The Demon and His Plaything

2| The next day

Samantha sat at her vanity. She was watching the final remnants of her rope burns heal as she ran a brush through her hair.

She wondered if she could talk Godrick into cutting her.

Finished brushing her hair, she put it into a simple braid. She kept her chestnut hair glossy and long, make-up to a minimum and her dresses demure. The model daughter of an Alpha.

She had lived her life understanding all the stepping stones in front of her–a map not of her making.

She stared back at her reflection. She supposed she liked it–her reflection. She was pretty in a very classical way, with a slightly upturned nose and plump lips. Her mouth was perfectly proportioned, the edges sitting in line with the centre of her eyes. The warmth of her hair framed large green eyes.

Except for her typical beauty, Samantha had learnt pretty early on she wasn't like those around her. But the emotionally available person, a large portion of her childhood had been spent working out how to act around other people. Her teen years were a facade, just hoping her wolf would fix her when it came.

Her wolf, when it came in six months earlier, hadn't helped in the slightest. She felt her human side was more assertive, more instinctual. Her wolf amped up all her base desires. It was her co-conspirator in her need to be dominated. She was starting to suspect her wolf was a little mad.

The next obvious difference was Samantha's kinks. Later in her teen years, she had found opportunity to fool around a bit, realising in practice she liked a rougher type of play.

A magazine had helped to put a name to the desire she felt deep down. She found it at a human rest stop, when travelling with her family to another pack only a couple of years before. The magazine showed a woman tied to a chair–but not how you'd imagine. The woman was kneeling on the chair, her stomach over the back of it. Her ankles were tied to the front of the arm of the chair so her legs were drawn open, her hands tied behind her back. That had been the start and her wolf brought that out in her more.

She picked up her phone. He hadn't messaged back. She had messaged that morning asking if she could fuck herself. Her thoughts were consumed by their time together. She had never actually done what she did with anyone before. While there had been a few online trysts none were like with him. The things he wrote to her, from the beginning, had driven her wild. She'd not let anyone before talk her into meeting up in person.

A week to wait.

She checked her wrists. No marks left. Time to face the day.

Samantha trotted downstairs from the Alpha floor to the common rooms on the ground floor. There was an elevator but she rarely took it.

It was breakfast time in the pack house, the busiest of all the meals in the building. It was essentially an apartment building incorporated with a resort-style hotel, where the ruling Alphas family and their Beta and Delta families, as well as those who worked there, lived. It was large and sprawling. The Alphas family took the top floor in a massive penthouse apartment as well as two suites for esteemed guests or for when members of the family wanted more of their own space.

The third floor was split for the Beta and Delta families, others that helped to run the pack and more guest suites. The second floor was for the kitchen staff and cleaners, gardeners and guards and any single wolves who wanted to move out of the family home. That wasn't an option for Samantha who still lived at home with her parents. The first floor then had additional housing in the west wing with offices for managing the pack in the east.

The ground floor had a gym, pool, ballroom, conference room, kitchens, theatre and games rooms–everything and anything they might want. A place where all the young people in the pack could come and hang too. The ballroom was set up for the meals of the pack. Anyone could eat here whenever they wanted to. Her family had their own kitchen and dining room but they usually ate down here.