Page 35 of A Mysterious Slave for the Lycan Prince

“Are you alright?” Elodie whispers to me.

“It’s nothing,” I mutter, not wanting to attract too much attention.

The core of all these feelings seems to come from the basement. Indeed, when we walk past it, I can see some young scrawny-looking guys and a bunch of very skinny young women going up and down there. They seem to be…maids here, or…I don’t know. I notice the hollow look in their eyes and how they don’t even dare to look at us. They look broken.

Some of them show bruises on their arms, and I wonder where they got them from and why they aren’t healing. They look at us secretly, like they are scared, and I wonder what they expect us to do.

Arman’s anger seems more adamant now too when we pass them. “The alpha expects you,” he says, his voice giving nothing away.

Max both growls and whimpers in my mind.

What’s going on?I want to know.

This is a living hell,he hisses.I can feel their wolves, but they are so weak like they are purposefully being suppressed.

Arman leads us upstairs to the alpha’s office. A young man already awaits us; he looks pretty strong and is obviously of alpha blood. This time I’m sure it’s the alpha’s heir. Alpha Colton is said to have one son, and it has to be him. “May I introduce you.” Arman points at said young man. “This is Benjamin, heir of Blood Snow.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, young Alpha,” I say politely, bowing slightly. This time the others catch on and quickly follow suit.

“Likewise,” he says shortly. His aura is conflicting, I notice. He seems to elude the same vile hatred the guard did, but there is also hidden pain and sadness. And while introducing him, Arman had a hint of pity in his eyes.

Hm. I’m not sure about him. Seems bad, but maybe not as horrendous as the others.

I’m switching it off now,Max says.You are meeting the alpha. The alpha of this shit place, for sure, is bad to the core. We don’t need to read his aura.

I agree; besides, we need to keep our strength.

Benjamin leads us inside his father’s office. The man waiting for us looks exactly like I imagined him to, and I’m glad Max decided to retreat. Nothing about this man eludes anything warm or welcoming; he looks as cold as the weather outside. I also can’t help but notice how Benjamin hardly looks at him. His hands are clenched into fists, trembling slightly.

My Dad is a very dominant alpha male too, but I can’t remember one single time that I was truly scared of him. He always was a loving father to all of us, and he still is.

I swallow my feelings down. I have a role to play. “Alpha Colton, it’s such a pleasure to meet you.” I bow in front of him, hoping I’ll appear as submissive as I should be. I’m probably the biggest danger to our group right now. Anthony and Henry are younger; they don’t elude that much strength yet because they only turned eighteen recently, but I’m a royal lycan, and while Mom did give me a potion to hide my powers…it’s still risky. This here is a powerful alpha.

“You are Finn, am I right? The heir to the beta position,” he frowns. “You look strong for a beta.”

I pretend to be proud of his words. “In Emerald Moon, we take pride in the beta position. My father trained me hard.”

He seems content with my explanation, and I hurry to distract him by introducing the others and their made-up stories. For the first time, I’m glad Anthony and Henry slacked off during the last year, so they don’t appear too strong. Unlike me, they are actual heirs to a lycan alpha, and once they pick up their training and get a few years older, they will be quite the force to reckon with.

“You look strong too,” Alpha Colton comments towards Steve.

Steve smiles proudly. To him, this is actually a real compliment. “I’m supposed to inherit the gamma position,” he says, straightening his back.

“You are all promising young men,” Alpha Colton comments without sounding the least bit sincere. He completely ignored Elise and Elodie as if they weren’t even present. “We have a dinner prepared for you tonight. Come join us in time for it. On the weekend, there will be a banquet to welcome you properly. As for them,” he states while looking at Elodie and Elise. “We normally don’t host women in the pack house, but we’ll make an exception, as you are guests. Arman will show you to your rooms.” He pauses and looks at us insistently. “If you require entertainment for tonight or any other night, some of our girls will please you in all ways possible.”

I blink. Wait…what?

The scared look on the faces of the young women pop up in my mind again.

I’m starting to realize that we didn’t prepare well enough for this. We did put a lot of effort into training and having potential backup plans in case of failure, but seeing how shit this place is, I think we should have researched differently and should have worked a lot more as a team from the first moment on.

There is no time for what-ifs though. We might not have prepared well enough, but we are here now and need to make the best out of it.

“Thank you,” I press out, trying to remain calm. “We truly appreciate your generosity.”

“Benjamin,” Alpha Colton commands. “Tell Ludovica to send some tea to our guests.” I watch his son scurry away, leaving us alone with this awful alpha and Arman. “Arman, show them their rooms.”

Arman nods, bowing slightly and leading us downstairs again. We are all too spellbound to even link each other, so we walk entirely in silence. When we are about to reach the second floor, where I assume our rooms will be, we meet another group of maids or whatever the alpha uses them for. They look thin and pale too, and the look in their eyes is the same as we saw before. They look haunted. Compared to the girls we saw downstairs, they are dressed better, though, and I assume this is the bunch that’s supposed to entertain us.

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