Mated To The Cursed Lycan King

Leora

"Scrub the floors well, you lazy wench!" My stepmother, Amarie, head of the Alpha King's household cleaning department, bellowed at me as she brandished her whip. "I'll be back in a few minutes, and you better be done."

The pack house was full today, and for some weird reason, I felt queasy. There was no big meeting, and it was too early for the evening hunts. But yet, everyone was here, including my father, who sat in a corner like a pariah, gazing forlornly into space. My heart ached as I stared at him through my peripheral vision, remembering how happy he was when Mother was still alive.

My name was Leora, and once upon a time, I had a happy family. I was the Redwood Pack's beloved princess. But ever since my mother died, and I crossed sixteen without shifting, my life has shifted. They said my wolf was weak, worse than an omega's, which was the lowest rank in our caste. I'd never been able to understand it. My parents didn't either. Nothing about my birth was unusual, and growing up, there were no abnormalities with my development. So how could the Alpha's daughter be weaker than an Omega? Where did she get that from?

Mother became ill a few weeks after this discovery and died. Father, in grief, refused to remarry, and according to our Pack laws, an Alpha King wasn't allowed to function properly without a mate. Father rejected all the young females the Pack Elders brought to him until he was forced to step down, and the title passed on to a new family. Eventually, Father got married again, and Amarie came into our lives. At first, she was sweet and all that. But with time, she showed us, me especially, her dark side.

Amarie despised the thought that I was weak and carried me off to the new Alpha, Alpha Brennan's house, to become a maid. There were talks about our family being exiled, but I becoming a maid for the new Alpha King stopped that.

Father didn't fight for me to stay with him.

He resented me.

Rightfully so.

I'm weak. Pathetic. A runt.

And my mother had died because of me.

Wolfless and hated, I'd learned to keep my head down and do my chores. I always requested heavy-duty cleaning tasks, like scrubbing down every bathroom in the Alpha King's quarters. It kept me out of sight unless someone entered the bathroom I was cleaning. Some days, Amarie took me to the pack house to clean the bathrooms there, which were way dirtier and harder, but I didn't mind at all.

"Slow girl." I heard her biting snarl just before I felt the rope whip slash hard across my bare back. I closed my eyes and clamped my teeth over my bottom lip as pain engulfed my entire body. Hot tears sprang to my eyes, but I shut my eyes again, not letting them fall. It's no use.

"You've been scrubbing