201- The Prison That Breathes
POV Elowen Grimwald:
I was going to get up from there and tear blood from that bitch until not a single drop remained in her veins. Until… she looked to the side in fright and I followed the direction of her eyes.
Aldren—who hadn’t appeared for days—was laughing discreetly, watching me lying there.
Oh, I was going to kill him too. How I hated that bastard. How dare he?
Son of a dog with a whore!
Miserable, wretched! Rotten soul!
“What the fuck is this?” he asked, glancing between us, a scornful smile on his lips.
“I can’t take this prisoner of yours anymore! She’s a faker! She’s not sick at all!”
Calm down, Elowen, breathe.
I wanted to tie that female up with the ropes I’d seen in the wardrobe and rip her eyes out with my teeth, but instead I puckered my lips and sobbed, pretending the beginning of a cry.
“What are you saying, Teneris?” he asked.
Surprised by the power of my own performance, I let tears fall in a painful wail. It wasn’t that hard. I just had to channel all my rage into a liberating cry.
“Aldren, this prisoner is dangerous—this crying is an act!” she declared, her face twisted with rage. “Take what you want from this whelp already and tear her throat out once and for all!”
Teneris wasn’t wrong this time. I was going to kill her alpha one way or another, and then I would come after her to take my revenge. That way I could die happy.
Suddenly, Aldren, with his inhuman speed, was at my side, lifting me by the arm. He dragged me to the bed and made me sit.
“You’re faking it, bitch?”
A thousand years could pass and I would never forgive him for calling me “bitch” in front of his lover. I could forget the times he insulted me when we were alone, but not in front of her. Never.
I’m going to kill you, Aldren. I’m going to kill you.
As much as my hands were buzzing with electric urges to unload a slap across his face, I forged an expression of pain and suffering.
“If you doubt my health, ask Nerin…” I whispered, my voice breaking.
I knew she believed me—especially since she seemed unable to stand Teneris, who spent all day demanding different foods from her as if she were her personal servant.
Aldren shot a dangerous look at the whore, releasing my arm roughly.
“You will dry the wet floor, Teneris—not Nerin or my prisoner. Your role is to take care of her until her health is restored, not to throw water on her. Do you hear me?” His aggressive tone could almost make the Earth tremble.
Delicious.
“Yes, Aldren, a thousand apologies…” The faker used a sweet voice.
Wherever she took lessons in deception, I was the instructor.
“And you, Elowen.” I jumped in fright as his fury turned on me. “You’d better not be faking it, because you won’t like it one bit what I’ll do to you if you are,” he threatened. Every hair on my body bristled in alert. “Behave, for fuck’s sake.” That was his message before he pivoted on his heels and headed out.
I waited for him to leave and for enough time to pass for him to be far away before dropping my pained expression. The whore seemed just as worried about being caught, because it took her about a minute to open her mouth again.
“What’s your problem with me, you faker?” the coward challenged me in a low voice.
I turned my face toward her, fury in my eyes.
“Look who’s talking. Looking at that mug of yours, no one would imagine the fake whore you are,” I shot back in a whisper, returning her cowardice.
Suddenly, we were firing insults at each other in low voices.
A farce.
“You don’t even know me, snake whelp. Where did you get the idea that I’m a whore?”
“I don’t need to know you, and I don’t want to. Your reputation as Aldren’s prostitute is known in every corner of this house.”
Her eyes narrowed and a smug smile appeared.
“So that’s it… besides being a condemned prisoner, you’re jealous. Don’t try to offend me with that, snake whelp—plenty who wanted to be in my place have already tried.” She shrugged.
I laughed softly, mockingly.
I remembered well the women who got involved with Alessio’s father, Alpha Kellan. He displayed them publicly and, when he discarded them, he ruined their lives.
“Jealous of being the alpha’s temporary whore? The one that, once he grows tired of, no one else dares lay a hand on? I’ll pass.”
My comment sent a flash of pain across her face.
It didn’t matter whether the alpha allowed his lover to be with other wolves or not—they never went, and when discarded, they were treated as useless objects. Perhaps that was why there were stories that most of them remained in that status for many long years.
“Aldren will stay with me until the end of his life,” she declared, her eyes brimming with tears.
“With you and the other one?” I raised an eyebrow. “Wow, how humiliating—to fuck so badly that your male needs two women to be satisfied…”
My words hit her ears like a deafening blow. Teneris blinked several times and simply rushed out of the room.
She slammed the door as she ran, as if trying to hide her crying from me, which I could still hear in part before she moved far enough away.
The gods were witnesses that, even with my patience as fragile as paper, I remained silent and tried to overlook having a lover as a babysitter. I listened to all her jabs and veiled remarks without responding, until she assaulted me.
My resilience was not strong and unbreakable like the steel of that cage…
But perhaps my hatred was.
Prison managed to be worse than death.
There, inside those walls, time did not pass. Every minute imprisoned rotted my flesh, and my soul drained away little by little, like leaves falling in the absence of fruit to bloom again.
I hated being trapped, and the desire for revenge consumed me more and more.
Life had already punished my family with death for everything they did to me and to Lunara, but the pain Aldren Valmorin caused me day after day—that pain… I planned to return personally.