The Alpha’s Unwanted Bride

"You imbecile!" Luna Maria said.

The slap was hurled at my face, and it threw me down to the floor.

Shaken, I set my hand against my cheek to feel the bruise.

I didn't need to be told twice that her hand would imprint my face.

"You useless girl!" She hissed at me. "Is there anything you can do?"

I managed to set my palms against the floor to bring myself to rise in a position that I was bowing to the Luna, my body shivering.

I looked up at her, and she spat on me.

The saliva landed on my face.

I dare not wipe it off.

"It is an honor for you to even feel the back of my hand or saliva on your skin." She sneered. "Thank me, you fool!"

I felt the tears roll down my eyes. "Thann..k yo. You, your maj.. majesty."

"You can't even speak well." She snorted.

She kicked me hard in the tummy with her heels, and I had to withstand the pain, but not without a breath escaping my lips.

"When next you're told to do anything, you will do it with haste! Even if my daughter wants you to lick her feet, you will do it!" She screamed at me.

I nodded quickly. "Yes, Your Majesty."

I had no choice.

Then Luna Maria turned to her daughter Jessica and gently touched her hair. "If you want the dog to do anything for you, she will."

"I hope so, Mother." Jessica screwed her face as she tossed her blonde hair over her shoulders. "But can't I get another slave? Why her? She is so ugly! Look at the scar on her face."

I felt a pang of hurt in my chest at the words she used on me.

"I know my little pup." Luna Maria said as she kissed her daughter's hair. "But we have to put her in her place. She needs to be under our feet at all times. You can do as you wish with her."

"Even kill her?" She asked.

And I instantly stiffened.

I heard her mother laugh. "Unfortunately, no. Your father wishes to keep her around. But don't worry. Very soon, I'll come up with a solution. I don't like seeing the creature any more than you do."

My entire body was shaking.

They spoke as if I was not even present, as if I were nothing because, in fact, I was nothing.

Nothing at all.

Even a slave wolf was better than I was.

I was the lowest of the low. And there was no changing that.

Jessica sighed.

"Alright, mother," Jessica said. "I hope the illiterate now knows how to do my hair to my liking. If she doesn't, I'll give her a beating."

"That you can do." Luna Maria said.

Then her footsteps turned, and she walked towards the doors, her ladies-in-waiting following her.

All my life, I had lived a life of misery.

It was an honor to be part of the Moonlight pack and even to live in it.

It was feared by almost every other pack.

But I was different.

I had been born in the dungeon nineteen years ago by my mother, who I had come to learn was a slave she-wolf in the pack.

The rumor that I had picked from around the castle was that the Alpha of our pack, Alpha Bale, had had an affair with an enslaved person who happened to be my mother.

His wife, Maria, had always known that Alpha Bale was never faithful, even though he had over fifty women in his harem.

She had accepted it, but when she discovered that he was also sleeping with a mere enslaved person and refusing to dispose of her, she grew furious.

She threw my mother into the dungeon at the slightest opportunity when Alpha Bale was away from the pack.

Six months pregnant, she went into forced labor, and she gave birth to me.

But she died in the process.

When the Alpha had returned, it was too late, and from what I could tell, He had turned the hate on me for killing her.

She had died giving birth to me, so it was my fault.

It didn't help the fact that me being born prematurely and with no mother made matters worse.

I was sickly, and they all assumed and hoped I would die.

I would have been abandoned if not for a very old servant and the healer in the pack, Urma, who took me and used a breastfeeding she-goat to feed me.

To the utter shock of everyone, I survived.

No one wanted to be around me, and as I grew up, they realized I was born with a scar on my face.

I was the cursed red-headed girl, born with a mysterious scar who had also killed her mother.

It didn't help that I was the firstborn child of the Alpha.

A bastard child.

I only knew the life of slavery and nothing more. I was maltreated, beaten up frequently, and made to serve the royal family directly.

I was also not to make contact with the King because I was a reminder of his past.

A reminder he didn't want any recollection of.

My step-sister Jessica turned to a servant who was waiting to be attended to.

