Chapter 2: Painful Memories

While trying to shake father back to life, I looked the battle raging around me, my eyes searching for someone to help me save my father. I saw my mother and wondered why she had come out. I knew her Omegas and my father's Beta had taken her and some of the women and pups into the secret hideaway to protect her in her delicate condition. She might not have been able to stay away just like I hadn't. She and my father were so much in love. She must have felt her husband calling for her and came to answer his call.

I waved at her frantically, pointing to my father. I knew the instant she saw me because she nodded and started towards us but right before my eyes, she fell. Some wolf attacked her, breaking her neck. And she fell heavily on her stomach.

I was puzzled, at first, not knowing exactly what had just happened. One moment my mother was running towards us, the next she was lying in a pool of her own blood. When what had happened to her registered, the pain in my heart intensified almost suffocating me, I had to open my mouth to scream to let in air into my lungs. And scream I did in my anguish. I screamed so much that no sound came out of my throat anymore. My mother had been pregnant. The pack's seer had foretold that mother had the long - awaited prince in her womb. The news had brought so much joy to the whole pack and had been greeted with much celebration. Why had the seer not foretold this?

I left father lying there and ran to mother, not giving a thought to my own safety as the butchering went on all around me. But Ma, as I fondly called her, was already beyond help. In helpless confusion, I ran from mother's lifeless body to father's, crying and screaming, not knowing what to do, until strong hands pulled me away, 'Come my princess, it is dangerous out here'. It was one of the loyal warriors of our pack.

'No!' she screamed. 'Can't leave them'.

'You can't help them now', he insisted, 'The future of the pack depends on you now'. But as he was taking me away, He was clawed down and blood gurgling out of his throat and mouth, he still tried to save me.

'I'm sorry, my princess, I am use... less to you now. Run!' he said, his voice sounding funny due to the blood gurgling out of his mouth as he spoke. The effort must have been too much for him because his eyes rolled upward and his head fell to the side as he breathed his last. I was beyond grief by this time.

Strong hands grabbed me again but I could tell that these hands were different from those of our loyal warrior, these were rough. I tried to claw and kick my way out of the grip that proved too strong for my fragile ten year old self. I hated myself for my weakness and inability to save my parents or at least remain there and die with them. What kind of princess was I if I could not save my pack? Of course the war ended with the death of my parents as the warriors surrendered. There was no Alpha to protect or lead them and no Luna as well.

I came back to the here and now and vigorously wiped the tears that stung my eyes at this painful recollection. I feel so alone. But for my friend Samantha, I did not know if I could have survived the life I've had to live. It hasn't been easy, this transition from a princess to a maid.

I blinked now, as I recalled my reaction to the announcement made by Alpha Sylvester that I was to clean up the entire pack, as punishment for breaking a dish.

'What?' I had exclaimed, not believing I had heard right.

'You heard right. The task must be completed before the end of the day', he said and walked away with heads bowing at his departure.

Thinking at first that it was just a sick joke, afterall it was only one piece of china that was broken, not a whole set, I looked round at the faces around me, their expressions showing me, it was no joke. Some looked at me with pity, others with glee and others with indifference. And then the guards marched me off to where I was to start serving my punishment and stood guard to ensure that I obeyed or got beaten to submission.

I do not know if I would have been able to do it all alone if a young girl, though older than I had not come from no where and asked to help me. The moon goddess must have sent her.

'Let me help you for a bit', she said smiling sympathetically at me.

I was surprised but glad that she offered. I nodded. She bent and we started working together. Of course the guards wanted to stop her but she was able to convince them to allow her stay with me with her gentle voice and charming smile.

'If Alpha Sylvester finds you here or finds out you helped her, we are done for and you will be no better?' one guard told her.

'I shall not bother about that if I were you because the moon goddess asked me to come here and help this poor soul', she said smiling at them sweetly.

'I am Samantha Crane', she said smiling at me as we continued our daunting task. 'What's your name?'

'Millicent', I said but I could not return her smile. 'Millicent Harry'.

'Can we be friends?' she asked.

I was shocked that anyone would want to be friends with someone like me who had been shown all kinds of hostility since I got to the pack. I could not speak as I looked into her expectant eyes. So, I nodded and she smiled.

At the end of that day, I fell sick, trembling and running temperature at the same time. I was to be on bed rest for one full week according to the doctor, the Alpha sent to come administer some form of treatment on me, when they saw I was not pretending to be ill but was actually very sick. Even the necessity of a bed rest was denied me as I was made to commerce my duties with the pains and aches which were the souvenirs of the punishment I served, immediately my fever broke. I have never forgotten it till this day. It instilled greater fear in my heart for the ruthless Alpha but caused me to lose any respect that I had left for him, and made me all the more determined to teach him a lesson, he would never forget. He might have thought he had broken me and made me forget my roots. I let him think that.

I am exhausted now, but dared not stop for a little rest for I don't know who amongst the other Omegas might be watching and report to the Alpha. They did that often in order to get into his good books or curry favour from him. And if it were reported that I was seen sitting around when I was supposed to be doing my chores, I just might have to pay dearly for it.

I collected all the dirty clothes, filled a big basin with water, sprinkled into it the required quantity of detergent, dipped my hand into the mixture and stirred, causing fumes and bubbles. Sorting the clothes according to colours, into different buckets to prevent the whites being dyed by the clothes of other colours, I washed, first the Alpha's clothes, then the other higher officials.

'Millicent, are you still washing?' Samantha asked. She had been working in the fields, picking flowers and fruits.

'Just getting started but I must confess, I am already exhausted and very hungry.

'Let's do it together then. We shall be through in no time and then you can go and eat', Samantha offered, and I could have kissed her, I was so touched. Samantha must be tired as well but did not think of herself as she bent and started washing.

I sneezed and this caused Samantha to look at me. 'You might have caught a cold as a result of dipping your hands in water all the time, doing one washing after another', she said but she must have seen something that looked suspiciously like tears in my eyes, because she asked, 'What is it?' 'It's not a cold is it?'

I don't know why I have not told Samantha about my original pack from where Sylvester had brought me. I confided everything in Samantha but that.

'Nothing', I said. 'I have a running nose and it brings tears to my eyes, and you are really a great friend' I said meaning every word but feeling bad for hiding my past from her.

It's been about seven years now, but I still have nightmares about what happened in my pack, but the pain of my loss had not grown blunt with time, it was reinforced everytime the Alpha maltreats me. I don't really care how he treats me because I'm more determined to avenge my parents' deaths. How I'll accomplish that, I do not know, especially since I am so fragile. So, like an activated bomb, ticking away and ready to explode, I remain silent, doing the chores, enduring humiliation, torture, ... bidding my time....