The Devil's Slave

TESSA'S POV

The words hung in the air, suspended like a guillotine blade before the fatal drop.

*I openly reject you.*

My jaw fell slack. I opened my mouth, desperate to form a word, a plea, anything to stop the nightmare unfolding under the harsh afternoon sun. Nothing came out. My vocal cords were paralyzed, frozen by the sheer magnitude of the betrayal. I stared at the man I loved. The man who had just traded my flesh, my freedom, and my future for a pile of gold.

“Trent, you… you can’t do this to me,” I forced the words past the massive lump in my throat. “No. No, you can’t.”

He did not blink. He did not waver.

It was not just the rejection stabbing at my soul. It was the destination. I was not just being cast aside; I was being handed over to Alpha Garrick Thorne. The most ruthless warlord in the territory. Trent was sending me to a monster, all for the sake of coin.

Then, the physical toll of the words took hold.

The mate bond—the invisible, sacred tether that linked my soul to Trent’s—snapped.

The backlash was immediate and brutal. A raw, jagged pang of agony erupted deep within my chest. It felt as though a serrated hunting knife had been plunged directly into my ribcage, twisting and pulling until my sternum cracked open.

I let out a loud, guttural scream. I clutched the fabric over my chest, my fingers digging into my own flesh. My knees gave out beneath me. I crashed hard into the unforgiving dirt of the auction floor. The impact bruised my legs, but I barely registered the scrape. The internal torment was too vast, too unrelenting.

I writhed on the ground, struggling to keep my eyes open. I needed to see him. I needed to watch the consequences of his greed. The severing of a mate bond was a two-way street. He could not escape the physiological retribution.

Through my tear-soaked lashes, I watched Trent turn away from the podium. He took one step. Then another. He did not cast a single glance back at my writhing form on the dirt. He was leaving me behind, erasing our shared history with every stride.

He did not make it halfway to his seat.

The terrorizing pain of the severed bond crashed into him. Trent let out a choked gasp, his legs buckling. He collapsed onto his knees in the center of the aisle. His hands flew to his chest, his fingers clawing fiercely at his own skin. He tugged at his shirt, tearing the fabric, looking as if he wanted to rip open his own ribcage and rip the pain straight out of his organ.

If I had possessed the strength to smile, I would have. Amidst my own blinding agony, a dark, bitter sense of satisfaction bloomed in my gut. His pained groans were music to my ringing ears. We would suffer this constant, gnawing torture for days.

The scene captivated the onlookers. The crowd erupted into eager, hushed murmurs. Beta Trent betraying, rejecting, and selling his mate to Alpha Garrick was prime gossip. They pointed their fingers. Some laughed. Some mocked my pathetic cries.

Not a single person stepped forward to help me.

Trent, however, was not left in the dirt. The moment he hit the floor, three armed guards rushed to his side. They grabbed him by the arms, hauling him up while he gritted his teeth and groaned. They supported his weight and escorted him away from the ceremony grounds, heading toward the massive stone structure in the distance—the Alpha’s palace.

He was tended to. I was discarded.

Another wave of pain rolled through my bloodstream, three times stronger than the first. A raw, primitive cry tore its way out of my throat. The agony ravaged my chest, forcing my body into violent spasms. The sheer physical trauma of the severed bond wrecked my muscles and drained my spirit.

My vision blurred at the edges. A dark, fuzzy ring encroached on my sight. I fought to stay awake, battling to keep my eyelids from drooping, but the exhaustion was too heavy. The pain was winning.

Right before the darkness swallowed me, a tall shadow fell over my shivering form.

I forced my eyes up. Alpha Garrick stood towering above me. My new master. Even through my fading, blurred vision, his cold, midnight-blue eyes gleamed with a predatory cruelty. He stared down at my broken body, analyzing his new purchase.

I could not hold on. My head hit the dirt, and I let the heavy, suffocating darkness pull me under.

***

“Wake up! Wake up, now.”

Sharp, rhythmic taps struck the soles of my feet. The sudden physical contact jolted me out of the black void. I gasped, my eyes flying open, and I sprang upward, my hands scrambling for purchase.

I sat on a narrow, firm cot. The mattress was thin, the blankets scratchy and smelling of strong lye soap. I blinked, trying to clear the lingering haze from my brain. This was not my bedroom. This was not Trent’s house. The stone walls were bare and damp, lit only by a single, flickering bulb hanging from the ceiling.

