The day of Sarah's 18th birthday dawned as sunny and hot as it had two years ago. And as I watched her dancing around the room, singing as she got dressed, I knew history wasn't going to repeat itself. The first I knew of it was when she returned upstairs with my food, her eyes glittering with malice as she laid the tray before me where I sat on the floor. "I'm going to be keeping you close to me today," she said, smirking as she snidely withheld permission to eat. I was used to this by now, after a year and a half of such treatment, but I kept my mouth shut as she continued. "I'm not having you hide away, because, well, the world needs to see how obedient you are, don't they?"
"Yes, Beta," I said, keeping my hands folded tightly in my lap.
Sarah studied me for a few minutes more, before gesturing grandly to the tray. "Eat," she said graciously, and I did as I was told.
A year and a half had passed since my return, and it had been a long welter of endless chores, constant humiliation, and a burning desire for revenge which kept me going when otherwise I might have given up. And giving up was not in my nature.
But it had come damn close sometimes.
I thought back on that last eighteen months, shivering as I recalled how cruel and malicious Sarah had truly become since the fight two years ago. She never lost a moment to torment me, and when she was away from my side, I wasn't free of her; she'd forced me to link minds with her my first night home, and she was now truly living up to her "promise" of going wherever I went, even if she couldn't follow me physically.
And it was a nightmare.
But the last eighteen months had taught me that Sarah wasn't as smart as she thought; linking our minds had given me an unexpected and unwanted insight into the true nature she hid from everyone else. And to know what I knew of her now frightened me more than anything.
She loathed me with a passion, and it wasn't just because I had no wolf. Mum and Alpha Ben had been close growing up, and since I was Mum's only child, Alpha Ben had viewed me as a second daughter after Dad died, hence his promise of protection. Sarah had been, in her mind, left out in the cold when Alpha Ben took me under his wing, guiding me and helping me get through those agonising years after Dad's death. Sarah had, therefore, decided that I was to suffer at all costs, and the cruelty she'd displayed towards me all our lives had blossomed out into full-blown malice, malice she could now show openly after years of having to hide it.
And she wanted me dead more than anything. But under that desire to see me dead was another, a longing to punish and humiliate me for the rest of my life. Death was too good for me, in her mind, and it was an escape. To her, I didn't deserve to escape her, either through death or other means. Hence it was her ultimate goal to link me to her wolf once Alpha Ben had passed on, which would then give me a long lifespan like her, a lifespan which would enable her to keep me at her side for many, many years to come, forever a prisoner chained to her will, subject to her every twisted, hateful desire. And it was the thought of me being forever chained to her side which kept her from showing her true colours. What I was going through now was only a taste of the true punishment she planned to inflict on me once Alpha Ben had died - and since he wasn't dying any time soon, Sarah was growing increasingly impatient. But she was also ready to wait for however long it took before she could assume the reins as Alpha. It would, to her, make the goal of owing me forever that much sweeter when she finally had me at her mercy.
Shuddering inside, I finished my breakfast. Sarah then snatched the tray off me. "Get up," she ordered. As I did so, she pointed to the bed. "You're going to be wearing that today," she said, and my face went white when I saw it was a very skimpy two-piece swimsuit. It wasn't quite a bikini, but it came damn close.
Sarah smirked at the shock on my face. "Jesse is going to be here today with his mate," she said, her voice scornful as she said the last word. "Apparently they're to announce an engagement tonight, but, well, if a scandal happens, that engagement won't happen, will it?" She grinned. "And I know the perfect scandal.I If Jesse is caught in a compromising position with, say, the lowest member of the pack, it's not going to be hard to connect the dots, is it? He'll naturally be worried about his childhood friend, and when they're alone for a few moments, he'll be so overwhelmed with worry that he'll find himself holding her in his arms as she cries, telling him all about her mean, nasty cousin."
I grimaced to myself.
Sarah continued. "Then, of course, Mia is going to come on the scene," she said, "and oh! The horror! The shame! Her own betrothed, harrassing and fondling another girl! He'll protest, of course, but she won't believe him because why should she? He was the one who took you in his arms to comfort you, and you certainly can't be held responsible for the actions of a man who can't control himself, and on the night of his own engagement, no less!
"And naturally, there will be quite a scene," Sarah said, grinning cruelly. "I'll come and rescue you from your depraved cousin, proving I'm not so 'mean', and Jesse will be shamed and ridiculed for believing such malicious untruths. Then Mia will break the enagement, and Jesse shall be forced to go on bended knee to his future father-in-law and beg forgiveness, to which the wronged father will demand he be exiled from both the Brindlebone pack and his own pack, condemned to wander the land as a rogue for the rest of his life."
I wanted to be sick. But I hid the revulsion as Sarah delivered her master stroke. "But I shall be gracious and bring him home," she said. "And of course, I'll be more than happy to comfort him. While you watch."
Her smile right then was even more cruel as she looked at me. "I might even let you have a turn," she said. "Now that will be enjoyable, won't it?"
"Yes, Beta," I said as bravely as I could. "It will be enjoyable."
Sarah grunted, her glittering mood gone. "Get dressed," she said in a flat voice. "I won't have you dawdling about and ruining this for me."
I nodded in submission and got changed, trembling as I realised what I was going to do when this supposed "scandal" was going to take place.
And Sarah would probably kill me for it, but anything would be better than suffering her wrath when her scheme to break Jesse and Mia up blew up in her face.
Then again, I reminded myself, she would probably drag me kicking and screaming from the gates of hell itself, rather than let me escape her through death. It did not make for pleasant thinking at all.
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