MATED TO THE MONSTROUS CURSED LYCAN

Leora

"Scrub the floors well, you lazy wench!" My stepmother, Amarie, head of the Alpha King's household cleaning department bellowed at me as she brandished her whip. "I'll be back in a few minutes, and you better be done."

The pack house was full today, and for some weird reason, I felt queasy. There was no big meeting, and it was too early for the evening hunts. But yet, everyone was here, including my father who sat at a corner like a pariah, gazing forlornly into space. My heart ached as I stared at him through my peripheral vision, remembering how happy he was when Mother was still alive.

My name was Leora, and once upon a time, I had a happy family. I was the Redwood Pack's beloved princess. But ever since my mother died, and I crossed sixteen without shifting, my life has shifted. They said my wolf was weak, worse than an omega's, which was the lowest rank in our caste. I'd never been able to understand it. My parents didn't either. Nothing about my birth was unusual, and growing up, there were no abnormalities with my development. So how could the Alpha's daughter be weaker than an Omega? Where did she get that from?

Mother became ill a few weeks after this discovery, and died. Father, in grief, refused to remarry, and according to our Pack laws, an Alpha King wasn't allowed to function properly without a mate. Father rejected all the young females the Pack Elders brought to him, until he was forced to step down, and the title passed on to a new family. Eventually, Father got married again, and Amarie came into our lives. At first, she was sweet and all that. But with time, she showed us, me especially, her dark side.

Amarie despised the thought that I was weak, and carried me off to the new Alpha, Alpha Brennan's house to become a maid. There were talks about our family being exiled, but me becoming a maid for the new Alpha King stopped that.

Father didn't fight for me to stay with him.

He resented me.

Rightfully so.

I'm weak. Pathetic. A runt.

And my mother had died because of me.

Wolfless, and hated, I'd learned to keep my head down, and do my chores. I always requested heavy-duty cleaning tasks, like scrubbing down every bathroom in the Alpha King's quarters. It kept me out of sight unless someone entered the bathroom I was cleaning. Some days, Amarie took me to the pack house to clean the bathrooms there which were way dirtier and harder, but I didn't mind at all.

"Slow girl." I heard her biting snarl just before I felt the rope whip slash hard across my bare back. I closed my eyes, and clamped my teeth over my bottom lip as pain engulfed my entire body. Hot tears sprang to my eyes, but I shut my eyes again, not letting them fall. It's no use.

"You've been scrubbing at that particular spot for hours, the other girls are done with their chores!" Amarie screamed. "Get moving, you idiot!"

The whip slashed across my back again, and I stifled a groan. In the tight quarters of the bathroom, the leather switch cracked with a sonic boom that echoed. A chorus of high-pitched sounds accompanied the whip crack, cackling behind me as my back arched from the pain. My body fell forward onto the slick floor, slick with soapy water, and I threw my hands out to catch myself before hitting my face, cracking against the hardwood.

"I said, get the hell up!" I felt the smooth leather of a boot connect with my left cheek, sending me sprawling across the wet, soapy floor. My head hit the bucket of water, causing some to spill over the edge onto me. Splashes hit my back, and I hissed at the new sting from the soap against my open wound. Foamy water got into my eyes and burned like hell. I heard a few things crack, and I knew some of my ribs had fractured from hitting the ground. My wolf's weakness came with a side effect that ran deep - all the way to my bones. It was easy to break things if someone hit me the right way.

This assault was just one of many reasons I stayed away from everyone in this pack. They all knew how easily they could break me and how fun it could be to shatter something fragile. How simple it would be to put me in the infirmary with every bone snapped in half. I could heal in a few short days, and the process could repeat itself all over again.

I only had one person I could trust not to make me feel this way in my pack, but she couldn't save me right now.

I was glad I always wore older clothes while cleaning instead of anything nice. As I lay on this grimy floor, my clothes absorbed the water and filth around me. The dirty water soaking into my clothes would be hard to wash out, along with the blood on my back. There were even things on this floor that I couldn't identify before I started, and now they coated the front of my shirt.

Gross.

"The Redwood Pack is no place for a lazy Omega. You're not even worthy to be regarded as an Omega, as you're not as strong as them. You will never be strong as them. You will always be a mess. A pathetic, little runt, and I will make sure you clean these bathroom tiles for the rest of your miserable life."