The Unthought Fate [MxM]

Chapter 9

Six years later

Vlad

Tomorrow I leave the slave training facility. I am being sent to my permanent master, apparently.

I think I should feel anxious or nervous about this move. I don't.

Maybe I should wonder if I'll be treated okay, or get punished for existing. If I will sleep inside a building, or outside with the animals, or under the clear night sky. If I will get my own food or just leftovers from the masters—if there are any left. I don't.

I don't ask those questions, because it doesn't matter. I've been through it all. It's nothing new to me now—nothing I can't manage anyway.

It's been a couple of years since the cruelty of people stopped surprising me. They are all vile, and I am at their mercy. I have absolutely no power to change a thing on my own.

Six years—that is how much time has passed since I was caught by those mercenaries while Dad was away for supplies. I have never heard from him since we were separated by that crazy person shortly after.

I tried asking other slaves if they had seen or heard anything among the masters, but nothing. Absolutely nobody had seen or knew anything about a bird shifter named Eric. It was as if the ground opened and swallowed him and his entire existence. But I wasn't giving up. At some point, I will get even the smallest piece of information about him.

It took me years to get over the heartbreak of not being able to say goodbye, and being left with so many questions and doubts. So many nights were filled with different scenarios of "what if" and "maybe."

I mostly blamed myself for being so weak—in body and mind. I freeze when confronted, unable to do or say a thing, let alone defend myself or others.

My dad made a promise to my mother to protect me with his life. If my poor mother, who sacrificed herself for me to exist, could see what I've become... the disappointment I am... I think she would regret it. Maybe Dad was even happy he got rid of me and is now living a peaceful life with a new family. I was just a burden for him, if you think about it—a kid with no powers or skills worth the trouble, who had to be hidden because apparently I was a problem to royals.

Me, a problem to royals? That was the only thing that still made me laugh...

That reminds me—my so-called forever master is some royalty. I was going to live in a castle, or outside of it in some barn, who knows. I don't know what made the trainers think I am ready for that place, but whatever. It's not like I can do anything about it.

After almost six years of being a slave—both training in special facilities and serving different masters—I still make many mistakes and receive the corresponding discipline. The healing cuts and bruises all over my body speak for themselves.

They say the perfect slave is invisible, and yet always there—ready for service, at the master's disposal.

I am very far from being the perfect slave. That is why I was sent back and forth from the training facility to different masters—to get acquainted with all types of environments, personalities, and habits, and become what they desired.

In the end, I did become something. And that was not the perfect slave, as I already established. Instead, I became certain that they were all just crazy, vile, and greedy individuals. No amount of submission was ever enough for them. No amount of pain they inflicted was sufficient. There was no end to this madness—they only wanted more and more, and it seemed impossible to please them.

I was really tired. It was rather late at night, and I should definitely get some sleep—at least three or four hours. But I was unable to close my eyes, not because of where I was going, but because of what I was leaving behind.