Chapter 6
They came at Odette like snarling hyenas.
One of them grabbed her by the hair and dragged her back while a hard slap exploded across her face, making pain burst through her skull.
Odette bit and scratched, fighting with everything she had left, screaming for help and lashing out with pure rage.
"I'll end you today, you damn blind bitch, if it's the last thing I do!"
Odette had scratched Vivian's face in one of her wild swings, and the woman came at her again, aiming a kick straight for her belly while the other held her arms down.
No matter how hard Odette fought, there were two tall, sturdy women against her, and her body was already too weak, too battered, too full of pain.
Then the leaves nearby thrashed violently, and one of her abusers let out a horrified scream.
"Vivian!"
Something hot splashed across the Omega's face, a liquid that smelled sharply of iron, and a heavy weight dropped onto her already aching belly.
The girl holding her arms let go at once.
"W... wild wolves..." she stammered.
Odette heard her running, but more paws were already moving around them.
Wolf-shaped shadows poured out of the forest and cut off her escape.
The girl only made it a few steps before two of those beasts, with yellow eyes and huge fangs, lunged at her and tore her throat open.
The scream died in her throat.
She didn't even have time to shift, and in that last instant, she couldn't understand why wild wolves had attacked them.
Wild wolves respected werewolves.
They lived alongside them.
Some powerful Alphas could even influence their behavior.
But there was no powerful Alpha there.
And what came next was worse.
The maid collapsed, gurgling as blood poured from the hole in her throat.
The last thing she saw was a circle of ten wolves surrounding that damned Omega, almost with reverence, almost with fear.
They lowered themselves around her as if she were something they were meant to guard.
Odette felt them too, but she couldn't truly see what they were doing, so she thought they were going to eat her next.
"I didn't hurt you. I didn't hurt you," she begged into the darkness, curling in on herself and waiting for her death.
Warm breath brushed her belly, and Odette instinctively covered it with both hands.
Then she heard the low whine of a wolf.
After that came another, and then another, all of them sniffing deeply, drawing closer without harming her.
It was another strange, impossible thing in a string of them lately.
Odette turned her head, and she would have sworn she was only inches away from a wolf's muzzle.
Through the shadows, she thought she caught the flash of yellowish eyes in the night.
Why weren't they attacking her?
They seemed to be protecting her.
Then a shout and more footsteps approached, breaking that strange moment apart.
"I'm sure I saw them around here! They were drunk out of their minds. They probably went looking for that poor blind girl."
Odette heard the voices of other servants, and then several screams cut through the night.
"She's dead! Wolves! Wild wolves!"
"Look at that girl. They're going to devour her too!"
The lantern lights came closer, and Odette finally tried to stand, but the thing lying across her legs, the thing she had forgotten was there, rolled to one side.
She grabbed it by instinct, but her fingers touched something wet and soft, something that felt like skin and hair.
"It's the head... It's Vivian's head!"
At that cry, Odette understood that what had fallen onto her, what she had just held in her hands, was the severed head of one of her abusers.
She threw it away with a scream as nausea twisted through her stomach.
She doubled over and vomited until her stomach was empty.
Her throat burned, and the stabbing pain in her belly made her hunch over between retches.
"It hurts... Aahh, it hurts..." she mumbled, almost passing out between one heave and the next.
"It looks like she was hurt in the stomach..."
"Take her to the infirmary now. Go, go, and clean all of this up! Damn it, I'm going to have to explain this to the superiors."
Two servants carried Odette to the infirmary.
Between the jolting, the pain, and the waves of sickness rolling through her stomach, she passed out.
When she came back to herself, she was lying on a simple infirmary bed.
Disoriented, she tried to sit up, but a firm hand pressed gently against her chest and eased her back down.
Odette sank back against the pillow, every sense suddenly on alert.
Her nose told her the housekeeper was standing beside the bed.
"Why didn't you tell me?" the woman asked in a serious voice.
Odette lowered her head and clenched her fists in the sheet covering her body.
"I didn't want trouble, and I didn't want to be thrown out. I... I have nowhere else to go..." she confessed in a choked voice.
Maybe now they would blame her for those girls' deaths, even though everyone had seen the wolves.
"I'm not only talking about the harassment, though you should have told me that too instead of waiting until one of the other girls felt sorry for you and came to report it."
"So that was it," Odette thought.
But what she heard next left her stunned.
"I'm talking about the other thing you didn't tell me when my son brought you here."
"The other thing?" Odette frowned and lifted her head, confused.
"Do you truly not know?"
The woman was still speaking in riddles, but the confusion on the Omega's face didn't seem fake.
With a pitying sigh, the housekeeper gave her the news the healer had discovered.
"You're pregnant, Odette. Not far along... but you're going to have a pup."