Chapter 10 Mate

• One thing I learnt after a week of working in the Alpha King’s palace was that no matter the place, the treatment for those like me remained the same.
• “You’re telling me you’ve scrubbed this floor?” The girl who was in charge of showing me the ropes of the job glared down at me as I scrubbed the banquet hall.
• In the grand scheme of things, she was the same as me – a nobody. She was an omega who’d worked at the palace for three years and the head of the maids put her in charge of my supervision. Somehow, she took that as a prerequisite to bully me.
• “Yes, I’ve scrubbed the floor.” I didn’t bow to Alpha Noah so if this nameless omega girl thought I would bow to her, she didn’t know me.
• “This dusty floor?” She swiped a finger on the floor and raised her hand. “Do you think this is your village!?” She raised her voice, glaring down at me. “This is the royal palace! If you’re going to work here, then you should be prepared to work hard!”
• I worked hard. Knowing where I came from, the reality I did not want to return to, I had no choice but to work hard. All my life, I’d been a hard worker so it wasn’t anything new to me. In Red Lake pack, I worked like a camel, toiling day and night in the pack house and working into the night at a local pub to be able to afford my rent at the same pack house. At least in the royal palace, I got housing and feeding and my job description was fixed. Mopping, sweeping and dusting. In simple words, I was a cleaner.
• “Answer me when I’m talking to you!” My supervisor hit me across the face and I saw red.
• “Mary,” I called her name as I stood with a burning cheek. “Why did you hit me?”
• “W – What!?” She screeched. “How dare you question my method of discipline? Do you want me to hit you again?” She pointed a threatening finger in my face, almost stabbing my eye.
• “You’re not in charge of my discipline,” I reminded her. She was just a worker like me, the only difference between us being her work experience. She had no authority to discipline me any more than I could discipline her.
• “I am in charge of your training!” She went red in the face. “If you don’t work hard then I have to discipline you.” She frothed at the mouth, itching to hit me again if her clenched fists were any indication. “How can a new maid be so arrogant?”
• Arrogance.
• Everyone I met wanted to lord over me. I understood that in every gathering, I would be the bottom of the bottom of the barrel thanks to the fact that I didn’t yet have a wolf. For this reason, I stayed on my own and minded my business. I did my work as instructed but I was accused of arrogance at every point by every Jane and Dick that could not get me to lick their feet.
• “Mary!” Another maid rushed into the hall I’d been cleaning. A spark of irritation heated my insides as she stomped dirty feet around the ground I’d been washing for the past two hours.
• “Mary, Scarlett is here!” I froze at the mention of that name.
• Killian. Scarlett.
• I was a fool to not recognize those names when I woke up in a strange pack but after that, I realized just how dangerous things had been for me at that point. My hands found my neck and I massaged it, remembering how that girl had tried to choke me to death thinking I was making fun of her red hair by mentioning carrot.
• “Really? She’s here!?” Mary, the omega supervising me said, her face brightening. “Did she ask about me?”
• “Ah, no. She came looking for the prince.” The two girls gossiped as if I wasn’t there and I may not even have been. They ignored my existence so I went back to my work, working around them.
• “But it’s too early for her to be here. I didn’t expect her until the end of the month,” Mary complained but she still spoke with a dreamy sigh. Obviously, this one was a fan girl of Scarlett, the future Luna Queen.
• She’d been betrothed to the previous Alpha Prince until his mysterious death. Rumour had it that her family, the Alphas of Dark Moon pack, were pushing for her to be mated to the next prince. She had the power and influence to make his reign smooth so it was a wonder why they hadn’t mated yet.
• “I heard something,” the other girl’s voice went lower. “Don’t tell anyone else about it, but I heard the prince has another woman.” Uninterested in gossip, I was about to tune out of their conversation but the next sentence froze my blood. “He brought her to Dark Moon with him. She’d fainted and he carried her in his arms!”
• By the goddess, I was dead.
• “N – No way,” Mary gasped, the sound dramatic and irritating.
• “Yeah, so that’s why Scarlett is here. He didn’t even see her when he stopped by her pack. After speaking with Alpha Hawke, he took the woman and left.”
• “Who is the woman!?” Mary sounded as affronted as Scarlett did when she confronted me on my nursing bed. “Is she pretty? Is she from a good home? Alpha or Beta?” An onslaught of questions flowed from Mary’s mouth.
• Since I entered the palace, I hadn’t seen the prince. It was expected since he was busy preparing to take over the throne. Besides, the paths of the royals and their servants hardly ever crossed. I may never set eyes on him again despite working in the palace because the place was that huge. Also, I was relegated to cleaning a side palace.
• Scarlett and her fiancé were none of my business so even if a rumour spread that the prince was with another woman, since no one knew who I was here, no one would suspect me. Or so I thought.
• “Nobody knows,” the other omega responded and I breathed out a sigh of relief. “But she called Scarlett the forbidden name.”
• “What? That whore! I hate her already!” Mary exclaimed. “Who is she to insult Scarlett like that just because she has the backing of the prince!?” The brush in my hand clattered to the ground.
• Hearing people insult me without knowing was unpleasant but it wasn’t as unpleasant as the face that entered the hall I was cleaning.
• Why – oh why –
• “Scarlett!” Speak of the devil and she appears.
• Of all the places in the royal palace, how did she manage to find the one I was cleaning? This place was only a neglected hall that just underwent renovation so why –
• “You.” The cold words had me shivering.
• A lot of people had stared at me in contempt, to the point where it no longer made me flinch but the hatred bristling in this lady’s eyes had me reeling. I’d never even done any –
• “I asked you to stay away from him, didn’t I?” She snarled, striding towards me.
• The other two girls gossiping about her watched the drama unfold with interest. Mary’s eyes went from me to her idol and then back again.
• “What – What are you doing here?” I took a step back as the she-wolf advanced on me.
• “Miss Scarlett –“ Mary started.
• The door to the hall opened again and the person I never thought I would see again entered with an older male version of the woman breathing down my face.
• “Your Highness, I don’t understand why you are being difficult. I’ve promised you the support of Dark Moon upon your mating and you know what that means for your rule. Why do you keep delaying?” The man ranted, unaware of the people in the private hall he just entered. “If you continue like this, another man may just snatch the throne from –“
• Killian had a formidable expression on his face, his red eyes darkened as the man ranted. As if feeling eyes on him, he raised his head and then his eyes caught mine. He watched me for a second before his mouth opened and the last words I ever expected to hear from the prince’s mouth fell out.
• “Mate.” It was a whisper that carried around the room due to his authority and domineering aura.
• “What?” Scarlett and the man I assumed to be her father exclaimed.
• “I finally found you, mate.” An expression of joy eroded his pissed-off expression as he took purposeful strides towards me.
• People gawked at us and I gawked at him, wondering what in the goddess’ name was happening.