PROLOGUE.

The sun beats down on my back and with the warmth it brings, my memories of pain come rushing back.

The laughter of kids fills my ears faintly while the feeling of my throat closing up with tears comes back like a dull ache.

A life of happiness was never meant for me.

Maybe that's why I'm doing this instead of being somewhere else right now.

I feel his hands grip my jaw, slowly, almost tenderly. The hate and resentment in his eyes knocks whatever tenderness his touch might portray right out of me and I gulp despite myself.

"If you're going to choke Adelaide, then at least do it properly."

He throws my face away the next second and I go crashing onto the floor beneath me. My breath comes in heavy short spurts and tears line the corner of my eyes.

His cold blue ones bore right into my soul as he sneers and stares down at me.

"Do it again, and don't make me come back until you get it right this time."

I watch as Lyros walks off and as he does, my stupid heart follows him too.

My feelings of love are with him wherever he goes and my heart continues beating for him.

Despite all he does to me, I still love him. Even when he tells me to practice sucking on a wooden pole in the open fields where all the members of his pack can see me.

I still love him.

I get back on my knees and position myself in front of the pole.

It has this odd protrusion that is almost shaped like a male's organ.

My cheeks turn red despite the disgust I feel and I take my mouth to it again.

My heart pounds in my chest as the straight wooden object goes in and hits the back of my throat. My new master's eyes are focused on me and I can feel the air around me getting colder even with the warmth of the sun.

I go forward and back.

Forward, and back again.

The aim of this practice is clear. He wants me to be prepared for what's to come.

And what better way to prepare me than send me out, under the bare sun, with a wooden dummy in hand, for all his pack members to see.

"You're not sucking fast enough Adelaide!"

I move faster and faster and try to ignore the pain that clogs the back of my throat and the shame that sets my heart on fire.

I'm so focused that i don't see him when he moves and yanks my hair back painfully,

I burst into tears the next moment and i see the disgust in his eyes when he looks at me.

"I've told you time and time again, Adelaide. If you're going to do it, DO IT RIGHT!"

He throws my head against the protruding pole of the male dummy and the last thing I see before i black out is the hate in his icy blue eyes, and the sun shining behind him.

I chuckle inwardly at the way those two things are polar opposites.

One, a source of endless warmth wrapped in burning fire.

And the other.....

A chasm of hate, and ice, as cold as the land he rules, and as unloving as a blizzard in the heart of winter.