Chapter 1- Kiara

Prologue

Prologue

The moment I looked behind me, I cursed. Two of Alpha Benna's men, whom I had thought I had finally lost, were still coming after me.

"Stop you, daughter of a who*e," one of the men, with a huge blade on his left hand that glittered under the sun, called at me. I ignored the urge to look behind me because the first time I did it, I tripped over a lying stone and injured my knee.

"I said stop it!" The man's frustrated voice reached my ears. I squeezed my both eyes with my index fingers to rub the blurriness overcoming me away, but it seemed like that movement slowed me down because one of the men pulled me behind with the tatered collars of my extra large dirty pink dress and knocked me on the head.

"You wish to die, right?" He grinned, his eyes red with fury.

"I.." I wanted to say something, but his companion cut me off.

"Why ask her such a question? She is obviously going to die." He laughed so hard that large drops of tears dripped down his chubby cheeks. I looked at him, wondering how it was that my death could make him that happy.

"True," the other man said, still gripping my collar squate and shoveling my head on the ground. "There is no need to ask her questions because she is obviously going to die," he said, seconding his companion and then laughing with the same glee as his companion had done.

"Wake up!" he demanded, pulling me to my feet. "Hurry!" He kicked me in the butt when I tripped over my dress. I winced because of how hard his kick was, but I masked my face from the pain because I didn't want to show any of them my weakness.

Being an unwanted being since I was young, I knew how bad it was when people saw your pain. They will always use it to make you weaker. After my dad's cruelty toward me, I swore never to show anyone my weakness. Never!

"I can't believe these beggars. After milking all Alpha Benna's money, she is trying to escape!" The other man, who had asked my assailant to stop asking me questions, said so in disbelief.

"I am still trying to figure that out as well. I wonder where she was running to?" The man asked, holding his chin in thought, Is she running back to her father?" He laughed at his question, which seemed impossible.

Everyone knew just how much my dad despised me. Even passer-by's! "No, her father is also tired of her. Maybe she's got another man to milk money from,'' he said, nodding at his own guess.

"You who*e, why would you run away from the man who picked you from the gutter, educated you, fed you, and gave you an identity? Is this how you repay his favor? Why are you betraying him?" He spat on my face.

"I.." I wanted to explain to him that whatever he had said was a lie, but I swallowed my words. Why would I explain myself to him? It wasn't worth it anyway.

It's true that Alpha Benna picked me from the gutter. But he never educated me, nor did he feed me. I had to pay for everything he offered me. The room I slept in, although it was the kitchen, and the food I ate, although they were leftovers that sometimes were given to the dogs, left me starving. And sometimes I felt that I was paying for the breath I took while in his place as well!

Before he found me, I had run away from home after getting my first paycheck working as a waitress. My father is so cruel, and he didn't treat me any differently from the way Alpha Benana does. What I never expected was for him to ask his guards to come after me.

When I was sure I had lost and there was no way I would escape his clutches, I ran in front of a car with the intention of ending my life, but I got saved. It was Benna, the alpha of our neighborhood pack. I had never seen him face-to-face except in magazines and on the internet. I had also grown up hearing about his behavior.

He was cruel and heartless. He treated people no less than animals. His favorite game was killing and nothing else. I was supposed to shake with fear and lose the ability to breathe when I saw him, but I didn't. 'At least he would be able to give me what I was desiring. Death.' That was what I thought.

I waited, but death was never offered. In fact, he took me into his car, sent my father's guards back with a warning, and took me with him to his home.

When we reached his heaven-like home, he told everyone that I was a beggar he had picked up beside the road and that I would be living in his mansion from then on.

I had wanted to tell people that I was not a beggar but had an identity, but thought otherwise when he gave me a warning growl. Later, he took me to his office and told me that it was necessary to hide my identity because if people knew that he was helping his enemies daughter, they'd think he lost to my father.

I was hesitant at first, but after promising to educate me and give me everything I was deprived of in my father's house, I agreed. 'Fuck identity; I can always make my own after getting an education!' I told myself.

What I never expected was for Alpha Benna to need something in return. I was used to paying for everything I was ever given in my father's palace, but in that case, I was confused.

What would a rich alpha like him do with me? I couldn't stop asking myself this question. I never summoned enough courage to ask him, though. I brushed things off, believing that when he one day needs me to repay his favor, he'll come to me and let me know.

