“Your reading and math are quite advanced. Where you are lacking is in history, etiquette, and writing. These essays you wrote are riddled with grammar and spelling mistakes. It's obscene,” Arthur stated when Cambrie took her seat. “I fear with all of these areas we will need to start at the beginning, since I have no idea what you do or do not know.”
Arthur walked over to his desk, picked up a large stack of books, and dropped them in front of her. “I expect you to read all of these and have them done within the week. It is all the history from the beginning of our culture until now. You will have an hour in the morning to work on them with me here, then we will move on to other studies. After dinner is your free time, but I highly suggest you catch up on your education. The faster you do that, the faster you will be out of here and with your chosen pack. They are aware of your… shortcomings and have decided that it’s in your best interest to have your education put first.”
I could see Cambrie stiffen at the mention of a pack already having been decided. “Do I get to meet this pack, or even the man who’s decided to keep me here?”
“Your father is an incredibly important man. That’s why he’s put me in charge of your education. He doesn’t have time to worry about your flaws,” Arthur snapped, brushing imaginary lint off his jacket in a nervous habit. “Be grateful he’s deemed you worthy of all this effort. If he didn’t, then he could have just left you with that brute of a man who tried to sell you.”
Her face scrunched up in confusion as she turned in her seat to face Arthur, who’d taken a seat on the couch near the fire. “Wasn’t he the man who bought me, though?”
“Enough questions,” Arthur roared. “Get to reading. In an hour we will begin work on your posture and the hideous way you walk,” he ordered, glaring at her with such menace it almost made me take a step forward.
There was something about this Beta that I didn’t trust one bit. Why would Yoram put someone who clearly hated Omegas in charge of her well-being? None of this made sense. There had to be a reason all of this preparation was important. Did they really do all this schooling in the Care Centers? The Omegas that I saw at events I’d worked didn’t seem anywhere close to what they wanted from Cambrie. It was as if she was being prepared to be sold off to some pack that needed her to act a certain way.
While Oscad had its flaws when it came to Omegas, it didn't need them to be subservient. Now Shearia, a country on the southern end of Oscad, expected their Omegas to be perfectly educated, properly mannered trophies on display. Could it be that Yoram was trying to use Cambrie as a bargaining tool? Something like that wouldn’t work with my home country Asturg since there was no leader so to speak, so it had to be Shearia.
As Cambrie diligently spent the day under the cruel hand of Arthur, she took every criticism, correction, and spite that man had to give with grace. A woman like that should be raised up to be a queen, not a pawn in someone's scheme. I needed to get my sweet girl out of here if she was going to survive. Mental abuse, while it took longer to make an impact, sank deep and was nearly impossible to reverse if continued for too long. There was no fucking way in hell I was letting anyone convince this pure Omega that she was anything but perfect. The only way I was going to be able to do this, is to find some way to get ahold of her pack.
After dinner the bastard was true to his word and left Cambrie to her own devices. Not trusting her to be in her own room, I kept her in mine. The fire was going, taking the chill out of this damn drafty house and made a perfect space for her to curl up in a chair with a blanket.
“Keksík, I need you to stay in this room,” I instructed. “I’m going to lock both doors while I’m gone to make sure you’re safe in here and no one can get to you.”
She looked up from her book, blue eyes full of curiosity. “Where are you going?”
“I need to find a way to contact your pack, let them know where we are so they can come get you,” I explained.
While she was safely in here, I planned to check her room for a hidden passage or door, but I didn’t want to alarm her for no reason. She was already leery about being in the room since the snake and was more than willing to let me check it before she did anything.
“Please be safe,” she whispered when I turned to the door. “You’re all I have here.”
It was like she’d reached into my chest and squeezed my heart the way it killed me to leave her. I grunted my answer, knowing if I turned to look at her I wouldn’t leave the room.This was for her!I needed to pull my shit together to keep her safe. That's all that mattered. Locking the door, I tested the handle to ensure it was well and truly locked. I wasn’t delusional to think there weren’t more sets of keys that could open it, but I needed to know I was doing everything in my power to protect her.
Moving to her room, I started in the closet, feeling like it would be a smart place to hide a secret door. Testing the shelves and knocking on the walls, I didn’t find anything. Next, I tried near the fireplace and wouldn’t you know, the bookshelf next to it gave off a strange draft. It took me a bit to find the latch, it was hidden under one of the shelves cut into the wood, so it was recessed back from view. With how gloomy these rooms were casting shadows it would be nearly impossible to stumble upon.
