AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I didn’t have to ask where the fourth wife was. I’d heard her cries well into the night as the High Alpha used her as he pleased. She was a young beta, barely seventeen. She’d been married to him for five years and had already birthed two of his children.
If I had anything left in my stomach, I would’ve thrown up. Not even the feverish mania of my heat could keep me from ingraining her screams in my head. As it was, I felt like I’d been shoved into a washing machine and set on the spin cycle for the last twenty-four hours.
The shack was only a few yards from the wives’ quarters, but it might as well have been miles, as exhausted as I was. Soundlessly, the wives hauled me into the back of the house and up the stairs to the second floor. I barely noticed the peeling walls and a faint mildew scent smothered in bleach stung my nostrils as they dragged me to the bathroom.
The eldest of the wives, Miriam, practically shoved me into a shower stall, a scowl permanently fixed on her face. At thirty-three, she was still twenty years the High Alpha’s junior, but she was the one who called all the shots with the wives.
And she hated me.
“Disgusting,” she finally muttered, breaking the silence. Her lips twisted into a grimace as she waited for me to peel the sweat and slick soaked cloth from my body. She tossed it at the other wife, Daphne, with a huff.
Daphne, a petite woman who was barely twenty-five, kept her head down. I hadn’t heard her speak more than ten words since I’d first arrived at the compound years ago. Her small frame was currently heavy with her fourth child.
It was something that pissed off Miriam, who apparently hadn’t been able to conceive a child for the last three years.
Then again, almost everything pissed Miriam off. She was a miserable bitch who loved making people feel as awful as she did. She’d drunk all the High Alpha’s Kool-Aid and asked for a refill.
Miriam turned, her elbow snapping into Daphne’s stomach. Daphne paled, a hand shooting out to the wall to steady herself as she let out a soft cry of pain. Her other hand came up to cradle her belly.
With a hiss, Miriam whirled on Daphne, her back to me. “It’s your own fault for being too close.” She sneered at the younger woman. “Go.”
Daphne’s golden brown eyes flickered to me for barely a heartbeat before skittering away, but not fast enough for Miriam to miss.
With a shove, Miriam pushed the smaller woman. Daphne stumbled on the broken tiles of the floor, catching herself against the sink with a pained cry as her stomach hit it first. Miriam flinched for a second, clearly wondering if she’d gone too far.
It wasn’t like the High Alpha actually cared about Daphne beyond her being a pretty doll he could fuck and parade around, but he definitely cared about the child she carried.
“Fool,” Miriam hissed, grabbing Daphne’s elbow, her knuckles turning white where she gripped Daphne’s pale flesh. “You have to be more careful. You’re carrying the child of our High Alpha.”
I shook my head, wanting to say something as Miriam gaslighted Daphne right in front of me, but it was all I could do to stay standing at this point. I was weak from five days of fevers and minimal food and water.
Daphne ducked her head, her lower lip trembling.
Miriam sighed, the sound slightly less aggravated as she smoothed an almost motherly hand down Daphne’s spine. “Go and rest, Daphne. I will finish with the omega.”
The way she spat my title left little room for interpretation—the woman flat out hated me. Like I’d been the one begging some higher power to make me a slave to my hormones for my adult life. Or that I’d begged the High Alpha to make me his next wife.
After Daphne left and quietly closed the door behind her, Miriam turned her fury on me.
“You reek, omega,” she hissed, reaching into the shower stall and turning on the ice cold water.
I jerked with a gasp, my skull cracking against the tiles of the shower wall as I tried to skitter away, icy bullets pelting my clammy skin. I tried to dodge the arctic spray, but she doggedly pushed me back into it, shoving up the sleeves of her shirt and baring the roman numeral that denoted her as the first wife. It had been burned into her skin with a branding iron.
My gut clenched and roiled as I imagined the V being seared into my flesh in a few days.
“Clean yourself,” she barked. She was a beta, and a weak one at that, but my omega impulses were so fritzed out and overwhelmed, I jumped to obey the command.
“Filthy slut,” she muttered, loathing lacing her words as she watched me wash my hair with trembling hands.
I didn’t bother with conditioner, positive that there was no way I could lift my arms over my head enough. My eyes drifted shut, blackness fuzzing the edges of my vision. I was so damn tired.
Something sharp flicked across my nipple, the bite of pain making me yelp as my eyes snapped open.
Miriam smirked, the wet washcloth in her hand likely what she’d hit me with. Not enough to leave a mark the High Alpha might notice, but enough to make me remember my place in her world.
She squirted a liberal amount of scent blocking body wash into the rag and jerked her chin at my pussy, unabashedly staring between my legs. “Clean your fuckhole. It’s what the High Alpha needs you for, after all. It must be pristine for your claiming next week. Right now it smells like rot.”
Humiliation burned through my cheeks. She was right; I smelled awful. My usual chocolate cake perfume had soured, mixing with the stink of sweat and dried slick. I reeked like a moldy confection, set in the sun and left for flies and maggots to cover.
