footsteps. 

The dungeon door opened and the sudden flood of torchlight made her squint, her body tensing out of habit. The last time they opened that door, she had been dragged out and beaten until she couldn't move. 

This time, a rough hand seized her arm and yanked her forward. 

"Stand up, traitor," the guard sneered. "You're being reassigned." 

Reassigned. A hollow laugh nearly escaped her cracked lips. It was a gentle word for whatever fresh torment awaited her. But she forced her feet to move, stumbling after the guards as they led her out of the dungeon. 

She barely made it past the threshold before her knees gave out. 

Her stomach twisted in protest as the scent of cooked food wafted through the halls. She took a deep breath. How she missed eating such foods. She was reminded cruelly of what she had been denied. 

‘I used to eat at the high table. I used to be served.’

The thought lingered for a while. 

She had once been the daughter of a Gamma. Her father was once known as the backbone of the pack. She had once worn silk dresses and adorned her hair with delicate braids that her mother wove each morning. She had once been proud. 

Now, she was a ghost of herself. 

Her dress, the only thing they hadn’t stripped from her, hung in tatters, the fine fabric reduced to nothing but rags. 

Her once beautiful ginger curls were matted, dirt clinging to every strand. And when she finally lifted her head to meet the sneering faces of those gathered in the grand hall, she saw only contempt. 

The new young lady of the house, Brenda Haemont, stood poised at the center, her delicate fingers tapping against her hip. She was beautiful; had golden hair, with piercing red eyes that could intimidate anyone. But there was no charm in them, only disdain. 

"So this is the traitor’s daughter," Brenda mused, tilting her head. "The one who thought she could live among us like she belonged." 

‘...thought she could live…’ she lived that life.

A sharp pain exploded across Eileen’s cheek before she even registered the slap. 

Her head snapped to the side, but she made no sound. 

Brenda's lips curled in satisfaction. "No proper greeting for your new masters? How disgraceful." 

Another slap. 

Her ears rang, but still, she didn’t react. 

The silence only seemed to enrage Brenda further. 

"You think you are still daddy's little girl. Do you think your father is still the Gamma? Twenty lashes," she declared. "She needs to learn her place." If only that could make her feel more pain than she already had. 

Eileen closed her eyes as the guards dragged her forward. She braced herself. The pain was familiar. Predictable. 

She was reduced to this embarrassment. This torture. This life. All because she was her father's daughter. Her father's only child. 

The first lash tore through the fragile skin of her back. Like she knew, she didn't feel any pain. 

The second seared deeper. Only because Brenda had called her father a bastard. 

Brenda took her place. Her father took her father's place. They did so by lying that former Gamma Sanders was planning to disinherit the next in line for the Alpha position. 

She knew it was all a lie. All for what? To be the Gamma? Eileen knew what she felt toward the Haemont family. She knew what she felt towards the Silver Fangs pack and it wasn't hatred. 

No. That would be too kind of her. She was going to tear them into pieces but until then, she'd endure everything.

By the tenth, her knees buckled, but she clenched her jaw and willed herself not to make a sound. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. 

By the Eighteenth, she barely felt anything at all. 

"Enough," a voice drawled from above.