My eyes focused on the figure standing at the foot of the bed.

It was a woman in her mid-forties. Strands of coarse black hair peeked out from beneath a tight, gray headscarf. She stood with her hands planted firmly on her wide hips. A deep scowl etched lines into her forehead, and her heavy leather shoe tapped impatiently against the stone floor.

“Are you planning on sleeping the whole day?” she barked.

I stared at her, my mind sluggish. Who was she? Why was I sleeping on this hard cot? My chest gave a dull, hollow throb, and then the memories flooded back like a tidal wave of ice water. The auction. The rejection. The ten million. The severed bond.

I was a slave.

“Excuse me?” I mumbled, my voice hoarse and dry.

Her scowl deepened, her dark eyes flashing with irritation. “Aren’t you the new slave? What kind of airhead did they bring in this time?”

The insult stung, but it grounded me in reality. I lost consciousness from the rejection. I was now property.

“Yes, I am,” I said, throwing the scratchy blanket aside. I swung my legs over the edge of the cot and stood up. A wave of dizziness hit me, my knees wobbling, but I forced my feet to plant firmly on the cold floor. I steadied my stance. “Yes, I am. I am Tessa.”

The woman looked me up and down. Her gaze was clinical and judgmental, taking in my wrinkled blue dress, my messy hair, and my bruised knees. She had clearly heard the gossip.

“I am Maeve,” she announced, her tone leaving no room for argument. “I am the head maid. You will take orders from me, and I will assign your duties.”

I swallowed hard and nodded. “Yes, Maeve.”

“Come. I will get you into your uniform.”

She spun on her heel and marched toward the heavy wooden door. I looked down at my blue dress. The fabric was stained with dirt and sweat from the auction floor. I despised this dress now. It was a glaring reminder of the life Trent had ripped away from me. I wanted to tear it off. I wanted it burned to ash.

“Okay,” I replied, hurrying to trail behind her.

We stepped out of the small room and into a long, dimly lit hallway. The air here was much colder, the stone walls exuding a deep chill. We turned a corner into another corridor, the echoes of our footsteps bouncing off the ceiling. Maeve stopped in front of a pair of swinging wooden doors and pushed them open.

I followed her inside. It was a narrow, cramped room serving as a supply closet. Racks of clothing lined the walls, hangers filled with identical sets of garments. The air smelled of starch and dust.

Two other women were already inside. They were sorting through stacks of towels. Both wore a flimsy, revealing slave uniform, identical to the ones I had seen on the auction block.

“Edith, Agnes,” Maeve barked.

The two maids snapped to attention, dropping the towels and stepping forward. Their eyes landed on me. Surprise flickered across their faces, their gazes lingering on my face and my torn blue dress.

“This is Tessa. One of the King’s new slaves,” Maeve instructed, gesturing toward me with a flick of her wrist. “Get her a uniform for her size.”

Edith and Agnes stepped closer, their eyes raking over my frame, sizing up my proportions.

“Medium should do,” Maeve noted, her critical gaze assessing my body. “Although she is fleshy around her thighs and hips, a medium size will stretch enough. Get her into it while I go get her woven thorns.”

Before I could ask what a woven thorn was, Maeve turned and marched out of the room, the heavy doors swinging shut behind her.

I was left alone with the two girls. They immediately turned back to the racks and began rifling through the hangers, searching for the right pieces. The silence in the room felt heavy. I needed information. I needed to know what kind of hell I had just been dropped into.

“Uhm, what exactly is my job here?” I asked, keeping my voice polite and steady.

Edith, a girl with pale skin and freckles, paused her search. She pulled a hanger from the rack and looked over her shoulder.

“Well, since it’s Madam Maeve who brought you here, that means you will be serving the Alpha,” Edith stated plainly. “Cleaning his room, serving his food, and things of that nature.”

She tossed the garments onto a nearby table and went back to sorting.

I nodded slowly. Chores. Cleaning. Serving food. That did not sound too difficult. It was manual labor, but it was survivable. The palace was massive, and there had to be hundreds of slaves. If I kept my head down, did my work, and stayed out of the way, I might avoid his direct attention.

But I needed to know the truth about the rumors.

“Does he—” I dropped my voice to a hushed whisper, glancing at the wooden door to ensure Maeve was not standing outside. “Does he really kill slaves?”

The rustling of fabric stopped.

