Hard Truth

Reya’s POV 

I awoke up the next morning feeling tired and groggy. My body felt as though I had been runover by a train. Lycan Tristan was not lying beside me in bed – not that I expected him to be – and as always, my body was a topographical map of bruises and hickeys. 

The first thought that flickered in my mind was Chloe. What if all that happened and all I saw was nothing but a bad dream? With that thought in mind, I stepped out of bed and was about to leave the room when I realized I had been locked in. 

That was when it occurred to me that I wasn’t just a prisoner, I was also Lycan Tristan’s sex toy. And I will continue to be until whatever Alpha he sold me to come to claim me. 

My mouth dried and tears welled up in my eyes as I recalled the part that I was being sold away. Again. 

Lycan Tristan returned to the room again for more sex daily and never let me out of the room. Each time he came, he rode me to bliss and I let him because there was no escape from this – at least, for me. 

The next few days passed in a blur and much to my relief and dismay, Lycan Tristan stopped visiting me. For the past two nights, I waited and he never came. He didn’t let me out of the prison either. 

I should be happy he stopped coming, but a part of me still loved and yearned for my mate. It was pathetic. The way I wrapped myself in the sheets that still smelled like him, craving to a catch the scent of my mate.

As stupid as it sounds, a part of me still wanted him. 

I was famished. Usually, my meals were delivered by omegas who will pass a tray of almost disgusting food through a space in the door, and once I was done, I would pass it back out. 

I was fully living the life of a prisoner but I still did not have the heart to reject Lycan Tristan for fear of what he might do to me or maybe, I was just scared of losing him just as much as I was scared of the fact that I meant nothing to him. 

I was lost in my thoughts when the prison room door swung open, disrupting my thoughts. Hope sparked within me. I bolted off the bed with a smile on my face.

“Alpha…” I breathed, stupidly excited to see him. But that excitement and hope soon died off as I saw Chloe’s beautiful face pop through the opening. 

“Oh, sweet Reya,” Her sing-song voice echoed through the room. “You didn’t mistake me for Tris, did you? Do you miss him that much?” she pouted, blinking her fake, long lashes at me.

Yes, I missed him that much. Stupid me.

I shoved the feeling to the deepest and darkest part of me. “What are you doing here?” I blurted out although I could see the tray of food in her hands. 

Did she really come to serve me? I highly doubted that.

Chloe’s smiling face, morphed into a frown. “I brought your food.”

I glanced awkwardly at the tray still in her grip and nodded. “Uh… thanks?”

“No biggie,” she answered, taking a step towards me. “Here, take your food.” She said, but at the same time that I reached out to take it, she let go of the tray, making the tray fall to the ground. 

She gasped. “Oops. Too slow.”

“Chloe, please just –”

The words were shoved back into my mouth as Chloe’s palm met my face with a resounding slap. My head snapped to the side and my cheek stung from the impact. 

“You are not worthy to say my name, Reya.” Chloe snarled, maintaining her graceful composure. Even though I was sure she just put all her strength into that slap, there wasn’t a hair out of place. 

She slapped me again and this time, I staggered backward. “That’s for stealing my man and thinking you can be happy with him.”

I didn’t have the strength to fight back nor hold back the tears that stained my cheek. I was starving. Since the last time Lycan Tristan came to see me, my food also stopped coming. I was being tormented by the man that was supposed to protect and now he sent his lover to torment me as well?

“Did you really think I will stoop as low as serving food to a slave like you?” she smirked. “Yes, I heard all about your background from your co-slaves. Daughter of an alcoholic. Your father sold you off to Tris to make his own life better.”

She stepped forward, scrunching her nose as she took a whiff of the air around me. “Now, Tris has sold you off for his own gain – me.” her beautiful face morphed into a joker smile. “What a pathetic existence. I thought I should let you know that Tris is mine. He has always been and will always be.”

To save myself from more assault, I kept my tongue in check, listening as she told me about a homecoming party Lycan Tristan was throwing in her honor.

“Tomorrow, who knows? He might decide to make me his Luna as well.” She bragged. “I mean, he did mention wanting to strip you of your Luna title publicly and choose me as his mate publicly as well.”

My heart staggered to a stop. 

Lycan Tristan never chose me publicly. He never threw a party for me. Why will he decide to shame me publicly like this?

And tomorrow? Ignoring my despair, Chloe continued. “You must feel weaker than usual – from what I heard; you are very weak. But now that he has stop coming to you for sex. Now that he stopped fueling your bond, what will happen to you?” she gasped, her eyes widening. “Will you wither away and die?”

“What are you saying?” I whispered, my heart running a marathon in my chest. 

“I’m saying that Tris has been making sweet love to me for the past two days. Did you not notice his absence in your bed?” she smirked. “He adores me and worships my body. Wither and die, Reya and stop holding on to a man who clearly wants nothing to do with you.”

“Liar!” I exclaimed. “If he made love to you, I would have felt it. I would have –”

“Then your bond must be weaker than I thought,” she laughed. “What’s the point of such a weak bond, Reya? You don’t even have a wolf. I’m stronger and my Alpha wolf will create a string bond with him.”

I trembled as my mind created pictures of Lycan Tristan worshiping her body. Something twisted in my body and a new kind of pain rocked my body.

“By the time I become Luna tomorrow, you will wither and die because Tristan will mark me, severing your bond and I will finally claim what is rightfully mine.”

With a smirk on her face, she turned and left the room, not forgetting to stomp on the food that was on the ground. Falling, because my trembling legs could no longer support my weight, I bawled my eyes out.

For the first time since my life turned upside down, I realized how bleak my future was looking.