CHAPTER THREE.
ALORA'S POV.
I have been overwhelmed with conflicting emotions throughout the entire day; Confused about the possibility that a mere servant like myself would even be mated to the Alpha of our pack. Distraught because he was so disappointed in having me as his mate that he rejected me on the spot, whilst calling me all the derogatory names I hear every day of my life working as a servant in this castle. Hearing those words from him hurt me more than anything else. It hurt me more than all the smacks my wicked roommates had ever given me combined. The kicks I've received in my stomach from Daphne are barely caresses compared to how much it stung having my fated mate call me a low-life servant who is unworthy of being his mate. Hearing him say all that about me felt like a dagger had been jabbed into my chest and twisted three hundred and sixty degrees. My poor hard is bleeding from so much pain, I wonder how it's still working.
"Alora." A stern voice calls my name from behind, snapping me out of my worrying thoughts. I calmly drop the wet white porcelain in the sink and turn to see who just called my name. It's another female servant like me and she's smirking at me.
That's not a good thing.
"Yes."
"Miss Daphne just returned and she demands your presence in her bedroom this instant." My face grows ashen. I lifelessly nod my head and step away from the kitchen sink where I was washing plates. It feels like all the life has been sucked right out of me and I'm just a pile of flesh held together by bones. My thoughts are not in the room as I peel off the gloves from my hands and take off the apron. Now I'm just with my maid uniform, all set to go see my Mistress.
She's going to kill me. That I know for sure. As dreadful as it sounds, I see a silver lining to the situation. At least I'll be dead and gone and I won't have to live knowing my fated mate rejected me the moment he saw me and chose to be with my mistress instead. I will definitely rest in peace.
"Just in case we don't see each other again because I'm certain Ma'am Daphne is going to unalive you in there, Rest in Peace." The servant whispers as I approach her at the door. I don't say anything to her. "I'm sure you were out of your mind with excitement when Alpha Myles called you, his mate. For a second you thought your life was about to have a big turnaround. That the Alpha would accept you and take you to his castle where he'd make you, his Luna. Am I right?" I stop in my tracks and turn back to face her.
I'm tempted to ask her if it was wrong for me to have those thoughts. If I wasn't allowed to dream or at least be delusional. If she wouldn't have thought and felt the same way had it been her, but after looking at her closely for a few seconds, I decide against it.
I'll be wasting my time and energy trying to talk sense into her because apparently, her hypocrisy has blocked all sense of understanding in her brain. So, without saying a word, I turn away from her and proceed to walk towards my doom.
It takes five years to walk to the staircase, fifteen to ascend it and by the time I walk into Daphne's room, I'm a million years old. I stop in my tracks at the centre of the bedroom when I spot her sitting on her queen-sized bed, patiently waiting for me. The moment our eyes meet, my heart falls into my abdomen and the flight and fright response takes over me, but my knees have gone jelly and I have no energy to take on my heels out of this room right now.
"Ma'am Daphne, you asked to see me." I announce my presence even though I'm well aware that it's uncalled for since she has seen me already. Calmly, she rises from her bed and takes calculated steps towards me, her gaze never leaving my face. I stay glued to my spot, shaking everywhere.
"Alora." Her voice is deceptively subtle and that makes my skin crawl.
"Yes Ma'am." My voice is hardly audible. Something dark flashes in her eyes. If that's not the animosity she feels towards me, then I don't know what it is. She stops a few inches before me, her gaze boring holes through my face. Without warning, she raises her hand and strikes me hard across my right cheek. The sound of the smack reverberates throughout the entire room and I stagger backwards, trying to regain my balance but she doesn't let that happen. Another smack lands on the same cheek, sending me off balance and before I know it, I'm on my ass on the floor. I happily stay there, cupping the stinging cheek in my right hand, with anger coursing through my veins.
"How dare you!" She sneers. I can feel the heat of her anger raising the temperature of the room. It's going to burn me to ashes. "How dare you try to ruin things for me?"
'It's not my fault we were mated to each other.'
I want to tell her, but I keep my lips sealed. This will be over soon if I don't say a word and just keep receiving her smacks and kicks and insults.
"You, Alora, a mere servant, mated to the Alpha of this pack." She scoffs in derision and looks around, her tongue rolling around in her mouth. "You've got to be kidding me! You come from nothing, you have nothing, you are nothing!"
The same words I said to myself when Alpha Myles labelled me his mate.
"What the hell was the Moon goddess thinking pairing the Alpha with a lowlife like you? Is this some sort of sick game?" Her gaze falls back on me and my spine goes rigid. "And why aren't you on your knees?" I quickly go on my knees and bow my head down. "Alora…" She continues. "You were this close to ruining things for me." The sentence is followed by an unexpected kick in my stomach. I yelp in pain and sprawl onto the floor, clutching my stomach with my hands and praying my guts don't spill out. Another hard kick follows and another and another and before I know it, I'm out of breath, unable to scream anymore. Pain is choking me. I manage to look up and I'm met with a crazed Daphne, pacing the length of her bedroom with completely dishevelled hair while panting like she just returned from a marathon. She looks like she's going to explode with anger soon. "You're lucky!" She runs back to where I'm lying, limbless. "You are lucky he still chose me; else I would have killed you for real." A kick in my stomach. "Fucking…" Another kick in the same spot. "Cunt!" Now get the hell out of my bedroom before I change my mind and end you for real!" She orders and I struggle to get on my feet and start staggering out of her bedroom. I'm tripping over myself, limbs weak and aching through the bone. Pain is almost blinding my vision and I can hardly breathe properly as I walk along the hallway, using the wall as support so that I don't slum back on the floor. All my bones feel broken and no matter how pressed I feel in the next twenty-four hours, I won't go to the toilet because I might shit out my organs. They must have been displaced from their usual positions as a result of all that kicking I received from Daphne.
How am I still conscious?
Once I'm out of the main building, I don't go to the servant quarters. The last people I want to face right now are my roommates. I'd rather spend the night in the woods and stand the chance of being eaten by rogues than go back to that bedroom.
It's pitch black out here, but thanks to our heightened vision as werewolves, I can see just fine even in pitch darkness. A feral thought attacks me as I make my way into the woods. Maybe I should just keep walking until I find myself in another pack. It's true I'll be considered a rogue the moment I cross our pack boundary, but know, maybe a much better life awaits me as a rogue. Tears are streaming down my cheeks like a waterfall.
I can't go back to that castle and keep working as a servant. The other servants hate me even more after what transpired this morning and Daphne might just kill me for real one of these days. It's true that I hate my life, but I don't want to die. I lower myself on a tree trunk to rest but everything that just happened keeps replaying in my mind and before I know it, I'm sobbing and shuddering and splintering into tear drops.
What heinous crime could I have committed in my previous life to serve such an unfortunate fate in this lifetime?
Why doesn't anything ever work out well for me?
Did my parents do something to annoy an evil witch that made her get her revenge by cursing me with bad luck for the rest of my life the day I was born?
Someone please, make this make sense to me!
My thoughts are suddenly interrupted by growls from behind. I turn around abruptly to check what it is and blood pauses in my veins when I see three vicious looking werewolves, snarling at me with saliva drooling from their fangs.
They smell different. They look different and that means one thing. They are not werewolves from my pack, but rogues and they have just one mission here!
To kill me.