Mate by Fate, Bound by Love

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Lena’s Pov

The guards dragged me to the pack’s dungeon amidst the mocking stares of the people. The people booed and mocked me as the guards dragged me towards the dungeon. While some of the people hurled awful words at me, some hissed and so even went as far as telling the guards to release me a bit so they can pour dirty water on me, but thankfully, the guards were under strict orders of my uncle not to stop until I have been thrown into the dungeon.

“Wait!” Came a loud shout from behind us and we stopped. It was my Uncle’s wife and my cousin.

“My father had ordered that she should be wiped fifty times before she is taken to the dungeon!” My cousins said.

“But….” the guards tried to disagree but my Uncle’s wife cut them short.

“But what? Are you trying to say my daughter is lying or are you planning to go against my husband’s command?” She asked.

“No ma, we are sorry ma.” The guards apologized and took me to the flogging arena.Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.

The people cheered as they followed us from behind. They began to throw stones, leaves, and tomatoes at me. They insulted me and called me names.

I wanted to beg for mercy but I knew it was only going to add to my humiliation. I told myself that no matter what, I will not break down. I will not allow them to get to me but I was wrong.

The guards made me go on my knees as they brought out the cane.

“Stop!” My Uncle’s wife ordered and the guards stopped immediately.

“Let her lie down on the stone, that way, the cane will not miss landing on her back and use this instead.” She said and threw a wire at them.

I shrieked in fear as I saw the wire that was being given to the guards. It was a very hideous thing with five heads so that one strike of it was equivalent to five strikes.

“No, please, please, don’t do this to me.” I started shouting and pleading but it seemed my shouting gave the people more energy to deal with me.

The guards roughly threw me on the stone and without pausing, they started flogging me. I told myself that I was not going to cry but I could not bear it. I cried and screamed till I fainted.

I woke up to see the guards carrying me straight to the dungeon and handed me over to the palace guards in charge of the dungeon. Every noble family in the pack was given permission to own a personal prison where they could put their slaves or people of lesser mobility than them but my uncle decided to put me in the Pack’s dungeon which was more harsh than his own.

The guards in charge of the pack’s dungeon looked at me in disgust and threw me inside and locked the door. The tears that had ceased before started falling again and I sat down on the cold floor crying bitterly.

I know you might be wondering why I was being treated this way and I will tell you. It is simple, I am being treated this way because I am an Omega. But the thing is, I am not the only Omega but my case was worse because of my late parents.

My father was a rightful member of the pack but my mother was not. She came from a neighboring pack that our pack’s members were forbidden to have anything to do with. My uncle who was my father’s brother warned him against marrying from that pack but my father was too in love to listen to the warnings and so he was punished and demoted to the rank of an Omega by the Alpha.

The people began to see my parents as law breakers and the Alpha instructed that they should be treated as outcasts even though they live in the pack. I would have preferred that they were banished but the Alpha felt that the best punishment for my father was for my father to be treated as nothing in a pack where he was once honored, he felt that the Shame would be enough to kill my father.

The Alpha was wrong. It was not shame that killed my father, it was heartbreak. When I was to be born, it was hard labor and my father could not get any of the pack’s midwives to come help her deliver. My mother fought with her last strength to have me delivered and when I was finally born, she died.

My father had been heartbroken, he could not forgive the pack members who refused to help him and instead gloated at the death of his wife, my mother who they had called the outcast. My father tried raising me on his own but it was not easy, he told me about his life and my mother’s and he also told me to go stay with my uncle if anything happens to him. He told me that the house my uncle was currently living in actually belongs to him but it was given to my uncle by the Alpha when my father was demoted.

I was ten years old when my father died of heartbreak. He mourned my mother for a very long time and one day, he could not take it any more. He ran away after bringing me to the doorstep of my uncle with a letter begging my uncle to please look after me. My uncle had gone to the Alpha to complain and the Alpha had sent guards to go bring back my father for severe punishments.

The guards went out to look for my father but could only come back with the bloody clothes of my father. I cried and wept for the death of my father. The Alpha told my uncle to take me in as his slave and do with me as he pleased.

My uncle indeed took me in as a slave and never missed an opportunity to publicly disgraced me. My back aches badly from the pain of being flogged. No food was given to me that night except a dried piece of bread and little water but I was too weak to complain and slept off.

I did not know how long I slept but I noticed someone pouring cold water on me. I opened my eyes to see that it was the head of the palace maids.

I struggled to stand and sit up but the pain was something else. I wondered why the head of the palace maids had come to meet me. I did not work in the palace and so I was not expecting her to come and meet me.

The head of the palace maids was someone I always avoided because she had a personal hatred for me. According to what I was told, she had been my father’s childhood friend and crush. She had a crush on my father and was hoping that my father would one day marry her, but to her disappointment and shame, my father had chosen my mother who was from a different pack over her.

I was also told that due to the closeness she and my father shared, she was the first person my father told about my mother. She warned my father against marrying my mother but my father refused to listen. People said she did it out of concern but I would always say to myself that she did it out of jealousy because when she saw that my father was not willing to listen to her, she went to report my father to the Alpha.

“Get your lazy self out of there and follow me, today is the mating ceremony and all slaves must come work in the palace.” She ordered and walked away.