Weak
It was already bad enough that I had to continue with the ridiculous chores that Simon had given me, which I obviously wasn’t able to finish before the end of the day. I still ended up getting caught by Lucas. I had changed out of my wet clothes and returned to Simon’s room.
“Took you long enough! Listen, if you seriously don’t finish this work today, I’ll make life miserable for you in this house,” he said, as I quietly made my way back to his shoe closet. I spent an extremely long time getting it done, and I didn’t realize it was already evening. My stomach had grumbled and growled all day, but I just dismissed it and continued with what I was doing. By the time I was finally done with cleaning the entire shoe closet, I was extremely dehydrated, tired, and weak. I got down from the ladder, extremely grateful that I had not fallen off the top, especially with how weak I had started feeling. Dragging my feet behind me, I slowly walked into my room, only to be met with an angry-looking Lucas. I scratched the back of my neck nervously, and he walked closer to where I was frozen by the door.
“What was the instruction I gave you?”
“I… oh, I didn’t mean to…”
“That’s not what I asked you, Ashley. Again I’m asking, what was the instruction I gave you?” I sighed, with my face buried down, and he instantly raised it to meet his.
“How many times do I have to tell you that when I am speaking with you, I expect you to look me straight in the eyes?” I gulped as I felt his warm breath settling on my face, which he held as he spoke.
“Now, answer the question.”
“You told me not to leave the room for 24 hours.”
“And was it up to 24 hours when you left?”
“No, it’s just that…”
“And what did I say would happen if you do not comply with my instruction?”
“It would attract a punishment.”
“That’s right.”
“My king, may I please explain why I had left the room?”
“Oh wow, so you actually have an excuse? Why not, then? Go on.”
“Honestly, I would never want to take advantage of your kindness towards me by disobeying your instructions, and so the only reason why I left the room despite your order was because your brother had come into the room and ordered me to do a couple of chores for him.”
“What? Simon was here?”
“Yes, my King. He had asked me to get his whole shoe closet cleaned and dusted. This took me the whole day to do, and I’m afraid he would be angry at me because I was not even able to wash the clothes he asked me to do as well,” for a split second, it instantly got to me that I didn’t have much time left, and that if I wanted to get the clothes washed before the end of the day, I would have to start as soon as possible.
“In fact, I need to go get started with the clothes now or I would never be able to meet up to the deadline,” I said in a panic as I tried to rush out of the room, but Lucas was quick to hold me back.
“Wait a minute. Where are you running off to? I’m not done talking to you.”
“I’m really so sorry, but I really need to get the clothes washed before your brother finds out I am here and not doing what he asked me to. He’s going to have me beaten or, even worse, killed.” I tried getting my hands off of his grip, but it was at that moment that Simon barged in through the door.
“Who gave you the permission to leave, slave?” I jerked in fear, startled by his dramatic and unexpected entry into the room. As soon as he saw that Lucas was also in the room with me, he rolled his eyes and then turned to face me.
“I thought I made it clear when I said that each and every piece of clothing I dropped needed to be washed. Why is the pile still where I left it?” I didn’t need another slap or kick in the stomach to remind me that with Simon, my head needed to be bowed and faced towards the ground.
“I am very sorry, my king, I just-”
“Zip it! Now go get everything washed, and I better not see even a tiny little smudge on any of the clothes. They better be squeaky clean.”
“Yes, my king,” I said as I proceeded to make my way out.
“And what is this supposed to be about? Stop right there, Ashley!” Lucas said from behind, and I stopped in my tracks, slowly turning back around to see what was going to happen next.
“Simon, what is the meaning of this? Take a look at how weak she is. She hasn’t eaten all day. Regardless, she still found it somehow possible to clean your whole shoe closet. Do you want her to die?”
“Oh well, then good riddance! What is the use of having her when she can’t do anything for us? Come on, don’t forget we practically bought her with money, not paper, Lucas. Real money!”
“So does that mean we should now be treating her like she’s not a human like us?”
“I don’t agree with you on that. Please, never say that again, Lucas. I’m serious.”
“What do you mean?”
“Is she human? Yes, of course, she is, but is she anything like us? No, definitely not! Please don’t ever make the mistake of comparing her to us because she doesn’t match up to our status in any way possible, and you know that.”
“Listen, I don’t even care about that. What I do not appreciate is the fact that you have decided to overwork and stress her so much, just as you have done.”
“She’s a slave. We use them until they’re no longer useful to us, so why waste it?”
