Chapter 3

Avalyn

I sat quietly in my seat as the discussions began.

I did not hear a single word.

All I could hear were quivering breaths of the slaves. And the smell of their fear was the only thing I could smell.

All the slaves present in the room were naked but wore expensive jewellery as shackles.

I saw a female giving a Lord a blowjob in the middle of the meeting. Her face was red and she was crying without making a single sound. She was clearly having trouble breathing.

The Lady next to him was having her slave lick her high heeled boots clean. He was was doing it eagerly. But it was so wrong. Was he doing it because of fear of punishment or did he actually want to do it? All I could think was how wrong it was.

I heard Tessa's heart go erratic and I saw her look up, somewhere near the end of the room. I followed her gaze and saw a man stroking himself as he looked at stared at her. He licked his lips hungrily, his fangs showing. Tessa let out a shuddering breath.

I'm not going to have her look at this bullshit. I placed my hand on top of her head and her eyes automatically lowered but her fear grew.

I tugged her leash and she looked up at me in question. There were tears in her eyes. I patted my thigh silently, motioning her to rest her head on me but her eyes furrowed, not knowing what I meant.

I've never given her such commands, I've never had to train her. Now I wish I had.

I wasn't going to just pull her leash to yank her closer, it would hurt her. I extended my hand and hooked a finger her collar and gently pulled her closer to me, enough for her entire body to touch my right leg. I released her collar and then placed my hand on her cheek. I guided her to rest her head on my thigh so that she was facing me and me only.

Now she would only be able to see me.

A soft sigh left her lips and her arm coiled around my leg after she mouthed a 'thank you'. I gave her a soft smile and kept caressing the side of her face, hoping to give her a slice of peace in this hell. Her eyes closed and her heartbeat went back to normal.

I tried to focus back to the meeting but I couldn't hear a word.

My eyes fell on Queen Zakyra. She had a slave crouched beneath her throne and she used him a footrest. The way he was so still, I knew he had been doing this for a very long time. But since I was so focused on him, I could hear the slight change in his breathing patterns that he tried very hard to control and how he would shift his knee very so little. It had to hurt.

She had another young girl kneeling besides her throne and she used her head as a hand rest and her fingers would caress her hair, almost unknowingly. The girl, unlike the boy looked new and was clearly terrified— her heart rate was a dead giveaway.

My gaze fell on a Lady seated further down the room. She too used a slave like her personal footrest. She had another well built slave standing besides her and she was stroking him, her long nailed fingers lightly teasing him. He was already wearing a cock ring and his shaft had turned almost blue. He was standing besides her and his hands were placed at his sides, tightened into fists. He was clearly trying very hard to control himself.

She must have been doing this to him since the meeting started.

My eyes flickered to the clock. Almost two hours had passed. Fuck.

I felt Nik's wolf trying to calm me. It wasn't working very well.

All I could focus was on the poor slave on the stool. I couldn't even imagine what punishment he will receive if he looses control.

I could hear his shuddering breaths and wildly beating heart. Sweat was beading down his forehead.

My heart felt for him. I need to help him.

My eyes flickered to Nik. He looked focused on something King Josias was saying. I need to listen to them too.

"....we took care or the attacks... Verdura Pack...Alpha Alphonso....fucking asshole....won't bother us again...." I barely caught the words.

I could feel the blood rushing through my veins, ready to unleash the power I yielded.

"Thank you, King Josias." Elder Orlando concluded. "Let's take a break for an hour and then we can finish with Kingdom Krajini and then Kingdom Ovzdusia." He rose. Which meant our turn was done. I completely missed it.

I patted Tessa's cheek and she quickly shuffled away a little before I shot up from my seat.

I need to get out of here before I kill these people.

"Go back to our living quarters with Dimitri, I will be there in some." Nikolai didn't need to tell me twice.

I tugged Tessa's leash before I stalked out of the Council room. Dimitri walked on my other side and both our slaves easily kept up with our stride.

Once we were out of the Council Room, I released Tessa's leash. My hands shook.

"Mistress?" She sounded confused and hurt.

"Stand up," I snapped and she scrambled to her feet, looking at me with wide eyes. "Walk," I strode to our living quarters.

"Avalyn," Dimitri called, I turned to glare at him. Why did he want to stay here? Why was he making me wait here a second longer?

He was holding Tessa's leash along with his slave's too. It pissed me off further. His eyes flickered to a woman passing by us. She was looking at us in curiosity and then at Tessa with dark, lustful eyes.

Dimitri gave me a smile which was extremely fake, "thank goddess I caught your slave from running away, Queen Avalyn. You must punish her."

A hiss left my mouth. "Why would I p—," he interrupted me by slapping her ass hard. A shocked gasp left my mouth and Tessa whimpered but remained silent, tears growing in her eyes.

How fucking dare he?

"Good job," the woman nodded and twisted her lips. "These humans should be disciplined. How dare she run away from the Queen?"

"She's new and is being a brat because she hasn't been broken in yet." Dimitri lied through his teeth with a believable malicious grin, "I guess we will be having fun after the meeting ends."

The woman raked her eyes over Tessa in hunger, "I believe I can brake bratty slaves fairly quickly. We still gave two days here...," she swiped a tear off Tessa's cheek with a finger and her tongue darted out to lick it clean, "I would be happy to help." Her eyes flickered red when she looked at Tessa again.

Tessa looked terrified but stayed rooted to her spot, like she was scared that one move will be the end of her.

