Candace
"You filthy, little, disgusting animal!"
Aunt Elena cursed, driving her black manicured nails into my face as she shoved me off her. I crashed to the marble floor of the dressing room, slamming my knees against the floor. The acrid stench of vomit filled my nose, making my stomach grow even more queasy.
"You ruined my dress, you stupid imbecile!" I screamed in anguish when her hands found me again, her fingers digging into the corner of my left eye.
My knees ached as I scrambled to get away from her, but her hand caught my copper blonde hair, yanking me back to her feet.
"I didn't mean to," I gurgled as another wave of vertigo hit me, vomit rising in my throat.
The perfume Aunt Elena used made me nauseous, and I had puked all over her sapphire dress that she was to wear for Uncle Nathan's birthday dinner. My left eye throbbed painfully.
"What the fuck? Are you pregnant?" She demanded, shoving my head back, her eyes gleaming with disgust.
"No, no," I whispered, shaking my head frantically. "I'm not- "
"Oh my god, the cursed pig is pregnant?" Aunt Elena insisted, driving a blow to my already throbbing left eye, smashing it. I screamed, trying desperately to tell her I wasn't.
She knew I wasn't pregnant. There was no way I could be after what had happened with my past mates. Not after my whole life fell apart brick by brick.
Another ferocious blow slammed into my nose. I shrieked, crawling away from her quickly.
Her black stiletto heels found my stomach, and she drove in with a kick, sending me into the standing mirror nearby. The glass shattered, shards spilling all over me, digging into my skin.
"After all we've done for you, you ungrateful dog! How dare you get pregnant? You want to pass that cursed blood to someone else and fill our pack with dogs like you?"
I tried to get up quickly, searching blindingly for the door, but Aunt Elena grabbed my neck, choking me as she dragged me over the shards of glass from the mirror on the floor, cutting my skin, my blood oozing and mingling with the vomit on the floor.
"I'm not… pregnant," I wheezed in agony, writhing and trying to get away from her grip. She slapped me hard, sending me face-first against the dressing mirror table.
Oh, goddess, she was going to kill me!
I coughed, my body stinging all over from the several cuts on my skin and the blows. A groan left my lips as I tried to get up, when searing hot pain burned into my back.
I shrieked, excruciating agony filling up my bones as the smell of my burnt cloth and skin filled the air. The iron I had just used to straighten Aunt Elena's dress burned into my back, and she pinned me down, digging it deeper.
Three years and she was still finding creative ways to scar my broken skin.
"That's what you deserve. Stupid little worm disgracing our family!"
Hot, helpless tears streamed down my face as I fought with every strength my tired limbs could muster but the last time I had eaten was two mornings ago, I was weak.
"Oh, so you want to beat me now? Is that how you'll repay me, you cursed cow!" My aunt taunted, slamming the heavy iron against the back of my head. A deep throbbing ache slammed through my skull.
"No please… ple…please, aunt- " I mumbled, my vision going blurry.
She grabbed my tattered dress by the neckline and pulled me up, slamming a blow to my face that sent me flying across the dressing room.
I crashed into a trolley full of clothes, a soundless cry of pain escaping from my lips. Who would I cry to for help anyway? No one in the mansion would ever come to my aid.
"Get your cursed ass up from that place and go prepare my princess for dinner," She yelled, stripping off the dress that was now soiled in blood and vomit.
The tears trickled down in torrents, my body shaking in sobs.
"Miserable cow spreading her legs everywhere," She spat with venom, throwing the soiled dress at me before scrunching up her nose in sheer repulsion.
She snatched a bottle of hand sanitizer from the dressing mirror table, dabbing it over her hands like I was a bug she had just dealt with.
"And just know you're washing all those clothes that your disgusting body has touched. Before I contact whatever disease is hanging off you."
I curled against the trolley, gasping and fighting the tears from the intense pain radiating from the burn on my back.
A helpless gasp left my lips as I pushed myself to my shaky feet, hot tears running down my cheeks, making my swollen eye sting more.
Through my blurry and bloody vision, I found the door and staggered towards it, every step agonizing as the air whipped against my fresh wounds.
"And you'd better clean yourself up before showing your pathetic face out there. Do you hear me?"
"Y-Yes ma'am," I stuttered, pulling the door open and closing it gently behind me. I dared not slam the door, or that would give Aunt Elena another reason to punish me.
How much more could I take?
The corridor of the packhouse was empty, thankfully or I would have to plaster a fake smile on my lips and lie that I had been careless. Again. But no one asked questions about why the slave always looked tattered or why I carried red marks on my face and scars on my arms.
I let out a shaky sob, using the hem of my dress to wipe at the cuts on my arms and legs. The collar around my neck tightened as I tried to reach my wolf to heal me.
It was no use. The collar had been around my neck for a year now, suppressing my wolf to the point that I was almost sure I didn't have one anymore. Especially after being rejected three times.
Pushing my legs forward, I stumbled my way down the carpeted hallway to my cousin's quarters. A room that used to be mine barely three years ago.
I used to be the Alpha's daughter, loved and adored by all. Our family was happy. I still had my parents, I still had Stephen, I still had hope.
It all crashed to pieces on that fateful night. Father was accused of allying with enemy packs, betraying, and trading pack members. Several of our pack members died that night. Grace Spring's Pack could forgive everything except a betrayal from their Alpha.
The image of my father's head rolling off the execution stone, right to my feet, his blue eyes gazing up at me lifelessly while blood spurted from his severed neck, filled my head. Mother and Stephen, my younger brother, had been brutally beaten and banished from the evil forest.
And me? I was accused of sinning just like my father and demoted to a collared omega who had to serve the people who used to serve her.
