Chapter 5

Alice

If I had ever been asked if I could be worse off than before, I would never have answered yes until that very moment when my life was reduced to ashes.

If I had ever known the myth of the devil, Stefan was the embodiment of it; there was no way anyone would treat his Mate in such a dastardly manner.

After being locked in a dungeon where the embracing cold was the most important companion after the darkness, I learned what the meaning of hell could be in life. For Stefan, I was nothing more than a piece of meat with which he could be satisfied. That's why every day when he came to touch me to unburden himself to his heart's content, he drained me completely.

I had no hope and no desire to fight.

After the first night, he abused me, and my she-wolf came out to defend me and brought some moonstone chains to override the connection I had with her. Selene had bitten him, and several guards and Ime were about to let go, but they injected us with a tranquilizer that knocked us out on the spot.

The routine of Stefan beating me, then sexually abusing me, and leaving me with a pittance of food lasted for weeks on end. Sometimes he would send me to bathe with some Omegas, who would look at me with disgust and end up abusing me even more than I already was.

I didn't understand how he got away with it, but it was obvious that being a half-breed turned out to be the worst sin of all. So, I lost my will to live as time went on, so much so that that afternoon people noticed my total listlessness.

"Look at her; she doesn't look good," said one of the Omegas who had just bathed me; she had some pity in her eyes. "She's very thin; she looks emaciated, and the bumps on her are very ugly. What did she do to deserve this?"

"She's a filthy half-breed. She doesn't deserve pity from anyone, so don't go near her or believe what she says; she's an outcast, and that's what she's going to live as for the rest of her days."

With that, they walked away, and I closed my eyes in a crude attempt to sleep; however, the sound of one very familiar footstep prevented me from doing so. I instinctively shivered and clenched my hands to contain my disgust as my jailer entered the dungeon.

"If you were smart, you would do what I told you, and I would have you as a queen, but since you don't listen, I have to give you lessons to train you," said Stefan, who approached me, grabbed my chin, and squeezed it tightly. "When I talk to you, you have to look me in the eyes."

I did it with all the pain in the world.

I had not realized his deceit or his lies, but at that moment I could glimpse the thirst for power in his eyes; he was a bloodthirsty monster. It was such a shock that I closed my eyes to hold back tears, and then he let go of my chin as if he was fatigued with me.

"I won't be coming these days, so you are going to have time to reflect on your actions. My benevolence and the lives of your friends depend on them," he said and fear began to build inside me again. "If you resist again, I'm going to banish Bianca from the pack and issue a statement that she's a troublemaker and won't get packs she can live in. If you do any worse, I'm going to kill Teo, bring him here to see what I do with you, and then I'm going to cut him up part by part, and those parts I'll bury in recondited places so that his soul will never have rest."

"Sir, the sorceress has arrived," said a man of the Elite, one of those closest to him.

"When I return in five days, you are going to change that mentality, or I will keep my promise."

When he left, I felt relief and then resentment.

"Please, Goddess, get me out of here; give me the strength to resist," I muttered under my breath before falling asleep.

In the middle of the night, I felt a deep pain in my body, and it made me scream in total agony. I felt as if something was breaking inside; I couldn't stand it, and men from the Elite arrived to see what was happening to me. I couldn't hear what was happening; I just felt like the fire was burning me completely.

"What's wrong?" one of them asked,neck, and then footsteps were heard.

Just at that burning moment, I felt a deep heat in my neck and images of Stefan branding Circe in a bonding ceremony under the light of the full moon came to me. He was claiming her in front of everyone in the village, in a ritual that preceded the ascension ritual in which he officially became the Alpha of the Pack, which meant he was breaking the bond between us and our souls were drifting away from their destiny.

I began to cry uncontrollably at how terrible that would be for Selene and then I felt a mark form right where it marked Circe. At that moment, all of them realized what was going on, which made it all that much more depressing and humiliating.

"Your mate has broken the bond," said the Omega, who had waited on me earlier, sadly. "I can't imagine what your she-wolf must be feeling right now with those chains on. It must be torture in life... How awful this is!"

"We're not going to take it away, so you'd better get out of here before someone notices you came," one of the men muttered, and I lay limp on the floor.

The pain was unbearable, and what little vitality I had left hung by a very thin thread.

I was left alone, and I could not sleep. What I felt was immense pain. To remain linked to Stefan was a curse, but not feeling my she-wolf at a time like this was like feeling death in life.

I didn't know what time it was, but it must be morning and some Omega would come to bring me food, and indeed, footsteps were heard approaching, but they were not few; they were more footsteps than I usually hear. That made me look towards the entrance of the dungeon, and I saw some unknown men enter my space in a hurry.

"Come on, we don't have much time before the next guard comes," one of them said. "Don't take off her chains; they will serve to keep her tame. The she-wolf of her is lethal."

"I don't think we need that; just look at what's left of this woman; it's like all her life has been taken away," one of them blurted out, and my head exploded at the very sad truth.

I looked at them in fear, and between two of them, they roughly carried me. Another one put a gag on me to keep me quiet, and I closed my eyes in total resignation.

They took me out of the dungeons, and the sunlight hit me full in the face. That made me try to look around, so I realized that winter was finally over. They put me in a van and, with impressive ease, pulled me out of the herd.

So, I closed my eyes and let myself drift off to sleep; it was the only thing that calmed the nightmarish feeling I'd had since I'd been held in the dungeons. I didn't know at what point, but the van parked, and they pulled me out of it. Then they made me walk barefoot through the woods, and one of them kneeled me down near some rocks.

"I'm sorry to do this half-breed; it's not personal, but if you don't disappear, Mistress Circe will never be able to achieve what she wants together with Alpha Stefan, and we only follow orders so our pack can prosper," one of them said with some regret.

At that moment, I understood that they wanted to kill me, so with a lump in my throat, I accepted my destiny. I only prayed to the Goddess to receive me in her arms, to give me the peace I needed so much to find the serenity I had never had before, and I prayed that Selene could reincarnate and be happy.

The kicks came hard, then the fists and the stomps on my body—they all started to hit me in a group, and the physical pain felt so silly compared to the emotional pain that was carrying me and killing me completely.

I couldn't close my eyes, and one moment I couldn't breathe. I was drowning, and then I felt a stillness in my body that told me how close I was to dying. It was so devastating that I just begged the goddess for mercy.

"Stop it!" one of them said. "That's enough."

"But Mistress Circe wants her dead; we have to bring her proof," replied another, and I just listened to everything in the distance.

"This woman is already dead; she was dead before we took her out of there; she's not going to survive this, and that's enough to get the hell out of here immediately before the guards patrolling this border sniff us out."

They were absolutely right, and that's why they left.

Minutes later, I heard the van drive away, and then my body went into a kind of shock that had me so out of it that I wasn't aware of the fractures in my legs or the twisted position my arms were in. I didn't know that the swelling in my face was because my eyes were swollen and bruised.

I just wanted my heart to stop once and for all.

The world felt horrible and when the moonbeams finally hit my face, I just wished I could die. I didn't realize that just at that moment a man was approaching; I only felt it when he crouched down near me and, in a thick voice growled:

"For the love of the Goddess, who the hell did this to you?"

When an exquisite aroma flooded my nostrils, I fell unconscious.