I was given no bed and no room of my own. At night, when the bitter wind howled through the gaps in the stone walls, I curled up on the cold floor in a small, dark corner of the servants' quarters. No one dared to give me even a rag of a blanket; that would mean acknowledging my existence. So I slept on the hard ground, with nothing but a torn shirt and threadbare pants to keep the winter's chill from gnawing at my bones.
The frost crept in through the cracks and settled into my flesh. My hands were the worst. The skin was cracked and raw, the edges swollen and purple from the cold, and every movement sent fresh waves of pain shooting up my arms. At night, I would press my hands against my chest, trying to warm them, but it was no use. The frostbite took more of me every day.
During the day, I worked. Hard. Scrubbing floors until my hands bled, carrying heavy buckets of water that sloshed over my feet and soaked through my thin shoes, washing clothes in the icy river until I could no longer feel my fingers. If I faltered, if I paused for even a moment to catch my breath, I’d feel the sharp sting of a cane across my back or the scornful laughter of the pack members. They thrived on my suffering. To them, I was a broken creature, unworthy of the name I once bore with pride.
“Hey, wolf-less girl!” a servant sneered one morning, throwing a pile of muddy boots in my path. “Clean these. And make it quick, unless you want to be our new chew toy.”
I lowered myself to the ground, my knees hitting the cold stone, and reached for the boots. My hands were trembling, not from fear but from sheer exhaustion. I could feel their eyes on me, the snickering, the whispers. I was a spectacle, a source of cruel entertainment. 'How far the Alpha's daughter has fallen', I imagined them saying. But I gritted my teeth and kept scrubbing. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of breaking.
And then there was Lucas.
He was a different kind of torment, a storm I couldn’t escape. Every time he saw me, his face twisted into something dark, something feral. I looked too much like her—like Gloria, his angel, his lost love. My sister’s memory haunted him, and every time he laid eyes on me, it seemed like he wanted to tear me apart just for existing.