CHAPTER ONE

“Get up!” I heard from the door of the room I was forced to sleep in, making me jump up too fast.

My head swooned from the impact.

I looked around to familiarize myself with my new reality.

Just yesterday, I was the Beta Female of the LongRiver Pack, and now, I was a slave.

Not just to anyone, but to the horrible Twin Princes of the Vampire coven.

“You want me to come in there and wack you in the head? Get up and get ready, there's no time! This isn't your former glamourous life; here, you're a slave, and since your blood is worthless, you will prove your worth in other ways, so get the fuck up!” The female vampire at the door yelled at me, effectively snapping me out of my reverie.

She looked thinner than they described them to be, and I'd met other ones on my way here, so she was thin even by their own standards. But that didn't take away from her beauty; it was a goth type of look she was trying to achieve with the Kohl under her eyes and the general black outfit, but it was the evil glint in her eyes that set the tone right.

I didn't hesitate; I was used to my former mate beating me up at every slight inconvenience, and I was hoping that wouldn't be the case here. My wolf wasn't with me anymore and if I got too much blood loss, I would actually die.

And I promised my mom on her deathbed that I was going to find my sister, and that's the only reason I've not joined her in the afterlife.

I got up and quickly put on the clothes they had set for me in the corner.

The room was small, painted a dreary gray color, and the only furniture in it was a small table and chair, the bed, and the wardrobe that was falling apart by the side.

I rushed to the bathroom, poured water on my face, and brushed my teeth.

“Hurry up! I don't have all day!”

She meant night, and it dawned on me that I'd have to restructure my mental clock to fit theirs.

Outside was pitch black except for the tiny lights that shone across the vast space outside. The palace was the tallest building in their capital kingdom, where I was taken to.

Of all people for Julian to sell me off to, it was the damn vampire royals. The moon goddess did me a great disservice by making him my mate.

But I was used to adapting, never letting anything affect me too much because if I took even one second to grieve it breakdown, I might never get up.

Each night after he beat me up, I shut off my brain and refused to think about the situation, I would rather make up stories in my head with happier characters. And when I got my hands on a novel, perfection!

But he would eventually find it, beat me up over it, and throw it away; he didn't like me having any sort of reprieve.

I followed the vampire lady out of the small room, closing the wooden door behind me.

Thankfully, I was still a werewolf even if my wolf had joined everyone else to abandon me because I would have been tired from all the walking we did.

The servant quarters were so far off from where I was supposed to work that it was ridiculous.

As we got to the end of the drab passageway, she knocked on three other doors, two on the left, and it opened immediately, bringing out three humans, all females.

They bowed to the lady whose face was turned all the way up and wordlessly, we all followed her out.

The entire place was lit up brighter the closer we got to the main wings.

Whereas the servant quarters were painted gray all through with wooden doors lining the long passageway, the normal parts of the palace were a colorful, properly secure edifice.

The iron doors were shiny, showing how much work servants did here.

Finally, we began climbing the steps that hopefully led to wherever I was going to be working. I might not be tired of the walking but I was bored. I couldn't escape into my mind because this was a strange place; I needed to be wide-eyed and alert. I might not have desirable blood but vampires could kill you because they were in a bad mood.

It was one of the reasons why our species didn't like each other; they were obsessed with asserting dominance through murder and bloodshed, while werewolves were all about honor, aura, and sometimes, even dialogue.

But when push comes to shove, my species would spill as much blood as can be imagined, we just respect the moon goddess and try not to waste lives.

“Here,” the vampire said, stopping at a large aluminum door that looked like it was guarding a gold reserve. “Every morning, you'll knock once and stand here until it's opened for you. The cleaning supplies are two doors down, you must deep clean their room every single day. That's what you're useful for anyway, these humans can't lift a damn thing. I'll inspect your work at midnight, don't let me find you defaulting in any way,” she finished and began walking away.

One second, she was in front of us; the next, she'd disappeared.

I shivered at the eeriness of it all.

“Hi,” I greeted the girls left behind with me, looking tense as hell.

The first one, a petite girl with chubby cheeks, looked at me and then down on the floor. She looked like she was holding back sobs or something.

“Sorry, we're kind of in the middle of praying we don't die tonight,” the other one, a caramel-skinned girl with bangs in her hair and the cutest freckles.

They looked healthy and beautiful, but their eyes carried a lot of sadness.

“Die? Why would you… oh!” I realized why they were here.

To stop vampires from exposing the supernaturals to humans, the Supernatural Council enforced a rule, well more of a bargain between the vampires and the human government where they send humans to them to be fed on instead of them hunting them out there.

They'd feed them blood-enriching foods so they'll survive whatever stage of hunger the vampire is in.

“I'm sorry,” I whispered and remembered I wasn't here on a holiday. I probably had three hours to finish cleaning the room, and even though I'd not seen it before, I knew it was big.

So I took her instructions, went down to the door she'd pointed to, and got the supplies.

Thankfully, Julian has turned me into a maid instead of his mate, so I knew what to do here.

Then I walked back, knocked at the door, and the three of us stood straighter.

And we began waiting.