"I'm not sure if a fair Lady such as yourself will be able to stomach what I'm about to do to her." Dimitri flirted with the Lady.

And she let out a fake ass laugh and placed her hands with freakishly long nails on his chest and trailed them down to his crotch suggestively, "oh, you underestimate me, Prince Dimitri. I believe that we could punish this slave as foreplay and then we can have our own fun," and then she circled Tessa's breasts with the tips of her nails, "and maybe she can join in the fun later too."

Anger surged through me like wild fire.

Dimitri wants to fuck this vile nymphomaniac? Fine. I'm not going to tolerate anyone disrespecting Tessa like this!

But before I could open my mouth, Dimitri opened his trap.

"Look at her all scared now," Dimitri laughed and grabbed Tessa by her waist and pulled her against himself, "but unfortunately for me, she belongs to Queen Avalyn," he motioned towards my pissed off form and then his smile brightened. "She's extremely pissed at her slave, as you can see. I don't believe we will get the opportunity to touch her slave as of now."

Is he really dumb enough to believe that I'm pissed at Tessa instead of him?

I let out a growl of warning, stalked to him, wanting to take Tessa away from these two people. I can't fathom that Dimitri would be like this!

I couldn't stop staring at him. This is not Dimitri. What is wrong with him?

"I believe it's time to go, Lady Pesre. It was a pleasure meeting you," Dimitri inclined his head towards her, tossed Tessa over his shoulder and then walked towards me before I could make it to him.

'We need to leave, Avalyn. Let's go to our quarters and I promise I'll explain everything.' He mind linked me.

I pressed my lips together and then whirled around and strode there.

Dimitri entered just behind me and shut the doors after us. He placed Tessa on the floor and her trembling legs gave out, after which she fell down to her knees.

She scrambled close to me, clutching my legs as her body vibrated with controllable sobs. "I'm s-so sorry, Mistress."

"There is nothing you need to apologise for." I placed my hand on her head, assuring her that she was safe and nothing would happen to her.

"Explain yourself, Dimitri," I demanded quietly. "I'm fucking pissed. You better have a good explanation or else we are going to have a problem."

He sighed and rubbed his hand over his face, much like Nik did when he was tired and frustrated. "A slave not kneeling next to her Mistress in bad. Her standing away from her with a loose leash is even worse, Avalyn. It looks like she ran away, and runaway slaves are brutally punished or killed."

"But she didn't! I left her leash! Voluntarily!"

"That's even worse. You releasing her leash in public as good as saying that she isn't your slave anymore and she is fair game to anyone else," he explained and my jaw dropped. "Why did you release it anyways?"

"I was pissed! She shouldn't have to kneel, or crawl or wear a leash like a dog." A scowl formed on my face as I pulled Tessa to her feet and immediately unhooked her leash.

"Did you see how those people were treating those slaves? It makes my skin crawl! It makes me want to kill every single person who so much so even looks at them the wrong way." I hissed. "I know all of you believe it's your 'culture and tradition' to have slaves but I'm not going to follow it anymore. I am done. I don't care, Tessa is not coming out anymore. And I fucking dare you, Dimitri, you are not laying another hand on her to make yourself look 'cool' or 'get a piece of ass'," I said, menacingly, "you won't like what I would do."

"I was just trying to protec—" he shut up at my glare and lowered his head, "I'm sorry."

"What happened?" Nikolai asked. I didn't even realise he had arrived.

"Ask your brother." I snapped.

Dimitri recounted the events to Nikolai who kept nodding and then looked at me, "he was right. One little slap is nothing, anyone else would have punished her on the spot and let others participate just for the heck of it."

My jaw dropped. Was this really the norm? Is this how everyone truly behaved?

I am disappointed.

"I did it to stop you from saying something that would have gotten Tessa in trouble. She was clearly interested in her," Dimitri justified in a gentle voice. "That was the only motive behind my words and actions."

I understood his reasoning, I got what he was saying. This was more like the real Dimitri I knew. But I was just so angry!

"But-but you said—"

"We are the people in powerful positions, Moya Lyubov," Nik's words were soft as he circled his arms around me, "our actions speak for the Kingdom. And they can affect Vladimir and Sofiya. These people see kindness as weakness. Especially towards humans. And once you show a single weakness, just see just how ruthlessly people will drill it to bring you down."

I knew this.

A pack is only as strong as their weakest link. That was why Nik had every single people in our Kingdom train hard. Even our omegas were as strong as a healthy wolf in another pack. Dimitri and Andrei were as strong as normal Alphas. And Nikolai was stronger than any vampire or wolf I had ever seen.

And yet, all these men trained every single day. That's why other packs were scared of Soare-Luna, that's why they thought not twice but multiple times before crossing us. And if word got out that we care about our slaves that much, about weak, defenceless humans that much, we would be an easy target.

I melted against his embrace and then fought against the tears that threatened to rise up my eyes. "I hate it, Mi Amor," I whispered. "I wish it wasn't like this."

His hold on me tightened. "One day, it won't be. We will work hard for it. Just have patience, my Love." The way he said that... it seemed like he had a plan. And it scared me.

I got out of his embrace and hugged Dimitri, "I'm sorry. And thank you for what you did."

"It's fine, Avalyn." He hugged me back. "And just for the record. I didn't want a 'piece of her ass' as you put it," my cheeks flamed up at my crass words, "I have better standards than that." He smirked.

"Point noted." I giggled.