SKYLER

Slowly I walked down the hallway of the estate while other slaves passed me in rush of the things they had to do or were doing.

The thing was, today was the day a certain someone, or should I say wolf, would be visiting, and everyone was festive. But only the ones who were happy to see him, which were the other wolves, of course.

In the past few days, not a second passed where I wasn’t anxious, however I guess all the cleaning and running around took my mind off it slightly.

The days leading up to today were so tiring. Every slave and servant had to wake up an hour early and stop working an hour later while the headmasters and other werewolves sat on their asses and did squat.

But geez, I knew that the alpha was coming here, but honestly most of this work seemed so unnecessary. To me.

For instance, we had to clean any and every corner of the estate over and over every single day, and the already washed dishes had to be washed and dried two times for the day.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I cleaned the fifteenth and last toilet in the house where he would be staying and if you think that was all that was left for me to do then you couldn’t be more wrong. This was just half of what I had left to do.

Lazily grabbing the cleaning supplies, I slowly tried to gather my strength and pick myself from my kneeling position, but found it much harder to do because of the fatigue in my muscles, and so, I had fallen down heavily on the tile floor on my hands and knees, breaking the top layer of skin on my knee, while the supplies scattered throughout the bathroom.

“Shit!” I cursed while crawling beside the now-cleaned toilet and resting between it and the tub. I knew I was stalling, but I just had to rest my legs.

We weren’t allowed to have breaks and anyone caught idling would be punished severely and what I was doing would definitely get me in trouble but at the moment I was willing to take that risk.

My head was bobbing and my eyes were drooping. I found the strength to look at my pocket watch for the time and saw that it was 3:30 p.m. Wow, I didn’t know that so much time had passed.

Maybe shutting my eyes for a couple of minutes would rejuvenate me a bit, I thought while resting my head against the tub and saying a little prayer in my mind to not get caught by the headmaster or any other werewolves.

And with that, I shut my tired eyes.

Even though I was sleeping, I was still conscious of my surroundings and was instantly alerted when I heard the turning of the doorknob of the bathroom and when a person entered.

But even when the person came in, I still didn’t move from my spot. Maybe they’ll overlook me, I thought as my heart beat frantically in my chest.

“Oh my God, Skyler?” I heard someone whisper-yell and the clicking of heels told me the person was walking toward me.

I opened my eyes and was met with hazel ones that held concern and fright. I mentally did a little dance and smiled weakly at the person, because I was so drained.

“Scarlette to the rescue,” I joked lazily while balling my left hand in a fist and pumping it in the air.

“What happened to you, dear?” she asked, frantic.

I sucked in a breath and tried to stand on my feet with a helping hand from Scarlette. That five-minute nap did quite a lot, and I felt my energy slowly coming back to me.

“Sorry…I took a five-minute nap,” I explained cheekily.

I saw her shoulders drop and she let out a sigh while rolling her eyes. Any amount of concern was gone from her eyes and was replaced by disappointment.

“Five minutes… I doubt you were sleeping for such a short time since I’ve been looking for you for almost two and a half hours. You are lucky that I found you, now come, we need to leave,” she scolded.

I was so shocked. It seemed like that my five-minute nap was a long one, a very, very long one. And if what Scarlette said was true, it had to be almost six in the evening, which meant the alpha could be here any minute.

I quickly pushed past her to pick up the cleaning tools that had fallen earlier with shaky hands and a now-pounding heart.

“No, leave them. Everyone is lining up at the entrance and we’re already late,” she said while grabbing my hands and pulling me out of the bathroom.

We were all the way on the west wing of the estate and it would take us around six minutes to reach the entrance. I just hoped we made it in time.

We walked hurriedly through the halls, our clicking heels echoing even louder the faster we walked, my senses heightening when I found out that no one but us was in sight.

God we’re going to be in so much trouble and it was my fault. As we turned a corner I saw another servant who seemed to be looking for someone but sighed in relief when she saw us. I recognized her the closer we got to her.

“Thank God I found you two, we need to hurry, he’ll be here any minute now,” Primrose said, out of breath.

But we didn’t even stop, we all just walked briskly, but all of a sudden I felt this really painful tug in my heart that had me falling headfirst into the floor. It was almost like I had been tased, I couldn’t even move my hands to break the fall.

My mind was all over the place, and I instantly developed a headache. It was almost like a force had hit me so hard, I was totally caught off guard. What the hell was that?

It took a good minute for me to regain feeling in my limbs. A whimper escaped my lips as I heard Scarlette’s trembling voice calling my name.

“Skyler! Skyler!” she called while shaking me.

A groan escaped my lips and I could feel the heaviness in my head and temples.

I looked up and saw both Primrose and Scarlette were looking at me with concern. I also saw that Scarlette’s eyes were glossed over as if she were about to start crying.

Both ladies helped me into a sitting position while holding my back for support. I felt so weak, weaker than how I was feeling minutes ago. It took a few seconds before they started speaking again.

“Scarlette, we need to leave before we’re caught,” Primrose said urgently while looking around, worried.

“We can’t just leave her here, Primrose, it’s obvious she can’t go to the ceremony in her condition,” she explained while cradling me in her arms like a mother would.

“So what will we do?” Primrose asked while fidgeting in her position.

I could understand the state she was in. We should have been lining up ten minutes ago and I’m sure if a werewolf, or worse, the headmaster were to see us we would be in big trouble.

“I’ll stay—”

Scarlette began to speak but I quickly cut her off.

“I’ll stay and call in sick for the day,” I croaked out. I didn’t want both women to be punished because of me. It was obvious I was taking up their time. And I didn’t think the headmaster would miss me if I wasn’t present at the ceremony.

“Yes, that’s a good idea,” Primrose quickly agreed while pulling Scarlette’s arm so they could be on their way.

As Scarlette was being dragged away, she turned and told me to go my quarters as soon as possible and I couldn’t argue.

Crawling on all fours, I weakly tried to get up, and thankfully I didn’t stumble and fall on my face again. As I took a step forward, I felt the warm trickle of liquid on my forehead.

I cautiously reached my fingers up to touch what was there and to my utter surprise it was blood. A droplet then ran down my face and dripped onto the marble floor.

My features morphed into horror when I looked down and saw more blood was smeared on the floor. And with quick hands I reached down and cleaned up the mess I made and the mess that was on my face with a piece of paper towel.

Then marched my way to my quarters. As my body made contact with the bed I slipped out of consciousness.