Chapter 5 #2
But a month in, I’d been cornered in my dressing room.
Two men. Their only agenda was to damage my knee.
They pulled me off my feet. I fought. My wolf fought harder.
But one of them had silver knuckles, and he caught me on the knee with a punch so hard I heard the bone crack.
I bit one of them, nearly took off his finger.
But they just laughed, called me “freak,” “bitch,” “meat,” and left me bleeding on the floor.
I managed to drag myself to the door. The club’s witch medic patched me up with no words, just a tight smile and a needle full of morphine. By the time I woke up, Waylon was waiting. He told me my injury was “unfortunate.” But he didn’t seem too broken up about it.
He called in the pack doctor. I’d never seen a wolf so dead inside—pale, with eyes that looked right through you.
He laid me on the exam table, strapped my wrists to the rails, and showed me the roll of silver wire.
Said it was “for your own good, darling. You heal too fast. We need you a little more breakable.” He wove the filaments around my knee while I screamed.
Then he wrapped a kind of wrapping around the wires that a witch spelled, making it impossible to remove.
He told me the wrap was just for a couple of weeks, then they’d remove it.
Once it was removed, the joint was healed, but not in the same way it would have been if my shifter healing had been allowed. I’d be 100% today. The joint never healed right. I could still dance, but not the way I used to.
Waylon made sure to watch the whole procedure. He liked to see his property getting customized. After, he kissed my cheek and told me I’d be “even more beautiful with a limp.” He had just made sure I’d never be able to be a ballerina.
I sat in the bathroom, towel slipping off my shoulders, and looked at the knee until my eyes went blurry.
About two months after was the first time I had to work the VIP room.
I tried to refuse. I told Steiner I couldn’t, that I wasn’t ready.
He just handed me a dress, black mesh with a zipper that ran from neck to ass, and told me, “You’ll do as your Alpha says.
” I went because I didn’t have a choice.
When I told him I was a virgin he stopped.
“You just made me another $10k tonight my little slave. Thank you.”
I threw up twice before they brought me to a suite with a mirrored ceiling and a semicircle of leather couches. But then, the witches had given me some kind of cocktail that had made me more compliant, and I no longer cared so much.
Waylon was waiting. Two other males were in the room with him.
I smelled whiskey in the air. He told me to dance, so I danced.
The dress had a slit that went from the floor to my hip, which allowed me to move freely.
I wished that was all he’d ask of me. When the song finished, I knew my life was about to change forever.
Waylon snapped his fingers for me to come to him. He grabbed my arms and leaned me over the back of the sofa.
“Gentlemen, as promised, our beautiful angel is going to give me her cherry tonight. And you have paid to view the auspicious occasion.”
He unzipped the dress and ripped my panties away. He bent me over further, exposing me to the disgusting men in the room.
“Have you seen a prettier virgin pussy?” He raked his fingers through my slit, and I jerked my body wanting to get away.
That’s when the first slap across my ass hit.
He leaned over my back and bit my earlobe.
Through gritted teeth, he warned me. “Do not embarrass me in front of paying clients, slave.” He stood and looked back at his clients.
She needs some priming. He licked his fingers and shoved them inside me, twisting them and moving them back and forth.
“Make yourself ready for me, little slave.” He used his Alpha command.
And even though I was not his and he had no claim, I was his pack, and by virtue of what he was doing to my body, I felt my core clench around his fingers.
“Ah, look at this, gentlemen..” He pulled his fingers out and to my shame, I knew they glistened with my wetness.
I heard him suck his fingers. “I’d say she’s ready for her Alpha’s cock.
” And that was all the warning I got before he shoved his enormous cock inside me, ripping through my virginity in one thrust.
My body reacted violently, trying to straighten against the cruel invasion.
The pain was almost unbearable. He didn’t allow me any time to acclimate to his size before he was pounding into me again and again.
His hips slapped against my ass and thighs.
There was nothing pleasant or alluring about the way he took me.
It’s a small mercy that my body had created any slick for the bastard at all or I’d have been ripped to shreds.
Tears streamed down my face. The entire experience was a nightmare come to life.
He pulled out in time to shoot blood and cum all over my back.
“There you are, gentlemen. The evidence!” He shouted, proud of his gruesome accomplishment. Like he’d done something to be lauded.
When it was over, he leaned down and whispered in my ear. “You make a pretty picture when you cry.”
Then he snapped his fingers again. The witches came in, took me to my dressing room, cleaned me up, styled my hair, powdered my nose, and sent me back on stage for the midnight set.
I never forgot that night. Every time I spun on the pole or visited the VIP room, the pain reminded me what I was.
Now, sitting in the dark bathroom, I let my hair fall forward and stared at the lines of my body. I traced the scars on my knee, the bruises on my heart.
