Ch. 2

I was too afraid to say a single word as the king carried me up the winding flight of stairs. Whatever he had said to Madam Olympia, I must have misheard him, muffled in his grasp. I couldn’t be anyone’s mate. And I certainly wasn’t the Alpha King’s.

I wanted him to put me down so badly. I knew I must be hurting his arms, given how heavy I was. Madam Olympia had put me on a strict diet since I was twelve, scolding me for gaining too much weight. And if Madam Olympia said it, then it must have been true. She would never lead me wrong.

King Ambrose finally stopped in front of the last door in the North hallway. The suite had been built specifically for visits by members of the Royal Pack. It had multiple bedrooms and a large common room for all the Royal Members to converse in. I had never been inside it before. I was far too low a rank to ever be allowed to even clean it.

I hadn’t realized that I was full-on crying on the king’s shoulder until my tears rolled down his chest.

“Hey, shhh, it’s okay, Little One. You’re okay. Please stop crying, it’s all okay,” he whispered against the crown of my head.

The king was right. I needed to stop crying. I was sure crying would only get me punished worse. It probably made him angry.

I tried pushing myself out of the king’s arms and onto the floor where I could bare my neck for him again, showing him just how sorry I truly was. The king didn’t let me go, pressing me further into his chest as he made his way to one of the bedrooms within the suite, no doubt wanting to punish me there.

He finally set me down on a small, wooden table. The surface of it was freezing compared to the feeling of his body against mine. “I’ll just be a moment, stay here please.”

Where else would I go? Disobeying a direct order from the king himself was a death sentence.

Only after his footsteps faded away did I allow myself to look up and glance around the room. If I was going to die, I wanted to at least see one last beautiful thing. The room itself was huge, bigger than any of the other bedrooms that I had ever cleaned before. It had tall, white ceilings with pictures in delicate, gold frames hanging around the room, showcasing people I had never seen before. The large bed in the centre of the room was covered in plush, red sheets with more pillows than I could even count.

At least I would get to die in a place so beautiful.

Hearing the king’s footsteps come back, I dropped my head down and stretched out my neck as a show of submission and respect. I would rather have dropped to my hands and knees on the ground, but the king had given me strict instructions not to move, and I didn’t wish to anger him more than I already had.

His footsteps faltered only for a second when he re-entered the room.

“You don’t need to bow to me, Little One,” he sighed.

Yeah right, I laughed in my head. And make my death even more painful?

A second later his hands were on me again, one drawing light circles on my leg where my dress had ridden up, and the other cupping my cheek. I did my best not to flinch away from his touch, knowing that it would only anger him.

“I won’t hurt you,” King Ambrose said, clearly hearing my rapidly beating heart. “You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

I tried to relax in his hold, but the hand on my leg slowly crept up higher, grazing over some of my bruises as he went.

“You’re allowed to look at me,” he said. “You don’t need to keep looking at the ground.”

I didn’t say a word. I wasn’t going to break any more rules tonight and risk my punishment being worse. I simply nodded but made no move to look at him.

“You can speak, Little One. I won’t harm you.” He tucked a stray piece of my hair behind my ear. “I like the sound of your voice.”

I nodded my head again but didn’t say a word. I could hear Madam Olympia’s voice in my head reminding me that omega servants were not worthy of speaking to high-ranking pack members, let alone the king himself.

“Will you at least tell me your name, please, Little One?” King Ambrose asked, gently running his fingers back and forth on my jaw.

Madam Olympia’s words played over in my head. King Ambrose had to be testing me to see how well I’d been trained.

The king pressed his palm firmly against my back, pushing me almost flush against his front. “I’m very sorry that I have to do this, Little One, but I’m afraid there’s no other way.”

He paused, and I braced myself for what he would do next. “As your Alpha King, I order you to tell me your name.”

A wave of power washed over me, like a bucket of cold water had been dumped over my head. I’d never heard my own Alpha’s commanding tone before. I’d only seen him use it on others when they disobeyed him.

“I am Seven, Your Highness,” I said immediately.

King Ambrose grunted, tilting my head up until our eyes met. I tried pulling away from his grip, but his hold on me gently tightened.

“I want your name,” he repeated. “Your name, not your number. In fact, I never want to hear you say that number again.” He spat the words out like they were poison on his tongue. “What’s your name, Little One? The one that you were born with.”

My brows frowned in confusion, and tears welled up in the corners of my eyes.

“My deepest apologies, Y-Your Highness,” I said in a small voice. “But I have never been called anything but Seven. I am very sorry about this.”

King Ambrose’s grip tightened even more around my waist, his eyes hardening as he looked down at me. “So you mean that you have never been called, or even referred to, as anything else but a stupid number in your whole entire life?”

“I am s-so sorry, Your Highness,” I apologized again.

Why was King Ambrose so upset about this?

I’d never had any issues with being called Seven before. It was all I’d ever known. In fact, all the servants had only ever been called by the number we’d been assigned by Madam Olympia.

