"Freina? Freina?" Olivia called out in a silent whisper, she felt the woman's weight shift from her shoulders in an instant and caught sound of the thud her body made upon falling.
The woman had died, and Olivia still had no proper idea on why.
Having seen enough, Nadia turned around sharply to take her exit. However having taken four steps without hearing the sound of her diligent handmaid behind her, the little girl knitted her brows into a frown.
"Yelena!" She harshly called out to her. Yelena quickly wiped the tears from her eyes and turned to accompany Nadia.
Olivia remained in her kneeling position next to the corpse of Freina for nearly an hour. Surprisingly, it took the maids about fourth five minutes to come for the corpse. And it took even longer for her to be fetched from where she knelt.
As per the commander's orders, Olivia was bathed and dressed up in a loose thin sleeves white dress, which barely covered up to her knees. Her wrists were binded together and connected by a rope that was held by one of the guards patrolling the tower.
Olivia didn't question where she was being taken or what they wanted with her. After witnessing another death, she was too frightened to place any opposition.
"On your knees!" The man she assumed was large due to his heavy huffs, commanded, kicking Olivia onto her knees.
She fell onto the commander's animal skin rug, and judging by it's scent, it had just been replaced.
"Olivia, I assume you are aware of the consequences of your actions. It's been barely a week and I've lost my head maid on your account." Ivankov lecturered in a chilling tone.
Olivia was past trying to speak up for herself, she had seen that strategy was futile against these people. Back then they chose to believe the spoiled brat, just because her father happened to be a big deal. And now, there was nothing she could tell the commander to make him take her word.
She stayed on her knees with her head lowered, ready to take her punishment.
"From today onwards, you shall be posted to the slave quarters, there, you will make yourself scarce. I don't want to ever lay eyes on you, and you shall cause no trouble while you're there." He spoke with an edginess in his tone, Olivia could tell from the way he spoke, that this was his own way of grieving Freina's death.
Or so she imagined.
"Take her away—" the commander stopped himself from speaking when Olivia's frail voice suddenly piped up.
"Freina said something to me, right before she died, about my father—"
"I don't want to hear the words of the dead." He sharply interjected, he reached for a cigar from the tray next to him and lit it's butt with the fire from the candle stick on the table next to him.
Next to the book laid a book with it's pages split in two, written in an orderly list appeared to be a recording of people. With Freina's name sitting at the bottom of the left page.
"Secondly," the commander puffed a thick cloud of smoke, "A slave has no rights speaking to me. I advise that you learn how to briddle your tongue, before experience becomes your teacher." He cautioned firmly, meaning every word he said.
After he finished he had the burly man take Olivia away to the maid's quarters, where she was to spend her last night there, before being moved to live with the slaves.
The other maids who felt it was degrading to breathe the same air as Olivia had her sleep in the storage chamber, which was dark, desolate and damp from the meat brought back from the latest hunt.
*Cough*
Violent coughs erupted from Olivia's mouth. She disliked the scent of raw meat and hated the sound of blood dripping onto the floor. Her heart nearly raged out her ribcage when rats ran across her feet, scampering for anything edible.
"Mother, father, I'm scared. Please, save me…" she covered her mouth, stopping herself from letting out a pathetic cry. However, that didn't help with the tears that streamed from the wells of both her orbs.
"I want to die—" Olivia stopped herself when she heard the sound the door getting unlocked. She crawled back until her back was against a sack of grains, for fear of who it might be.
Her chest thumped faster as the door slowly creaked open, sweat lines ran down the sides of her face and settled at the corners of her parted quivering lips.
Who was coming? Would they do something even worse to her? Could she run away fast enough?
In a quarter of a second she contemplated these thoughts, but as the door suddenly stopped creaking, Olivia resigned herself to fate, her will shattered completely.
"Die on your own time." Yelena said and dropped what sounded to be a plate on the floor. She strategically placed it next to Olivia's hand, so she could locate it easily.
After doing what she came to do, Yelena tried to retreat, but Olivia's question stopped her.
"Why poison?"
Yelena looked over her shoulder, "You think I poisoned you?" She laughed but without humour, "It would be an insult to Freina if I let her death be in vain."