That was before I got caught in another set up, one that marred my life forever. An unforgivable sin that had me reduced to the pack's mongrel. One that made my lovers turn my enemies. Candace Sinclair was a nobody, now. A smelling, starving nobody. After three years of being beaten, punished, starved, and tortured, I was tired.
But there was no way I would leave. This was my father's legacy. They could beat me all they wanted but I knew my father was innocent. Someone had set him up and until I cleared my family's name out of the muck, I wouldn't step a foot out of here.
As I neared the door to Deidre's quarters, moans and grunts reached my ears.
"Oh yes, Ryker, fuck my cunt harder,"
A deep groan boomed from behind the doors, followed by several grunts, and I died a little more inside.
They were here. My mates were with her.
My shaky fingers rapped against the door as I fought the fresh tears stinging my eyes.
Deidre's moans grew louder. "Oh… come in, cum for me, Ragnor, cum all over my throat."
I closed my hand around the door handle and turned it, swallowing the bitter taste of vomit that remained on my tongue.
Pink drapes matched the pink carpet, with lights falling on the several portraits of my cousin hanging on the walls in her lavishly adorned bedroom.
In the middle of the queen-sized bed in the room was a sight that sent a knife through my chest. I had seen this before and yet it destroyed me every single time.
Deidre was naked and on her knees with two of my mates. Before her was Ragnor, the eldest of the Pendragon brothers. His massive body looming above her, her lips wrapped around his massive cock,sucking hungrily at it. The smell of sex permeated the air.
Ragnor was naked except for the necklace dangling around his neck. The pendant was a fang that rested against his ripped chest. Black tattoos marred his right arm, the black ink popping against his bronze-colored skin as he grabbed Deidre's hair, pumping his cock harder into her mouth.
"Shit, baby, you're going to take every single drop,"
His black hair was slicked back, his eyes were closed, but I knew their color by heart. Steel grey eyes that used to gaze fondly at me three years ago before I was accused of committing an abomination. He must have sensed I was in the room but paid no attention to me at all, not even a glance or a glare.
No, that was all Ryker Pendragon. He was the third of the brothers, slightly shorter than Ragnor's massive body, but still huge all the same.
Brown and gold eyes shot daggers at me as he rammed into Deidre, fucking her from behind. His fingers gripped handfuls of her slender ass, a golden signet ring glinting on his left ring finger.
"What the fuck is this pig doing here?" He gritted his teeth, his eyes blazing in anger as he pumped into Deidre.
I moved to one of the pillars in Deidre's room, wishing the ground would open up and swallow me. At least I wouldn't have to endure this torture.
After what felt like forever, Ragnor and Ryker finally pulled away, leaving Deidre curled on the bed, her face flushed with satisfaction.
Ragnor dropped a kiss to her forehead and grabbed his clothes off the floor, slinging them over his shoulders while Ryker captured her lips in a fierce, passionate French kiss, as she rolled the used condom off his cock.
My cousin's eyes slid to mine as she kissed him, tossing me a wink. A stab of pain stung my chest at the sight of my mates, adding to several stings that covered my body. Now, my mates were all fighting for Deidre's attention.
"Take care, baby girl," Ragnor muttered, swatting her ass playfully. His scent of fresh mint, oud, and white musk filled the air.
"See you guys at dinner," Deidre giggled, purring like some satisfied cat. "I'll have to make this up to Reign later, won't I?
"You know how he is," Ryker grinned, giving her one last kiss before pulling away. "Can't wait to show you the surprise we have for you."
I held my breath as the mates who had rejected me a year ago stalked towards the door, walking past me.
"Out of my way, trash. You're stinking up the place," Ryker spat, shrinking his nose in disgust. I shriveled back further clinging to the pillar for support, hating how his citrus and warm woody scent teased my nose.
Ragnor acted like I simply did not exist, a stony look on his face as he had been doing since that day.
Once upon a time, they had been mine. Now those days were over.
Just as the door closed behind them, something warm hit my arm. I flinched in irritation watching the condom Deidre had peeled off Ryker's cock slide down my forearm, leaving a warm, slick trail of his cum on my skin before it dropped to the floor with a soft, wet sound.
Though suppressed and collared, the mate bond still knew his scent. Some broken, traitorous part of me still responded to anything that carried his scent, and now it was on my skin in the most degrading way imaginable.
Humiliation burned deep inside me. I sunk my teeth into my lower lip, suppressing the retort rising in my throat.
"Stop staring, you'll never get a taste. They are mine now," a mocking smile creased on her face as she stretched languidly like a cat in heat.
It had been three years; I should be used to my cousin's taunts by now. But I wasn't. Could you ever get used to a bestfriend who set you up after the worst tragedy happened to your family?
Our fathers were blood brothers, Deidre had been my sister, my bestfriend and my confidante before my world went grey. Only now she treated me worse than an omega especially since that day.
"If you're done ogling me like some ogre, clean that up," She pointed to the condom wrap on the floor. "I'm so tired, ugh, the triplets really know how to fuck a woman. They fucked me so hard."
Tears clogged my throat as I lowered my knees, picking up the filled condom, another wave of nausea filling my throat. The same men who used to be mine, who used to adore and worship the floor I walked on, now clung to my cousin and ex-best friend, hanging on her every word, flaunting her in my face like they didn't give a fuck.
"Will you be fast with that? You still have to draw me a bath. I have to be sparkling clean before Daddy's dinner."
I watched her climb off the bed eagerly, a sickening feeling sinking in my stomach. The surprise. Ryker had said surprise. There was a particular energy crackling under tonight's dinner and every instinct I had left told me it involved me.
It always did, when they smiled like that.I rose slowly, the burn on my back screaming, the collar pressing cold against my throat, and I understood with a dread that settled deep in my bones what the triplets were about to do.