Both Edith and Agnes froze. They turned their heads slowly, exchanging a wide-eyed, terrified look. The color drained from their faces. The sheer distress in their eyes sent a jolt of pure panic straight into my chest. My blood ran cold.

Agnes took a step closer to me, her voice trembling as she kept it low. “Alpha Garrick is ruthless, Tessa. He doesn’t hesitate to get blood on his hands. If you value your life and your existence in this palace, you have to do exactly what he tells you to do. Exactly how he wants it. Nothing more, and nothing less. If you fail, you will invoke his wrath.”

A cold shiver licked its way up my spine. The rumors were not exaggerated. This warlord was a monster, and I was assigned directly to his personal quarters.

“Wait, does that mean he actually—”

“Yes, Tessa,” Edith cut in, her tone grave and urgent. “Alpha Garrick kills slaves for the most minimal errors. Two days ago, a slave was executed. He had her beheaded right in the courtyard.”

My breath hitched. “Beheaded?”

“Yes. For bringing his meal two minutes late.”

I gasped in shock, slapping both hands over my mouth to trap the scream rising in my throat. My eyes widened in pure horror. Two minutes. A girl lost her head, her life severed from her body, over two minutes.

Panic flooded my veins. My heart slammed against my ribs like a trapped bird.

“Alpha Garrick isn’t afraid to kill, Tessa,” Agnes added, shoving the brown uniform into my shaking hands. “You’ll do yourself good by obeying his every command without protest. If you want to live long, you stay invisible and you stay perfect.”

What sort of demon was this man? Why was I cursed to land in the hottest, deadliest circle of hell? My life could be snuffed out with a simple snap of his fingers, a minor miscalculation of time, a spilled drop of water.

“Here is your uniform. Change quickly. And be careful,” Edith warned, offering a sympathetic but grim look.

“I will,” I whispered, my voice barely audible over the roaring of blood in my ears.

Edith and Agnes gave small, hurried waves and slipped out of the closet, leaving me alone with the garments.

My hands trembled as I unzipped the back of my blue dress and let the heavy fabric fall to the floor. I picked up the brown slave uniform. It was a cheap, thin material. The set came in two pieces.

I pulled the top over my head. It was a sleeveless, tight-fitting shirt that stopped right below my breasts. It offered zero warmth and even less modesty, pushing my cleavage up and leaving my entire stomach and midriff bare to the freezing air.

I stepped into the skirt and pulled it up over my hips. It clung tight to my skin, the hem stopping dangerously high on my thighs. A pair of thin, hard-soled sandals completed the outfit. I fastened the buckles around my ankles, my fingers fumbling with the metal clasps. The uniform was degrading, designed to display the slaves as mere objects, unprotected and exposed. Winter was approaching, and the cold stone walls were already making me shiver in the skimpy fabric.

Just as I finished the final buckle, the wooden doors swung open. Maeve marched back in, holding a set of four thick, woven vines covered in dull, filed-down thorns.

“Great, you’re in uniform,” Maeve inspected me, her face impassive. “Make sure your hair is in a ponytail at all times.”

I did not hesitate. I reached up, gathered my tangled hair, and secured it tightly with a band I found on the table. The last thing I wanted was to be slaughtered over a loose strand of hair falling onto his floor.

“Here are your thorns,” Maeve shoved the woven bands into my hands. “Put them on immediately. Wrists and ankles.”

I slid the rough vines over my skin. They scratched and dug into my flesh, a constant, abrasive reminder of my status.

Maeve stepped closer, lowering her voice, her tone shifting into a sharp, uncompromising command.

“The Alpha has gone on a short journey. He is returning very soon. I need you to go to his chambers right now. Clean his bathroom and prepare his bath. You must prepare it just the way he likes it.” She leaned in, her dark eyes locking onto mine. “Not too cold. Not too hot. Do not make any mistakes, Tessa.”

My eyes widened. My lungs forgot how to draw in air.

“You would not like to experience the Alpha’s anger,” she finished, turning toward the door to lead the way.

My heart broke into a frantic, rapid sprint inside my chest. Sweat beaded on the back of my neck. Prepare his bath perfectly? I didn't know the man. I didn't know what temperature he considered perfect.

This was my very first day. I was a novice. I had no idea what I was doing.

What if I made the water a degree too warm? What if it was a fraction too cold?

The image of a blade slicing through my neck flashed behind my eyes. I gripped the hem of my short skirt, my knuckles turning white, terrified that my first hour on the job would be my very last hour on earth.