I waited, and he came. He wanted something I couldn't give him—my body. After I refused, he became mad. He threw me out of his mansion and dragged me to the kitchen, where I was to stay. I was turned into a slave.

The education he promised me and the best life I had always dreamt never found me. I was like his punching bag. Anytime he could get angry, he would come directly to my hole and ask for something he knew I would never be able to give him.

He never hesitated to use that to his advantage because that was when he would get to drag me out of the kitchen and beat me into a pulp. The only thing I never understood was why, when he was having parties or attending events, he would carry me along, make sure I was all decked up and looking all pretty self, and lie to people that he was helping me.

I came to understand that much later, though, whenever he was about to secure a deal or was looking for investors to sponsor his projects since he was also a business tycoon, he would carry me along with him and tell people that I was an orphan who he picked from the streets and was helping me out.

That way, they would see him as a godsend, and they wouldn't hesitate to sign deals with him and invest in his companies.

"The runaway is back." A deep and cold voice jarred me from my thoughts. I couldn't believe those asholes had dragged me back to the hole I had successfully run away from, or at least I thought I had successfully run away from.

"Yezus, Yezus, Yezus," he chanted my name while circling around me as if he were keeping me on a spell.

"Yezus," he docked to my level since I was pushed down to my knees and gripped my neck, "what did I teach you?" He asked, his eyes glowing with mischief and a wide smile plastered on his face.

I really hated his guts.

"Yezus," he called again, the growl pressing in his voice indicating that he was pissed off while digging his nails into my neck. "In case you have forgotten, I told you that if I were to call you, you were to answer without hesitation. Got that?" He let go of my neck and pushed me to the ground.

When I failed to respond to him, he chuckled, clapping his hands in disbelief. He looked at his second in command and nodded at him. The man, the only person in that huge palace who at least cared for my existence, strode to the house and came back with a stack of papers.

My heart faltered, thumped wildly, and stopped beating at all, as if threatening to stop functioning. I hiccuped—something that automatically happened when I was about to get into deep shit and I took a deep breath feeling the air around me itching away.

He looked at me, probably already smelling the fear gripping my heart, and smirked. "Good," he muttered, satisfied that I was no longer looking him in the eyes, daring him to do anything he wanted to do with me because I was tired.

"That's how you are supposed to be, you lowly bit*h. Tremble on my sight." He spat on my dress and kicked me in the ribs. He shuffled the papers he was holding in his hands until he reached the part he was looking for. He read it silently and then scoffed in disbelief while playing with his tongue.

"There will come a time when this ugly and cruel fellow will bow at my feet and feel honored to be in the same place as me, breathing in the same air as I'll be doing. You wrote this?" He asked.

I remained silent, something he didn't like because I didn't miss the blue covering his face.

"I want to hear it from your own lips, Kiara Yezus. Do you want your life to be ruined? I'll have you tortured to the extent that you'll beg for death." He growled, and I felt my innards tremble. I knew he meant it. I have seen him do this to people most of the time, and he wouldn't think twice about doing the same to me.

I was his daughter's enemy anyway, so living until this time without him killing me was clearly a miracle.

"Yezus, answer me!" he demanded while I closed my eyes and bit my lower lip anytime he called me Yezus. Only the moon gods knew how much I despised that name. The name he always bragged about! "This is the identity I gave her, Yezus." He told people every time he dragged me to his events and meetings.

I didn't answer him because, honestly, I was tired of everything. I was tired of always trying to run away from him, but he always caught me. 

"Kill me if you want," I found myself saying while looking at him in the eyes. His second in command looked at me in pride, like a father who was proud that his daughter was finally standing up for herself against a group of bullies.

"What did you say? I didn't hear that," he said, slapping his ears gently as if shaking off the wax that had made him hear his words.

"I said, kill me if you want," I repeated word by word through gritted teeth. It felt really nice talking back to him.

"Kill you?" he scoffed, the fear I had seen clouding his eyes washing away. Wait, was it fear? But how can a cruel man like him fear me? It was possibly something else, which I had confused with fear. "I won't kill you that easily, Yezus," he said, straining that name because he knew how much I hated it.

"I'll deal with you later because for now there is something you need to do for me," he smirked, making my heart contract with fear.