I knew I’d have to face Waylon tomorrow, maybe even before. I hated him with every fiber of my being. I wanted him dead. But he held all the power.
I stood up, wiped the mirror, and looked at myself straight on. My face was gaunt, a little too hollow around the eyes, but my skin glowed under the red from the shower. I looked wild, dangerous, alive in a way I hadn’t since I left Jess on that coffee shop patio all those years ago.
I dried off, slipped on a nightshirt, and crawled into bed.
I must have drifted, because the next thing I knew it was after three a.m. and my whole body was knotted with cold, despite the heavy covers.
I rolled onto my side and tucked the comforter under my chin, hugging a pillow tight to my chest. I’d almost managed to lose myself in the rhythm of the city—cars on the freeway, an ambulance siren, the click and whine of the building’s elevators moving up and down.
But the sound that finally broke through was the softest: the hiss of my bedroom door opening.
I froze. My heart thudded, once, twice, and then I forced myself to relax every muscle at once. If you tensed, he’d know. If you fought, he’d enjoy it more.
I kept my eyes shut. It was easier not to look.
The bed dipped behind me, the mattress bowing under Waylon’s weight.
He didn’t say anything at first, just settled his body into the space behind mine, one arm thrown over my hip.
I could smell the scent of him; cologne, liquor, the faintest metallic tang of blood.
His hand was meaty and rough, fingers landing square on the bare skin of my stomach, then sliding down, slow, until he found the place between my legs.
He didn’t even bother with foreplay.
His breath was hot against my ear as he moved his fingers inside me, not gentle, not slow, just insistent. I gritted my teeth and thought of anything else. My wolf curled up and whimpered, but the human part of me just wanted it over with.
“I heard another man looked at what belongs to me tonight,” he whispered, voice so low it barely made it to my ears.
“I watched you dance for him. Video quality was shit for some reason, but I know he paid handsomely for you to suck his dick.” He bit down on my shoulder, hard enough to bruise. “How did he taste, little slave?”
I didn’t answer. I just breathed, shallow and even, willing my body not to react.
He moved his hand, a sharp twist, and my body betrayed me with a tiny gasp. He grinned against my skin.
“I asked you a question, Harper.”
I forced the words out, voice flat as I could manage. “Like any other ordinary rich guy.”
“That’s right,” he growled. “Nobody compares to your master, right?”
He pulled my body flush against his, pinning me. He lifted my thigh and thrust inside, fast and brutal, like he was punishing me for something. Maybe he was. Maybe he always had been.
His free hand found my breast and squeezed, hard, thumb digging into the softest part. I held still, breathing through the pain, eyes fixed on the dark window. His rhythm was ugly, all dominance and no tenderness, and each movement jarred my bad knee until it sparked with fresh pain.
But the worst part was my body. He’d used his alpha power on me so many times, it didn’t even feel like magic anymore.
The commands were buried in my skin, my nerves, my blood.
That and the spelled cocktails the witches had given me so many times had tricked my body into thinking it wanted this.
My body flushed, responded, tried to draw him deeper even as my mind screamed for it to stop. He’d trained me well.
He licked the sweat from my neck and grunted, “Such a good little slut. Bet you came for him, didn’t you?”
I didn’t answer.
He pumped faster, hand on my hip, and I felt my muscles tighten against my will. When he hit the spot that always made me see stars, my body gave in, clenching around him as I shuddered. I bit down on the pillow, hard enough to taste blood.
“Fuck yes,” he said, voice triumphant. “Nobody ever fucks you like your Alpha.”
He pulled out, then stroked himself, coming across my lower back in hot, sticky stripes. He waited until the last shudder died in my body before he rubbed it into my skin with his palm, a final humiliation, the club’s logo branded invisible on my flesh.
He got up, slipped on his pants, and yanked the covers off me. “Don’t wash it off,” he commanded. “You wear my scent until morning. Let every dog in this building know you’re owned.”
I lay there shivering, covered in sweat and semen, staring at the bright squares of city light on the ceiling.
Waylon paused in the doorway. “Always such a good fuck, my little slave.” He didn’t even look at me.
“Thank you, Alpha,” I said. The words burned on my tongue after three years of repetition.
The door closed behind him, and I heard his heavy footsteps echo down the hall. I waited until the elevator whined him away before I let myself move.
I curled up, knees to chest, and pressed my face into the cold pillow. I didn’t cry. I’d stopped crying a long time ago. But I let myself imagine Jess, just for a second, standing in the doorway, promising me that none of this was forever.
Hope was a razor. Its cut stung while you waited for the miracle you needed.
But I held onto it anyway.
I listened to the city until morning, counting down the hours until I could get out of bed, scrub myself raw again, and start over.
Survival. That’s all I had left.
Until the day Jess kept his promise.