20 A Maid for the Packhouse
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20 A Maid for the Packhouse
Nyra’s POV
The Alpha didn’t answer me.
He just stood there on that platform like he hadn’t heard a single word I said, like I was nothing more than a sound the wind carried and forgot.
The silence stretched.
It wasn’t empty silence.
It was the kind that was meant to put me back in my place.
The kind that said: You don’t get to ask questions here.
My fingers tightened around the draft paper so hard the edges bit into my skin.
My voice came out again, louder this time, not because I wanted to challenge him, but because I needed an answer to the cage he’d just put me in.
“How long?” I repeated.
Heads turned. Wolves shifted. A few of them exchanged looks like they were watching a show.
I swallowed, forcing air into lungs that suddenly felt too small.
“How long will I have to work as a servant?” I asked, each word steady even as my heart hammered. How long will I have to serve your pack?”
Serve your pack.
Not mine.
Because I had stopped pretending I belonged a long time ago.
A ripple moved through the crowd, surprise, offence, delight.
My mother’s hand reached for me, sharp and urgent. “Nyra, ”
I shrugged her off, not harshly, but enough to make it clear I wasn’t done.
“I was fine,” I said, voice trembling now with the weight of everything I’d swallowed for years, “with never stepping foot in the common areas again. I was fine staying in the outskirts where you keep us like we’re shame.”
The words tasted like blood.
I lifted my chin, looking up at Ethan even though it felt like staring at the sun.
“But you drafted me,” I continued, my voice cracking slightly. “You brought me back into your world. So
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20 A Mas for the Packhouse
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tell me, how long am I expected to serve people who choose to treat me like I’m less than a person?”
My throat tightened. I pushed through it anyway.
“People who refuse me medical care,” I said, and now the memory of the doctor’s voice burned in my
ears, contaminating our things, “people who look at me like I’m dirt and still expect me to bow my head and clean their floors.”
A hush fell over the assembly grounds.
Not because they cared.
Because a wolfless outcast wasn’t supposed to speak like she had a spine.
Alpha Ethan’s eyes narrowed.
Then he didn’t look at me.
He looked at my mother.
“Control your child,” he said, voice flat with authority.
My mother’s hand snapped around mine.
Her grip was tight, pleading and warning and furious all at once.
“Nyra,” Elaine whispered, leaning close, her breath shaking. “Let it go.”
I stared at her.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to demand that she let me fight for once.
But then I saw it, how pale she was, how tense her shoulders were, how her eyes flicked to the wolves around us like she knew exactly how quickly a crowd could turn into a pack.
She wasn’t scared of Ethan.
She was scared of what this place could do to me.
For her sake, I swallowed my rage.
For her sake, I let my mouth close.
But the answer still sat in my chest like a stone.
I stepped back beside her, my hands shaking, the draft paper still crumpled in my fist.
I felt eyes on me.
A heavy stare.
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20 A Maid for the Packhouse
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I didn’t have to look to know who it was.
Kieran.
I could feel him the way you feel a storm moving in before the sky even changes.
But I refused to glance his way.
It was for the best.
Now that I’d been drafted as a maid, the difference between us was no longer something we pretended
didn’t exist.
It was law.
It was rank.
It was humiliation written in ink.
A servant girl didn’t become Luna.
A wolfless outcast didn’t stand beside an Alpha.
Whatever I had dreamed when I was sixteen, whatever hope I’d clung to like a foolish child, was dead.
And I’d been the one forced to bury it.
My stomach churned as Ethan continued the drafting.
More names were called. More futures assigned.
I barely heard them.
All I could think about was the packhouse.
The place where the powerful lived.
The place where Beverly’s laughter would echo through halls I would be expected to scrub.
The place where wolves would have the right to order me around.
To mock me.
To punish me.
And no one would stop them because I would belong to the service class now.
A maid.
A thing meant to be useful and unseen.
I tasted bile.
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20 A Maid for the Packhouse
I was about to step into another hell.
When the last name was called, Alpha Ethan lifted his hand.
The crowd quieted instantly, eager again.
He turned his gaze across them like he was blessing them with his voice.
“Now,” he announced, “I have one more matter.”
My mother’s grip tightened on my hand.
I felt her bracing.
Ethan’s eyes flicked toward the front row of warriors.
“Kieran Whitewolf,” he called.
My breath caught.
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