Chapter 69 070
Chapter 70
Thalia's POV
Lisa was released from the cells after a week.
She looked thinner and exhausted when she emerged. I saw her in the common area but didn't approach. Couldn't afford to be seen sympathizing with her.
She avoided me too. Kept her head down and went about her tasks quietly.
The message had been received. Defending me led to punishment.
Two days after Lisa's release, my mother got sick.
Not seriously, just a fever and exhaustion. But Rosa, who ran the healing rooms, insisted she rest instead of working.
"You're pushing yourself too hard," Rosa told her. "Take two days off. Let your body recover."
Which meant I was alone in the kitchen.
Sarah tried to compensate by giving me lighter tasks but there was only so much she could do. The work still needed to get done.
By the end of the first day alone, I was completely exhausted. My hands were raw from washing dishes and my back ached from lifting heavy pots.
I dragged myself back to the servants' quarters and found my mother asleep. Her fever had broken but she still looked pale.
I sat beside her bed just to have her nearby even though she wasn't conscious.
The isolation hit me hard that night. Without my mother to talk to, without anyone who understood what this was like, I felt completely alone.
The second day alone was worse.
I dropped a tray during lunch service. Plates shattered across the floor in front of everyone. The noise brought immediate silence to the hall.
I knelt to clean it up, hands shaking.
"Clumsy," someone muttered.
"What do you expect from someone wearing a collar," another voice added.
I gathered the broken pieces carefully, focusing on the task to avoid the stares.
Shelly's voice cut through the murmurs. "Leave it. Someone competent will clean it properly."
I looked up. "I can clean it."
"I said leave it. Go back to the kitchen. You're disrupting the meal."
I wanted to argue but Sarah appeared and gestured for me to follow her. I left the broken dishes and walked through the hall feeling every eye on me.
In the kitchen, Sarah handed me a cloth. "Clean your hands. You're bleeding."
I looked down. Cuts from the broken plates. Small but numerous.
"I didn't mean to drop it," I said quietly.
"I know. You're exhausted and working alone. Accidents happen."
"Shelly made sure everyone knows it was more than an accident."
"Shelly makes sure everyone knows everything that makes you look bad. That's who she is. Don't give her power by caring."
But I did care. Cared that I was becoming the pack's example of failure. The cautionary tale about what happens when you defy your Alpha.
My mother returned to work the next day still looking weak but insisting she was fine.
"You can't work like this," I protested.
"I can and I will. We're in this together. I'm not leaving you alone again."
We fell back into our routine. The days continued blurring together. Wake, work, eat, sleep, repeat.
Six weeks into probation, something changed.
A new wolf joined the pack. A woman named Kira who'd been traveling alone and requested to join. Varian accepted her after some kind of arrangement I wasn't privy to.
Kira was assigned to kitchen duty as well. She was quiet and kept to herself mostly. But she watched everything with sharp eyes.
After a few days working together, she spoke to me during a rare quiet moment.
"You're the one who challenged the Alpha's mate."
Not a question. A statement.
"I defended myself against her provocation. That's different from challenging."
"Is it? Because from what I've heard, you refused to apologize even when ordered. That sounds like a challenge."
"Believe whatever version you've heard."
Kira studied me. "I heard you stood your ground. That you wouldn't submit even when it cost you everything. I heard you're stronger than you look."
"The collar around my neck suggests otherwise."
"The collar suggests you lost a battle. Not that you're weak."
I didn't know what she wanted from this conversation. "Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I think you need to hear it. You carry yourself like someone who's been beaten down. Like you believe what they say about you. But I see something different."
"What do you see?"
"Someone who's biding her time. Someone who hasn't given up even though she's pretending to."
"You're seeing things that aren't there."
Kira smiled slightly. "Maybe. Or maybe you're hiding parts of yourself so well you've started to believe your own act."
She walked away before I could respond.
That night I thought about her words. Was I hiding so well I'd forgotten what I was hiding?
The days of compliance had started to feel automatic. I'd stopped fighting internally as much. Stopped questioning every order. Just did what was needed without the constant emotional resistance.
Was that survival or surrender?
I didn't know anymore.
The following week brought another pack gathering. These had become regular events where Varian addressed the pack and reinforced hierarchy.
We stood in our usual positions along the wall. Servants and probationary members separate from full pack members.
Varian spoke about unity and strength. About the importance of pack cohesion. About how every member had a role to play.
"Even our probationary members serve a purpose," he stated, looking directly at my mother and me. "They demonstrate that mistakes can be corrected. That defiance can be transformed into compliance through proper consequences and time."
The words stung. We were examples. Living proof that Varian's system worked. That resistance could be broken.
After the gathering, Kira found me again.
"You looked like you wanted to punch him."
"I didn't."
"You did. Just for a second when he called you examples of transformed defiance. Your jaw tightened and your hands clenched. Then you smoothed it over and went blank again."
"You're watching me too closely."
"Someone should. Everyone else has written you off as defeated. But you're not. Not completely."
"What do you want from me?"
"Nothing. Just wanted you to know someone sees the truth. That might matter someday."
She walked away again, leaving me unsettled.
That night my mother asked what Kira had said.
"She thinks I'm hiding strength. That I'm not as defeated as I appear."
"Are you?"
I thought about it honestly. "I don't know. Some days I feel completely beaten. Like I've accepted this and stopped fighting. Other days I'm just numb. Going through motions without feeling anything."
"And today?"
"Today I wanted to scream when Varian called us examples of transformed defiance. Wanted to tell him he hasn't transformed anything except my ability to hide what I'm thinking."
My mother squeezed my hand. "Then you're not defeated. You're surviving. There's a difference."
"Is there? Because it feels the same."
"It feels the same until suddenly it doesn't. Until something happens that reminds you who you actually are underneath the compliance. You'll know it when it comes."
I wanted to believe her. Wanted to think there was still something inside me that hadn't been crushed by weeks of submission.
But lying in bed that night, touching the collar that had become such a part of me I barely noticed it anymore, I wasn't sure.
Ten more months stretched ahead. Over three hundred days of continuing this performance.
And I was starting to fear that by the time those days ended, the performance would be all that was left.
That the Thalia who'd stood up to Varian would be gone completely.
Replaced by someone who'd learned to survive by forgetting she'd ever been anything else.