“Well, you could have at least respected my authority when I asked her to remain in this room as a punishment.”
“You gave her a punishment?” Lucas turned to face me with a questioning look on his face, and I frantically shook my head, as I could already tell that he was starting to get angry again.
“No, no, no, it’s not like that at all. I had tried saying it countless times that you had given me a punishment to remain in the room, but Alpha Simon just wasn’t ready to listen to me.”
“Oh brother, I didn’t know that, but still, I also have the right to give her orders too.”
“So you think your authority is meant to override mine? Seriously?”
“What are you talking about? What I did was to ask her to do just two things, and she made such a big deal about it.”
“Oh wait, are you being for real right now? Come on, she’s a woman, and all that is just too much for her fragile body.”
“Oh please spare me all that. Why are you being so lenient with her? Bro, you are seriously getting to me, you know. She is a damn slave and we shouldn’t be making her feel like she’s anything more than that.” I continued listening to both of them arguing, and was already feeling like the room was spinning all around me. Very weakly, I tried speaking up to urge them to stop arguing, but the more I tried, the weaker my strength rapidly started getting.
“Please stop arguing,” I finally said, but my voice was barely above a whisper. Before I could make sense of what was going on next, I instantly felt my body weight becoming much more burdensome for me to carry. I tried to give it my best but it was already too late; I had fallen straight to the floor, and right before the darkness finally took over, I heard Simon’s voice going, “Oh wow, here we go again.”
The next morning, I had woken up to a silent and much more peaceful ambience. Carefully laid on the bed and being tucked under the sheets, I could already tell who had definitely been nice enough to actually lift me up to the bed between both Lycan twin brothers. Obviously, it just had to be Lucas that did that, and there was no arguing that. I was about to get out of bed when I heard Madam Mortica’s voice as she walked in with a tray in her hands.
“Don’t even think about it, young lady. One foot off of that bed, it’s back to sleep with you again.”
“Oh, good morning, Madam Mortica,” I greeted.
“Well, at least it’s good for you! Just because you decided to be so dramatic, having a little fainting episode, the rest of us now have to treat you like you are actually a member of the royal family or something,” she retorted.
“What do you mean?”
“Whatever, here!” She carelessly placed the tray on my lap, and a little of the contents inside the covered bowl spilled out, revealing it was soup.
“Drink the soup, and every drop of it at that. Apparently, your body was extremely dehydrated yesterday, so we’re supposed to feed you more water-filled foods,” she instructed.
“Thank you,” I gratefully replied, opening the lid covering the bowl. It was chicken noodle soup. I used the spoon to scoop some soup, drinking it to awaken my stomach. As soon as the first spoonful reached my stomach, a loud growl followed, and I looked around the room embarrassed.
“Yikes! It sounds like you haven’t eaten in almost three months, geez,” she remarked, making her way out while I focused back on the soup in front of me. Relishing every spoonful, I could feel bits of energy slowly returning to me. Finally, warmth returned to my freezing body. I didn’t want to rush it despite my extreme hunger, to avoid overeating and getting a stiff stomach, which would land me in the hospital.
As soon as I finished the bowl of soup, I burped loudly, quickly checking to ensure no one had heard it. Madam Mortica returned to the room, this time with a platter of fresh fruits-mainly watermelon, pineapple, and berries-finely sliced for easy chewing. I gladly took it from her.
“Thank you.” She took the tray with the empty soup bowl, frowned, and then said, “You better get well soon because I’m starting to get tired of coming to feed you up here, understood?” I hesitantly nodded, and she left the room with the tray in her hands.
“Geez, that woman is just a witch! How is it my fault that Simon almost killed me yesterday?” I rolled my eyes, taking a bite of a watermelon slice. It wasn’t even like she had come to serve me three times already; it was just the second time, and she was already complaining. After a few more bites of fruit, I grew tired of staying in bed. I tried to get up to stretch my legs and get back on my feet. I put down the first foot and felt quite okay. The second foot followed suit, and I still felt fine. However, the moment I tried to evenly distribute my body weight, my legs gave way. Just before I hit the floor, a firm hand gripped my waist, preventing me from falling. I sighed in relief, smiling as I realized my fall would have been terrible. But when I looked up to thank Lucas for saving me, my smile immediately dropped, fear gripping me as I met eyes with none other than Simon! I blinked my eyes a couple of times to be sure that I was not dreaming, but it really was Simon standing in front of me, holding me firmly as he broke my fall.