Lucy’s POV
As if having to watch my people get treated like shit wasn’t enough, Ahmad put me in charge of the interrogations. Now, I had a front-row seat to how it would proceed, and the thought of it already made me a little sick.
The interrogations were scheduled to hold indoors in one of the rooms within the pack house barely used to limit leakage of information, and to ensure that if anyone happneot slip up, they would be taken care of swiftly without causing harm to other people.
Apprehension boiled within me. I really wanted to hope that the attacker wasn’t anyone from our pack, but what if it was? It would give members of Monngrowl pack have another reason to treat us poorly. I had been shielded by the little authority I had when Daven was still alive, but with him gone, no one saw the need to keep up with some of his rules, especially respect-and his sons weren’t making things any easier.
That morning, I put on my thickest skin. The enslaved Bloodbath members weren’t going to be happy seeing me, and I already expected some of them to curse me out and call me names for ‘betraying’ them.
Oh, if only they knew.
I arrived at the room earlier than others, and found that the first person in line for the interrogation was a young girl no older than 9. My heart sank in my chest once I realised what that meant. For what purpose did Daven and his men capture such a young child? Children had no place being used as slaves.
If it was possible to hate an already dead man even more, it happened.
After making sure no one else was nearby, I went to the girl. She had wild fluffy curls that covered most of her face, but her features were doll-like.
She flinched when I reached out to touch her. Tremors wracked her little form, making her appear even smaller in her drab, dusty grey gown that looked more like a sack than a dress.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. I’m not . . . I’m not going to hurt you,” I said softly, reaching for her slowly.
She finally looked up at me, giving me a full glimpse of her tear-streaked face. “P-Please, don’t hurt me. I didn’t do anything to the Alpha, I swear it!”
A sad breath whooshed out of me. I grasped her hand and gently pulled her out of the chair so I could wrapher in an embrace. She was so young and innocent, who could have possibly thought she would be capable of hurting someone else?
She cried into my shoulder, her soft, choked sobs shaking me down yo my core.
I ran my hand over her hair. “It’s okay. I believe you,” I said. “I know you did nothing wrong.”
The the last people I needed to see in that moment stepped into the room, coming to a halt when they noticed me holding the little girl in my arms.
I turned to them, expecting one of them to utter something stupid so I could release my rage on them like hot fire.
None of them said anything. Not even smartass Shaun that always had something annoying to say.
I straightened up, and let the girl’s hand slip into mine. They were soft and warm, everything to expect from one so young. With one glance at the triplets, I led the girl towards the exit. She hid behind me, and cautiously watched the men in the room.
“It’s okay,” I reassured her, “they won’t do anything to you.”
We had just reached the door when someone finally broke the stiff silence.
“Wait.”
I didn’t want to respond and just keep going, but I decided to just answer, even if I didn’t end up doing whatever was expected of me.
Scott moved to where the girl had been sitting and picked up a dusty little doll on the floor. “This must belong to you,” he said quietly, handing it over to the little girl.
Cautiously, she took the doll from him. She sniffed, “T-Thank you.” The fear slipped from her eyes a little, allowing me to see her baby blue eyes that looked too beautiful for this place.
Scott simply nodded and stepped away. He didn’t smile, but his face held less of that usual tension it always seemed to carry. His eyes connected with mine for a split second, but I turned away and pulled my mind back to the present. He was an enemy still. They all were my enemies. I wouldn’t let my guard down.
I took the girl outside the building and told her to go home, before realising that we were slaves in a foreign pack-we had no homes here. All we had were people who owned us.
If I had the power to change that, why wouldn’t I have taken it?
“Who are you staying with?” I asked her. It irritated me that I had to ask, but I had no choice. “Who is your master?”
“Mistress,” the young girl said quietly. “Dominik. She’s a widow. She’s not very nice,” she added.
As to be expected. We were brought to Moongrowl as mere commodities. So definitely there were people that would have jumped on the opportunity to own slaves, despite the fact that we did absolutely nothing to this pack to be treated in such a way. Daven’s rule had been terrible, and his death was a very small price to pay for all that we had suffered and still continued to.
“I don’t want to go back,” she said, voice dropping to a whisper almost so silent that I wouldn’t have caught it if not for my sharp hearing. She lifted her tear-streaked face to look up at me, and I swear, something cracked into chest right then and there. “Please don’t make me have to go back.”
I saw a red mark on her neck trailing into her dress, and I pulled the neckline away so that I could get a better view. I gasped when I saw the ugly red mark that looked fresh. It must have been hurting her so much.
“Who did this to you? Was it her?”
She nodded, squeezing her little doll tightly.
A shrill feminine voice cut through the air. “There you are, you little critter! I’ve been waiting for you all morning.” A woman came to where we stood and literally dragged the girl away from me with so much force that the young girl screamed.
“Stop it!” I exclaimed, pushing the woman away from the girl. “She’s just a child.”
The woman sneered at me with crooked teeth. Her face looked familiar, and it elicited a memory of when Daven had taken me Moongrowl’s Auctioning House one of the few times that I had angered him so badly that he wanted to show me my place. The woman had been one of the attendants there, matching slaves to the masters according to bids.
She looked at me up and down in that moment. “You’re that little girl that the Alpha took to his bed but never got around to making a Luna,” she said with a little giggle. “Now that he’s dead, do you think your word matters anymore?” To the girl, she said, “Come here right now, or there will be severe consequences!”
The child whimpered and shuffled on her feet, stepping closer to me. Instinctively, I stepped forward to shield her with my body.
A look of surprise crossed the woman’s face. “Oh, I see now, you’ve filled her head with little fairytale, and now she doesn’t want to come back to where she belongs.”
“You’re mistaken if you think that she belongs to you,” I said with conviction.
“I bought her with my own hard earned money. So like it or not, she’s my property. If you have a problem with that, go talk to the men in charge.” She leaped forward and grabbed the girl from behind me. “Got you! Now come here!”
Panic flooded my chest. I had already failed my people so far for not being able to do anything to better their living conditions, even though I had been the wife of the Alpha. Maybe if I hadn’t been so prideful and had made him happy, he would have let my people go.
I couldn’t change the past, but I could alter the future. One-step at a time.
Full of understanding of what I had to do, I called out to the woman’s back as she dragged the crying girl away by the ear.
“How much is she?”
The woman kept walking, so I crossed the growing distance and grabbed her arm to flip her around to face me. “Didn’t you hear me? I asked how much for the girl?”
It was pathetic that I had to resort to that, but it was the only way I could think of to help the little girl.
The woman smirked. “This girl is an asset to me. Giving her to you would put me at a loss. So I’d have to charge you what she’s worth to me and my establishment.”
‘Once I become Luna, the first place I’m coming for is that Auction House,’ I promised her without saying. “How much?” this, I asked out loud.
She pretended to think about it. “Hmm. Ten million silver.”
The breath whooshed out of me. I clenched my fist. “I’m sure you didn’t buy her for up to a tenth of that.”
“Maybe I didn’t, but that’s my price,” she said with a shrug. “What do you say?”
I didn’t have access to that kind of money-or any money at all.
“I-” I was at a loss for words. The little girl looked up at me, and I could just see the hopeful look in her eyes. How could I disappoint her now? I had never felt more useless in my life.
Out of nowhere, someone’s voice came from behind me. “Hand over the girl.”