“Your Highness, if it makes you happy, then you may call me anything else that you please,” I said, hoping it would make King Ambrose satisfied enough not to punish me.

The king’s once beautiful green eyes were now as dark as the night, gone were the small speckles of gold in them before. They were like a never-ending abyss staring down at me.

I opened my mouth to apologize for my foolish actions, but quickly sealed my lips shut when I saw the dark fur beginning to sprout on his arms.

He was about to shift and kill me.

This was how I was going to die.

I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, not wishing to see how my life would end.

But instead of feeling King Ambrose’s claws slashing my throat, I felt short puffs of air whizzing by my head, met with the sound of splintering wood.

What was happening?

I cracked open one eye to see King Ambrose tearing all the gold frames off the walls and throwing them around wildly.

Oh my Goddess, what was happening? Was he going to destroy his room and then make me clear it up before killing me?

I was still frozen. King Ambrose hadn’t given me permission to move yet.

I hyperventilated, my breath coming out in short spurts as I watched the king, unable to tear my eyes off of him and his rampage.

Without warning, King Ambrose grabbed another picture off the wall and turned around, holding it high in his hands, clearly about to throw it.

His eyes met mine, and before I could even blink, he was in front of me and the picture that he was holding just a moment before was laying on the floor with all the others.

His hands ran up and down my body.

“I am so, so, sorry Little One. Please forgive me. I am so sorry that I scared you just now, that was not my intention. My wolf and I lost control. Please forgive me Little One, please,” King Ambrose repeated over and over.

He was begging me. King Ambrose was begging me. Me! No one had ever begged me for forgiveness before. What was happening? I should be the one begging him for forgiveness and to spare me.

All I could do was stare, my eyes roaming his face as he continued running his hands all over my body.

My eyes traced over his strong jaw, to his full pink lips, up the bridge of his nose, to the arch of his dark eyebrows, and back down across his red-tinted cheeks.

He was by far the most beautiful person that I had ever seen in my life.

It took me a moment to realize that he was doing the same thing to me. His eyes – back to their forest green colour again – gazed up and down my face, his thumb stroking over the side of my jaw. He slid his hand back up the side of my neck to cup my head.

I was so mesmerized by King Ambrose that I forgot to hold back my wince of pain when his hand ran over a small cut.

His eyes narrowed, staring at my hair matted with blood. “Who hurt you?”

I didn’t want to ruin whatever this moment was and tell him. Gamma Thomas had beaten me earlier today for failing to remember to bring him his lunch at exactly noon.

“Little one,” King Ambrose said in a gentler tone. “Who hurt you?”

“I made a mistake and got punished for it. I deserved the punishment.” It was the truth.

King Ambrose’s eyes turned dark again.

Why did I always say the wrong things and upset him?

“There is not a single doubt in my mind that you did anything so wrong as to deserve this,” he gritted out between clenched teeth as he stared down at me, hands holding my face.

“I was careless,” I said, repeating what Gamma Thomas had said to me. “I was careless, and because of that, I was punished for my actions. It’s what I deserved.”

King Ambrose’s eyes met mine again, blazing this time. With the number of times I had upset him, it was beyond me that he hadn’t shifted into his wolf yet.

“Show me,” he demanded.

I reached up and took the clip out of my hair, letting it fall down over my shoulders. I pushed back the section that was right above my left eye and showed him the cut. It hadn’t been cleaned, so dark blood was still caked onto my head.

“Goddess! That isn’t just a small cut, Little One, that’s a gash,” he spat out, his words hard and angry. He let out a deep, low growl. “Why haven’t you had someone look at it yet? This is awful. You must be in so much pain.”

“Part of my punishment was not tending to it,” I said. That’s what Gamma Thomas had told me. “The pain will remind me to do better, and next time, I won’t make the same mistake.”

I had only been allowed to clear the blood that fell on my face. Gamma Thomas didn’t want anyone to see me hurt and have them lose their appetite.

King Ambrose took a deep breath. “Who exactly gave you this wound?”

Was he asking because he wanted to speak with Gamma Thomas and find out the best way to punish me? He was the one that punished me the most, after all.

“G-Gamma Thomas,” I stuttered. “I was late with his lunch, and he rightfully punished me. He keeps a book in his office of all the mistakes that the servants make so he can punish us.”

King Ambrose took a large step back and turned around. Before I could blink, he punched a hole in the wall.

My body began to shake in fear.

Perhaps he was angry that he hadn’t cut me first?

“I’m sor—”

“Don’t,” King Ambrose snapped at me. “Don’t apologize. I don’t want to hear those words come out of your mouth again, Little One.”

I let the words get caught in my throat, dropping my eyes to the floor.

I couldn’t even apologize right!

“I need you to tell me exactly what happened that led Gamma Thomas to punish you to this extent,” King Ambrose demanded.

His face was set into hard, ridged lines, and his tone was just as firm.

“Then I’ll make sure no one will ever hurt you like this again, Little One. I promise this to you.