Chapter 3

Annaliese’s POV~

He shoved me back so hard my shoulders cracked against the rough stone and I nearly crumpled right there.

I didn’t even have the strength to stay standing properly. I watched his heavy boots storm away down the dark corridor, and the second he was gone, my knees gave out completely.

I slid down the cold wall until I was sitting in the dirt, my knees pulled tight to my chest, my hands pressed over my mouth to muffle the sounds that were tearing out of me.

I broke apart right there. Shattered into a million tiny, sharp pieces that I knew I’d never be able to put back together.

My sobs came fast and hard, shaking my whole body until I ached from the inside out, tears running down my face and soaking the rags I wore.

I cried until my throat was raw and my head throbbed, and through it all I was screaming at the Moon Goddess in my head, hating her with every single breath I had left.

Why?

What did I ever do to deserve this? I was already nothing. I was born wrong, born without a wolf, born empty and useless and unwanted.

I had no family, no name, no place to belong. I lived on scraps, slept on hard floors, worked until my hands bled just to stay alive another day. Wasn’t that enough pain?

Wasn’t being trash enough punishment? Why did she have to tie me to Cassian Blackthorn, the most terrifying man alive, a man who everyone knew hated the weak

Why give me a mate if all he was going to do was break me, over and over again, until there was nothing left?

Right then, yet again, I hated myself for being born.

——————-

Days passed and everything got worse, just like I knew it would. They said I had disturbed the Alpha, that I had been too loud or too close or too much of a nuisance, so my punishment was more work, less food, no rest at all.

I scrubbed floors until my fingers were raw and bleeding. I carried buckets of water so heavy my shoulders burned and ached so bad I could barely lift my arms.

I slept in corners or outside on the ground, ate only what the other servants threw away, stale bread or cold broth that barely kept me standing.

Every part of me hurt. I was covered in new bruises, purple and blue marks on my arms and legs from being pushed or hit or just from falling down when I got too weak.

I was thin, so thin I could feel every bone in my body, dizzy all the time, tired in a way that went deep down into my soul.

Then came the market day.

The square was packed full of people, noise was everywhere, shouting and laughing and the smell of food I would never be allowed to taste.

I was given the heaviest load as usual, a huge basket of dirty laundry, so big it blocked my view, heavy enough to make my back scream.

My feet were bare, cut and sore from walking on rough stones, but I kept my head down, my eyes fixed on the ground, trying to slip through the crowd unseen.

I just wanted to get to the wash house and be alone.

But they always saw me.

“Look who it is,” a loud, mocking voice called out. “The wolfless wonder. The mistake the Moon Goddess forgot to finish making.”

I flinched, gripped the basket tighter, and tried to walk faster. It was a group of young warriors, they were big and strong, laughing among themselves, looking for someone to pick on.

And I was always the easiest target.

“Hey trash! Don’t you ignore us!” another yelled, stepping right in my path.

I stopped, and kept my head bowed so low my chin touched my chest. “I’m sorry… please let me pass…”

“Let you pass?” He laughed, a cruel ugly sound. “Why should we? You don’t belong here. You don’t belong anywhere. You’re just empty flesh, aren’t you? No wolf, no soul, nothing inside you.”

Tears burned my eyes but I refused to let them fall. I tried to step around him, but suddenly a foot shot out and tripped me hard.

I went down hard onto the stones, the heavy basket flying out of my hands. Dirty sheets and rags and tunics spilled everywhere, spreading out in the dirt and mud right in front of everyone.

Laughter exploded around me, they were so loud and cruel, echoing off the walls.

I scrambled on my hands and knees, trying to gather them up fast, my fingers shaking, my tears finally spilling over and mixing with the dirt on my face.

“Look at her crawl!” someone shouted, and a kick sent a piece of wet cloth right into my face. “Pick it up properly, you useless thing! You’re good for nothing else!”

Another kick landed near my shoulder, not hard enough to break my bone, but it was hard enough to hurt, hard enough to remind me exactly what I was.

People stopped to watch, some snickering, some looking away like I wasn’t even human, no one stepping in to help. No one ever helped me.

And then I felt that heavy, burning weight that I knew better than my own heartbeat.

I looked up through blurry, tear-filled eyes, and there he was.

Cassian.

He stood at the edge of the square, very tall and broad and terrifying, surrounded by his highest-ranking men.

He was dressed in dark furs and leather, looking every inch the powerful Alpha, his face carved from stone, cold and hard and unreadable.