Olivia frowned, "I don't understand, you're with that brat, and Freina is a maid. Why would you want to honour her?"
Yelena hissed and muttered to herself, "Why this slave? What in goddess name was so special about her?" She curled her fingers into angry fists. It took all of her restraint not to strangle Olivia to death.
"I have no obligation to answer to you. If you want to live, then eat. If you want to waste the second chance you've been given then you're free to rot in this place with the rats and die." Her feet turned around and pointed towards Olivia.
The child looked pale, her wrists were bright red from the ropes from earlier and her hair was a disheveled mess. On her cheek was the fingerprints of Yelena's father, Darius and on her feet were blisters from stepping on rocks and sticks.
It was amusing to bet Olivia would last a day or two longer.
"But, If I were in your place, I wouldn't be so foolish as to waste my time here. You've been demoted to a slave, and if you believe that your life here has been hell, then you are about to experience a taste of true damnation." Yelena warned, her tone spoke of the experience of seeing what the pack slaves had to endure.
Her words struck fear into Olivia's heart. She already hated it here, so why would she have to suffer even more?
She placed a lid on her thoughts when she heard Yelena leave the room and close the door behind her. She took a feel of the bowl next to her, only to withdraw her hand when she realized it was hot.
"It's hot?" For the past week she had lived there, aside from Freina the rest of the maids would serve her cold meals, just to mock her.
But for this meal to have still been this hot, it meant Yelena must've just made it and specially for her as well.
She found it hard to believe that Yelena would go through the trouble of making a poisoned meal from scratch.
Without anymore reservation, she began to eat the meal, savoring every last bite like a hungry stray.
For she knew, that it would be quite some time before she would taste another warm meal again.
"Stay still!" A woman's voice commanded over Olivia's panicked screeches. The woman hissed when Olivia's head collided against her chin. She was pre-informed that a blind slave would be joining the newest batch of slaves.
However, no one had told her the child was untamed. She found that out for herself when she tried to cut Olivia's hair, but the child relentlessly refused.
As slaves, they were not given the privilege of having long hair. They were previously made to go bald, but the higher ranks did not find it appealing to the eyes. Hence, each slave had to have their hair cut to ear length.
"Hold her down, and don't hesitate to break a bone or two, it'll heal." Melvina, the slave mistress ordered the two other women in the chamber room.
Olivia placed a fight and even bit on one of the women's arm, but ultimately she was overpowered and her hair was cut off.
She wanted to scream in pain, her hair held the memories of her mother, and now it was mostly gone and she did nothing to stop it.
"Now, have her changed and taken to the hall, the others are already waiting." Melvina addressed them, before taking her leave.
The two women sharply set to work on Olivia. They forced her into a smelly tub filled with cold water and harshly scrubbed at her skin. After dressing her in a sac like slave's uniform, her wrists were properly binded together and a collar was placed on her neck.
Olivia struggled against the uncomfortable item, it was foreign to her and she didn't like it. But her opinions had seized to matter, especially when she arrived at the 'hall' where the rest of the new slaves were assembled.
"Stand here." A hand dragged Olivia towards there the other identically dressed slaves were made to stand.
Olivia could hear the sound of their chains swaying with every move they made. 'They are just like me.' she figured, unaware of just how similar she was to these slaves.
"Now, it's time to begin the selection!" Melvina announced after a tensed minute of silence.
Selection? Olivia had a bad feeling over this.
Melvina went on to give more detailed instructions. "Have them split in two groups. The ones who look seventeen and younger, will stay back and work." She said whilst assessing this quarter's batch.
Her lips furled into a discontent frown. They were all sickly and wouldn't last the winter.
How tiresome.
"And, as for the older ones give them the special treatment. Have them trained and ready by tonight, we'll be assigning them to their masters." Melvina announced, hinting at what all the women were bitterly aware of.
That in this pack, the slaves were all destined to work until their limbs gave out, only to grow up and get passed around miserably as a plaything.
It was an endless cycle of suffering for werewolves at the hands of the lycans. And Olivia, was one of such women destined to face this cruelty as well.