The passageway was made of stone just like the outside structure of the house, meaning these were placed in the original construction. I left the door open, giving me some light to see by, but there was a soft glow coming further down the way telling me there was light if I kept moving. There wasn’t another door until I reached the one with light glowing around the seams. It made me feel better knowing there was a chance mine didn’t have an entrance, since Cambrie’s room was at the end of the path. I listened at the door, trying to hear if anyone was in the room before I tried to open the door.
“Why isn’t she dead, Arthur?” a voice asked. The tone was that of an upset child but it was coming from an older woman with a slight rasp. “I put the snake in her bed, she should be dead, dead, dead.” Nervous laughter followed. “He should never have brought her back here. Didn’t he know this is where everyone comes to die?”
“Laura, enough, you’ll only upset yourself,” Arthur said, his voice sounding tired. “I told you to leave the girl alone, our Alpha needs her to do his work. She is the key to making all our dreams come true. We need her alive for us to be free.”
The woman, Laura, shrieked at his words and then there was the sound of things being tossed around the room. “No! It’s all lies, why don’t you see it, Arthur, my love? He has been stringing us along, making us believe he’s going to keep his word. Look at us, look at me. I haven’t left this house since the bitch took the child and ran, our Alpha blamedme. I shouldn’t have had to take Aria’s punishment just because we’re sisters.”
Now the screaming devolved into loud wailing sobs. “Shh, Laura,” Arthur soothed in a tone that made me believe he actually cared about this woman a great deal. “Have you taken your medicine?”
“It makes me sleepy, I don’t want to sleep anymore,” she cried. “He’s killing me off just like he’s done to everyone else who displeases him.”
“Here we go, drink, yes, that’s a good girl,” Arthur crooned and continued his rambling of reassurances. “Rest now, Laura, I’ll make sure that little Omega bitch suffers the way we have over the years. But we have to be smart. Hiring a bodyguard tells me he knows the danger he’s putting her in being here with us. I thought he’d be smarter than that, honestly. You can’t create a pack, abuse them, and then abandon them without repercussions.”
Just when I thought Arthur was done sharing his thoughts to his apparent packmate, he continued. Only this time, malice coated his words. “For all his power, our Alpha didn’t have anywhere else he could hide his precious daughter from the world, did he? Now he needs me to make her perfect for those Shearian bastards, withholding the fact he never marked me so he could send me back. I’ll do my part for you, Laura, so he will let us stay together. This is the last chance he has to make good on his promise to us, my sweet Laura. If he doesn’t, I’ll find an Alpha to mark his precious Omega, and the deal will be finished. Shearian’s are superstitious like, they believe even if the Alpha is dead that part of their soul lives on in them!”
Turning away from the door, I walked down the path, heading deeper into the house. It seemed Yoram had well and truly destroyed his pack. Ruining their minds to the point I wasn’t sure they would know how to live outside this house and its structure. Everything about this carefully constructed environment might be the only thing holding them together. While I might have pity for them, I knew now to keep an even closer eye on what was happening with Cambrie. They might need her alive, but there was plenty of damage to be done in other ways.
Chapter 8
Thecracklingofthefire, the warm blanket around me, and the dry words of the history book I was being forced to read made it hard to stay awake. Savo had been gone for little over half an hour, and it was making me anxious. Something about this house, in general, gave me a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Lessons today with Arthur had been brutal, but I’d tried to do my best to keep from letting him know he was getting to me. Men like him and my father just wanted to know they could get under your skin. Once they figured out what made you flinch, they would zero in on it until it became a massive target straight into your mind. If Arthur managed to do that even with Savo around, I wasn’t sure I would come out the other side of this the same person.
Though my time with my pack had been short, it made me realize just how isolated and ignorant my mom and father had made me. How they viewed the world and explained things to me was so wrong. Even now, as I read about Oscad’s history and that of the other two main countries that bordered us, I wasn’t sure anyone really knew where we’d come from. It seemed that our leaders nowadays wanted to keep us ignorant so we didn’t remember what we once had. A prosperous country, large population, and packs were the norm instead of the exception.