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I know it’s coming before it happens. He grips the collar of myold nightdress and drags me off the mattress, throwing me down onto the cold concrete floor.

Even expecting it, I can’t keep quiet the pained noise that comes from my throat.

With how many men have laid their hands on me, you’d think I would’ve gotten used to the pain by now. But each blow still hurts as bad as the first.

No matter how many men have hurt me in my life, I’m still weak.

The only thing that’s gone away is the surprise. The only thing in its place, whenever I experience new sorts of pain, is resignation.

My sore and tired body can’t curl into a ball quickly enough before my dad manages to land a fierce kick to my ribs that knocks all the wind from my lungs. It’s the kind of blow that radiates and lingers throughout my body. It takes me a second to remember how to breathe.

I let out a cry, wrapping my arms around my head.

This isn’t my first beating. I’m not stupid enough to think it will be my last, either. If not at his hand, then at someone else’s.

But still, he’s so much angrier than I’ve ever seen him. So, so, angry. I can feel it whenever he makes contact.

He drags me up to my knees so I’m looking up at him. His face is twisted with rage, his cheeks mottled with red and the vein in his temple popping.

“You will not fuck this up for us,” my dad hisses. “Do you not care about us at all?”

“I—I do,” I manage to choke out after a cough.

He backhands me. My vision flashes white.

“You obviously don’t since you just fucked with the best thing that would’ve ever happened to us after all the time we’ve spent fucking raising your ungrateful ass.”

My gaze shoots to my mom in desperation, but her eyes are glazed over. The way she’s holding herself right now tells me she’s probably high on painkillers.

My parents have never lived an easy life. Dad was always angry because he worked constantly. Mom was always angry because she was in pain all the time. They’ve told me countless times that raising me made everything worse for them. Her chronic pain. Their marriage. The finances.

Then I went into pre-awakening at fifteen. That’s when we knew I’d probably present as an omega.

That was the day they told me I had an opportunity to help them. To pay them back for all the trouble I caused them raising me.

And I agreed. All I wanted to do was make them happy. Make them proud.

That’s when they took me out of school. No one noticed. Not surprising, considering how poor this part of town is. But that was the last day I ever stepped foot outside.

“We’ve fucking kept you safe and this is how you repay us? You would’ve been taken away by the government or torn apart by rabid alphas if it weren’t for us!” His next blow is so hard it sends me back to the floor. “At least Alpha Niall is just one alpha and not a whole fucking pack that’ll pass you around like a useless whore!”

I lay there, just taking it. That was a lesson I learned quickly when I got my first heat at eighteen. Sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is to not fight back and just let things happen.

It hurts worse when I fight back. I’ve never been able to fight back effectively enough to stop anyone from hurting me if they wanted to in the past, so why start now?

He crouches beside me once he’s done.

“Alpha Niall could have any omega he wants but he wants you, be fucking grateful.” His chest heaves with effort. “You will go with him the next time he comes and you will be everything he wants you to be. None of us will ever have to worry about money ever again. Don’t be selfish.”

I don’t think I’ve been selfish in years. I know my place here. I know how much I’ve helped my family since my first heat.The fact we usually don’t go hungry anymore and the little bookshelf of books in my room upstairs are all testament to that. We never could afford that before I started pulling my weight.

“Hopefully you didn’t fuck things up too badly,” he hisses.

My parents leave the cellar, shutting the door with a slam. The click of the lock seems like it echoes inside my head.

Something inside me snaps at that sound. There’s a deep-seated dread that I can’t shake at the thought of being given to Alpha Niall permanently. At least I usually only served betas, who didn’t have the power to make me do whatever they wanted with a single word. Once my heats finish, I can at least try and forget everything that happened. I wouldn’t be able to do that anymore if I were living that nightmare every day.

Even though everything is foggy with the pain radiating through my body, I know I can’t just let that happen to me. Even if it causes more pain later, I’d take anything other than being Alpha Niall’s little sex slave, brood-mare, for the rest of my life.