"When you're both done serving me, See to it that this dog gets punishment three." Jessica smiled sweetly.

My heart stopped.

Punishment three.

That meant I was to be stripped naked in front of the training wolves and given thirty lashes on my back.

All because I had not styled her hair to her liking.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Thirty lashes!"

I was pushed down on the floor.

When I looked up, all the male betas, Lycans, and omegas training turned to watch a display of punishment three.

I swallowed heavily, terrified for myself.

I had never had punishment three before.

It was a first.

I was only whipped in the slave quarters to their amusement.

But punishment three was meant for traitors or enemy packs and never members of the pack.

I was going to be the first.

Jessica was standing, watching with a smile stuck on her face.

To believe that we shared the same blood.

The fact that I was her elder sister and that she was supposed to be my younger sister ached my heart.

She had the finest clothes, shoes, food, and rooms, while I had rags, ate scraps, and slept in a corner.

Maybe in another life, she would have loved me.

But not in this one.

In this one, I was an abomination.

The Lycan, meant to deliver the punishment, walked up to me.

"Please don't," I begged him, tears gathering in my eyes.

But he ignored me and tore the back of my already filthy dress and exposed my bare back, ready to use his whip that was lined with thorns and the rough skin of a rope.

The front bodice of my dress dropped, and my breasts were exposed; I could hear the excitement of lust in the man's voice and laugh.

I quickly had to hold the front bodice of my dress to conceal my nudity.

"I want her stripped bare naked. Everything exposed!" I heard Jessica scream.

My body began to shake.

Was she going to have me exposed to everyone? She didn't hate that much.

Did she?

The Lycan made no move to do it, and Jessica grumbled.

I heard her shoes match up to where I was and quickly tore my clothing apart.

"Please," I begged, tears flowing down my cheeks. "Don't do this."

But she didn't care.

"Let go!" She screamed, dragging away the fabric that I still fiercely held to my chest. "Let go, you bitch!"

She pulled at the fabric, and everything came off.

Exposing my entire body.

I was a slave and poor. I didn't own undergarments except for the few dresses I wore, so everything was open. I was stark naked.

I bit my lip and wrapped my arms around my body to manage to hide my nudity in the slightest way I could.

The men laughed, and I felt the tears that had been burning now flowing nonstop.

Tah!

The first lash came at my back, and my entire body shook.

The whip tore into my skin, exposing blood. I already had marks upon marks over my body.

But the pain still was the same; even though I was getting used to it, it still hurt.

Tah! Tah!

More lashes came against my back, and I felt myself burning up, my body telling me it was tired.

I looked up and saw Urma.

Her eyes were filled with tears, and she turned her face away as there was nothing she could do to stop the punishment.

It was a pack law to never interfere in any punishment on any account.

After the final thirtieth stroke, I fell to the ground, and that was when Urma rushed up to me and scooped me in my arms.

"Shhh. Don't worry. I'm here. It's alright." She sang to my ears.

I felt something fabulous drape over my body.

I wasn't sure who, but I knew that my naked body had been shielded.

"Get yourself up and serve me, you lazy swine!" Jessica ordered.

Urma looked like she would burst into a burning rage.

"Can't you see that she is weak from the lashes? She can't get up in this situation." Urma snapped.

"And that is supposed to be my business. How?" Jessica demanded. "My engagement to Alpha Dean is coming in a few days. And I need this slave to start getting the arrangements ready."

I have only seen Urma confront Jessica upfront about her attitude and never get punished.

Why? I didn't know.

But Urma was referred to as the healer in the pack for years, and even the Alpha himself, I heard, didn't thread her path.

"I am going to take Jasmine to my quarters and treat her till she is fine," Urma said.

Then Urma said to someone. "Carry her into my quarters."

"I said I'm not done with the bitch!" Jessica hissed maliciously.

"If you have problems with me, then tell your mother that I took her away," Urma said.

Jessica looked like she wanted to explode, but she could do nothing.

I felt someone pick me up from the floor; that was the last thing I remembered before everything went black.