NYX
“You will do what I order you to do! And you’d better do it properly!” the voice of the canid snarled.
“Can’t you send someone else in my place?” I asked, my voice trembling. “Someone more experienced than me?”
He quickly approached me and grabbed the back of my head, tightly gripping my hair in his large hand.
“You will do what I tell you. Is that clear?” he said dangerously, pulling even harder on my hair and forcing my head farther back.
For an answer, I held back my tears and shook my head.
“I don’t seem to have heard anything. IS THAT CLEAR!!?” he roared.
“Yes… yes, very clear,” I replied.
A sinister smile stretched across his lips, revealing his exposed fangs. His dominance over me was something he thoroughly enjoyed.
That, and making me suffer, were his two favorite pastimes.
After hearing my answer loud and clear this time, he violently released my hair, making my head jerk forward and leaving me momentarily unsteady.
“When do I leave?” I asked, lowering my eyes to avoid his malicious gaze.
“In one week. So pack your bags!”
“Who’s going to take care of the girls?”
“Angel will do it with some other wolves,” he said curtly. “Now get out of my sight.”
Without another word, I headed toward the door of his office. But before I could cross the threshold, I heard him say:
“No matter what you have to do once you get there! If you have to fight, kill, or even give your body away to get what we need, you will do it. I hope I’ve made myself clear!”
“Yes,” I simply replied before finally leaving that damned office.
I made my way back to my room—or, if you could even call it a room. It was more like a small storage closet that had originally been meant to serve as a simple utility room.
But it had been assigned to me.
And why?
Despite the fact that it was a huge villa, the bedrooms were reserved for guests. He had forbidden me from making myself comfortable in one of them, as if I were “a princess,” as he liked to say.
“If you want to stay here, you have to earn it,” he had always told me.
And to do so, I had to work. Not too far away, either, because he always wanted to keep an eye on me.
I worked right here in the villa as an all-purpose maid four days a week. On the other three days, I took care of the girls for his club.
My tasks varied. I cleaned, cooked, took care of the garden and the pool—in short, “all-purpose maid” was truly the exact term for it, since I did a little bit of everything.
I wasn’t paid, but in exchange, I was fed and given a place to sleep.
My days started at six in the morning and ended at midnight, once dinner was over and all the dishes had been washed, dried, and put away.
Weekends were even worse, since he received a lot of people. The days seemed endless, and the nights painfully short.
But as he always reminded me, I had nothing to complain about. I had a roof over my head and food to eat.
And he wasn’t entirely wrong.
Many people weren’t lucky enough to live under the roof of the Lupine Race, our imperial rulers. They lived outside, unable to properly feed themselves.
So I had no right to complain about my situation.
And besides, it was better that way. Otherwise, he would quickly beat the desire to complain out of me again.
And believe me, that was anything but pleasant.
The Master, as he wanted me to call him, hated it when I contradicted him or failed to do exactly what he had ordered me to do.
And whenever that happened, he beat me until I understood the lesson and no longer felt the urge to disobey him.
So I tried my best never to go against what he wanted.
It was better that way.
After all, it was my life, and I deserved it.
So I might as well accept it.
It was simpler that way.
Fortunately, it was still a villa, which meant that all the rooms were much larger than those in an ordinary apartment or house.
That had allowed me to fit a small single mattress into my tiny storage room, which served as my bedroom.
Sure, it wasn’t very big, but it was enough for me.
The only thing missing was, I had to admit, a window.
Since it wasn’t a real bedroom, the room didn’t have one.
But I would have loved to gaze at the night sky.
Sometimes, I would sneak outside and make my way into the garden just to admire the stars.
They gave me such a sense of peace.
I loved losing myself in that vast infinity, something that offered so many possibilities and, at the same time, seemed to offer nothing at all.
After all, what do we really know about space?
Except that it is infinite…
Do you realize that it means everything and nothing at the same time?
At that simple thought, a smile appeared on my lips.
How I wished I could be out there right now, losing myself in that sparkling rain of stars.
But alas, reality quickly caught up with me when I remembered that, in one week, I would be leaving my home for an unknown land.
A land far too dangerous.
A land that might very well be the last thing I ever saw in this world.
Because yes…
The Master was giving me a one-way ticket straight into the Devil’s lair…