He saw everything.

He saw them trip me. He saw me fall. He saw the mud on my face, the way I was scrambling like a frightened animal, the way they laughed and kicked at me. He saw every single second of my shame and pain.

I looked right at him, begging him silently with my eyes, please… please make them stop… please…

His jaw was locked tight, the muscle feathering in his cheek. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides so hard his knuckles turned white.

But then his face hardened even more. He looked at me, lying in the dirt, broken and crying, and his eyes filled with nothing but disgust. Pure, unmasked disgust.

He didn’t move. He didn’t speak. He didn’t lift a finger to save me or help me or even acknowledge me.

He just stood there and watched. Watched me suffer. Watched me be humiliated. Watched me be treated like garbage.

And then, slowly, he turned his head away. He turned his back on me completely, and walked off with his men like I was nothing more than a speck of dust he didn’t want to dirty his boots on.

Like I didn’t even exist.

I collapsed forward onto my hands, sobbing into the dirt, my heart shattering into pieces smaller than ever before. That was the truth. That was all I would ever be to him. A mistake. A curse. Something to be ashamed of. Something to hate.

———————

After that day, everything got darker.

I tried harder than ever to disappear. I kept my head down, my eyes fixed on the ground, never speaking, never looking up, stepping aside the second I heard footsteps coming.

I wanted to be invisible. I wanted to fade into the walls so no one would ever see me or touch me or yell at me again.

But no matter where I went, no matter how dark the corner I hid in was, I felt Alpha Ethan. He was always there, somewhere close.

I could feel his eyes on me, tracking every step I took, every breath I made. He acted like I didn’t exist in front of others, like I was just part of the dirt, but I knew he watched me all the time.

Even when I couldn’t see him, I knew he was there, behind a window, in the shadow of a doorway, high up on the walls. Watching. Always watching.

He hated me, but he never looked away. It was the worst feeling I had ever known, being seen so completely by someone who wished I was dead.

Some nights, when the cold wind bit through my thin rags and I curled up alone in the darkest corner I could find, I would let myself think about running.

Just slipping away when everyone was asleep, vanishing into the deep woods beyond the pack borders where no one knew my name or my shame or what I was.

My heart would beat fast at the thought of freedom. No more scrubbing floors until my fingers bled. No more being called trash or mistake or empty thing.

No more feeling that heavy, suffocating weight of Cassian’s eyes burning into me every second of every day.

But then reality would crash down hard, heavier than any bucket I had ever carried, and I would choke back a sob because I knew the truth.

Where would I go?

I had nothing. No family. No money. No skills. No wolf to protect me or guide me through the wild. I was weak, small, useless.

Outside these walls, there was only hunger, cold, and danger. Rogue packs, wild animals, people worse than the ones here. I wouldn’t last a week.

I would die alone in the mud, freezing and starving, and no one would even notice I was gone. Least of all him. Ethan wouldn’t come looking.

He wouldn’t care. He would probably be relieved. He would probably smile, knowing the curse had removed itself from his life.

And even if I could run… even if I could survive… could I really escape him? This bond, this invisible chain that tied my soul to his, it didn’t care about distance. I could feel him miles away, feel his anger, his restlessness, his hatred.

It was a thread tied around my heart, pulling tight every time he moved, every time he breathed.

I hugged my knees tighter, pressing my face against the rough fabric of my dress, and cried silent tears that soaked into the dirt beneath me.

I was trapped here. Trapped between a pack that treated me like dirt and a mate who looked at me with pure disgust. Trapped in a life where I was seen too much and not enough at the same time.

I remembered his words again, the ones he spat at me with so much venom: “Whatever makes me lose control… I will kill it.”

I wondered every single day when he would finally decide to do it. When he would get tired of the pull, tired of the feeling, tired of being tied to trash like me. I wondered if one day he would come for me, silently and coldly in the dark, and end it all just to be free.

And the worst part, the part that broke me all over again every time I thought about it, was that a small, broken part of me almost hoped he would.

If he could just kill me… that would be better.

Because living like this… being hated by the one person in the whole world who was supposed to be yours… it hurt more than any bruise, more than any hunger, more than any cold night.

It was a pain that went deeper than skin or bone. It was a pain in my very soul.

I lifted my eyes to the grey, heavy sky above the pack walls, my throat was raw and burning, and I whispered so quietly even the wind couldn’t hear it.

“Why did you make me, if you were only going to let him hate me this much?”