Page 4 of Red's Beast

Of course, he expects me to clean on my hands and knees like we used to. It’s a punishment that he likes to use often.

“Okay, I will have it done in no time,” I whisper. “Even without the blasted mop, which would make this so much easier.”

My throat constricts as I reluctantly move my hand from my nose and mouth and search for a spot to place the basket on my arm. Once I find a safe spot, I look up at the wall and find a place to put my cloak, so it won’t get dirty. I cherish it above all else, for it is all I have left of my mother.

I reach down to where the bucket and scrub brush wait before walking across the room. The corner near the fireplace on the opposite side of the room is where I normally start and work myself backward into the kitchen. As I kneel on the floor, I can feel the weight of his gaze following my every move.

Carefully reaching into the mop water, I feel the brush bristles pricking my skin before I pull it out and start cleaning the floor.

I glance behind me when I hear the heavy thud of Corbin’s boot beside me. His harsh gaze meets mine.

“What do you want, Corbin? I’m obeying your orders and cleaning the floors, just like you asked me to do.”

He squats down and reaches toward me. His fingers slip under my chin as he roughly forces me to look up into his orange eyes. “I like you like this. Did you know this is exactly where you belong? That’s right, granddaughter of the fallen alpha. You belong on your hands and knees, serving me.”

I jerk my chin out of his grasp and spit on his leather boots. “Not in this lifetime or any other life. Maybe in your wildest dreams, but it will never happen in reality.”

He stares at the toe of his boot where my spit landed and grits his teeth in frustration. “Clean that up before I make you use your tongue to do so. I have better uses for it than cleaning my boots, but if I must make you obedient, then I will do it.”

With one swift movement, I take the scrub brush meant for the floor and scrub it right across the toe of his boot, leaving a trail of foamy suds behind. “There, all better. My spit is not on your boot.”

He lets out a low growl as his gaze shifts to meet mine. “That isn’t what I meant. Now, look at the mess you have made. You have scratched my boots.”

His lips pull into a snarl as he reaches for my hair. Once he has most of it in his grasp, he holds me there, demanding my full attention.

“You may come from a long line of alphas, but that doesn’t make you anyone important. Remember, you are nothing. Not even your wolf wants to be with you. You don’t even have anything to fight back with, so you better behave and do as I say.”

“Enough!” Nigel’s voice echoes through the room as he comes from the kitchen to where we are. “Leave the help be, son.”

Corbin lets go of my hair, causing my head to bob because of his harsh movements. Despite this, I keep my gaze low because I don’t want to provoke his father’s anger toward me. It is one thing to have Corbin after me, but I never want to make his father angry. If he becomes enraged, then there is no telling whathe’d do to my grandmother to make me fall in line, and that is the last thing I want.

Corbin stomps his way across the room toward the kitchen, making each footfall sound like thunder and leaving mud across the floor.

“Corbin, get out of there before you do something stupid. Lillian has plenty of work to do without you bothering her or making more of a mess. Don’t you have somewhere else to be? Maybe you should clean your room for once or practice your alpha commands.”

He pauses at the kitchen door and looks his father directly in the eye before glancing at me. For a moment, it feels as if he might come over here and punch me, or at least fake it. I’m so used to his behavior that I don’t even react anymore because it’s become expected, but he typically won’t do it in front of his father.

Instead, both he and his father leave the room without another word, so I resume scrubbing the floors.

Over the next thirty minutes, I work myself backward across the entire floor. The cleaning solution has made a great difference in the smell of the room, but I still wonder what caused the smell to begin with.

When I finally work myself into the first corner, I notice a mysterious puddle of liquid that I can’t even begin to identify. I reach out to touch it with my bare hands, but yank my hand away when I get close.

“No, I’m not touching that.”

I pick up the bucket and pour water on the floor where the liquid is, then use the brush to scrub it off. Once that is finished, I lean back on my heels and look around the room, but find more odd puddles across the floor.

“How did that get there? What even is it?”

Disgust consumes me as I stare at the odd spots on the floor.

I know they hold enormous parties here. Well, Corbin does when Nigel is busy. There is no telling what has happened in this house or the horrors these walls have witnessed. If they spoke, I don’t know that I could even listen to them.

Heels clicking across the kitchen tiles catches my attention. I turn my head slightly to the side to see who is coming into the living room.

“Hello, trash. Looks like you aren’t working hard enough, since you are just sitting there,” Ophelia says in her annoying high-pitched voice. “The stink in this house must be because you are here. Why don’t you just get these floors cleaned up and get lost?”

“Gladly,” I say with a smile. “Could you tell Corbin to quit making puddles on the floor? It must be his drool that I can’t get off of the pine flooring of the alpha house. Maybe then I could be quicker.”

---