ELITH
The moment I opened my eyes, I winced from the blinding lamplight that flooded my vision from above. My head was ringing, and every move I made felt labored and painfully hard.
It took me a while to finally come to my senses, and the moment I did, I realized that I was lying on a single bed positioned next to a wall in a small, rather simple room that barely had any other furniture.
"Ugh... Where am I?" I asked as I sat on my bed, flinching and wincing from the ache that seemed to have tightened every single muscle in my body.
"You're in the Lycan Kingdom," a soft female voice replied to me right away, making me snap my head in its direction despite the painful restraint.
"Who––Who are you?!" I yelped, though it sounded more like a rumble than anything else.
It was a young woman just like me. Judging by her soft features and fresh complexion, she was no older than twenty. Her long, red hair was cascading down her back in heavy waves, flaring vigorously against her porcelain skin.
The girl's big, green eyes were bright and clear, and her full, pouty lips were unnaturally red.
"I'm Matilda," she introduced herself, shifting awkwardly in her spot. "What is your name?"
"Elith," my voice came out in a quiet sigh, but Matilda still heard me.
"You're wolfless, aren't you?" She suddenly asked, turning my blood ice cold.
"How d–did you know?"
"Your scent is different," she explained with a small smile on her red lips. "I could tell right away."
Then, she rose to her feet and slowly approached my bed, her green eyes locked onto my face the entire time. My body shrank and recoiled, though I couldn't sense any malice hidden in her movements.
After years of constant abuse, I had learned to read other people's body language, and Matilda's body seemed surprisingly lax.
"It's better to hide this fact from others, though," she warned me as she took a seat beside me. "Lycans hate weakness. They will tear you apart the moment they find out."
She then paused as if remembering something else, before adding. "Others, too."
For some strange reason, all I could focus on at that moment was how friendly she actually seemed. Being a wolfless runt born to the alpha parents, I was considered a defect – a weakness that needed to be eradicated.
Even the lowliest of omegas treated me like dirt, but Matilda... Why did she seem so different?
"My mother was a human," she said as if she could read my mind. "I guess I should be grateful to the Moon Goddess that I was born with a wolf. I wouldn't have survived in my pack had I been born a runt. Though now that I'm here... Maybe death would have been far more merciful."
"Excuse me," I started carefully, unable to focus on her own story. "Why... Why are we here?"
Matilda widened her eyes, clearly taken aback by my seemingly innocent question. "What do you mean? We are slaves here! Sex slaves, to be precise!"
Then, it all came down to me like a crushing ocean wave – the meeting with my uncle, the verdict that sealed my fate, the disgusting men...
I wrapped my arms around my stomach, gasping as the horrifying images of that night started flashing before my eyes.
It was all true. I was sold to Lycans. As a sex slave, no less.
There was a reason why every female of the werewolf world was scared of being sold as a sex or breeder slave. Everything I knew about the Lycan King was utterly terrifying.
Correction – everything I knew about lycans was terrifying.
Born stronger than other shifters, lycans always boasted power over everyone else. Their blood was potent, their strength was unmatched, but what gave them an even bigger advantage was their age.
Lycans could live for hundreds of years, expanding their lands and cultivating their powers without the restraint that other shifters faced.
And that was precisely why their land was called a kingdom, and their leader was a king. No one else could dare assume such a prominent title but the lycans. They were truly the kings of all the shifters.
But longevity sure came with a price.
Due to their long lifespan, it was a lot harder for lycans to find a mate, and even more so – to procreate. That was how the concept of breeders came to life.
Regular wolves were obligated to provide females as breeders for lycans in order to help them reproduce. No pack would dare refuse, as rejecting such an order meant a complete annihilation of the entire pack.
But while being a breeder was a dreadful fate to bear, being selected as a mating candidate for the King was akin to a death sentence to many.
Because the royal lycans were cursed.
Many centuries ago, the first king of lycans, blinded by power and greed, decided to go against the Moon Goddess's orders and did what no other shifter had ever thought of doing.
He went through a dangerous ritual of combining his lycan blood with that of a vampire.
The ritual was successful, and lycans became even more powerful than they already were, spreading relentless terror throughout the lands.
They became unstoppable. They became immortal. They strived to defy the Goddess herself.
And as the Goddess could no longer stand to watch them, as a punishment for their challenging her reign, she put a curse on every lycan of the royal blood, condemning them to slowly descend into madness should they fail to find a mate and create a divine bond that would ground their existence once again.
And today, King Magnus Draxx was the second ruler in the history of the kingdom, who failed to form a bond and was already known to have gone mad.
And I... had been chosen to serve him.