Alpha Ryker: Cursed Collision

Chapter 1

The Cure

“You have been sold”

I should have known better than to believe that Madame Faye could ever hold any good intention for me after the passing of her husband.

He was the only link that held us together as a 'family,' and with him gone, she must want me gone as well.

“What did you just say?” my voice trembles as I question her, hiding my shaking hands from sight.

What was I really expecting to hear her say? That her words were a joke? That she had only said those words to lighten up the darkness that has been casted over our family since his death?

Deep down, I knew that Madame Faye would rather die than ‘try’ to lighten up the mood. She was not one to eat her words, let alone smile. Still, I desperately needed to hear her say that her words were nothing but a joke.

Madame Faye turns to me, her hazel eyes holding darkness, matching the color of her mourning black dress and dark makeup. The only thing bright in this room was her signature red lipstick accompanied by her ginger hair peeping from beneath her black hat.

“Since when do I need to repeat myself to you?” Her voice is like lightning - the kind that brightens up the night sky, warning you of the danger the thunder carries.

“But Madame —”

I should really shut my mouth before she hits me. Though this wouldn't be the first time she had hit me. She always did, whether I was right or wrong. She had a knack for finding a way to swat me so hard that my mouth would bleed. With this, I should back down, shut my mouth, and accept what she had just said. But I didn't.

I wanted to hear it again, to confirm that what she said was indeed what I had heard.

“I must have heard wrongly” I muttered, trying to meet her gaze but failing.

She is scary.

She is a terrifying woman.

Madam Faye is a big woman, she is taller than her husband - was - and he was by no means a small man. Her presence always radiated a throat gripping fear and I could never challenge her. I would lose before I could ever start and get punished. Yet, here I was, asking the woman who was the subject of my nightmares to repeat herself.

“You did not, Ressa”

Mason decides to speak. If I didn’t know him too well I might think he was helping me but that would be the lie of the century. Manson was just like his mother. He doesn’t help people like me, and I could bet that he only spoke because my voice annoyed him. “You are getting sold off for marriage tomorrow,” he repeated his mother's words, kicking the breath from my lungs.

Michaela, Mason’s sister, didn't seem shocked by his words. At that moment, I knew they had planned it together. They had always despised me and wanted me out of their lives. Yet, they couldn't follow through because I was their father's daughter, illegitimate but still a Rinn.

“You’re selling me off?”

When I found the courage to speak, I sounded as though I were begging them to let me stay. I would never beg, even if they placed a hot iron on my neck. I would never beg them to let me stay but at the same time, I do not want to be sold off to God knows who and let them do God knows what to me. Despite the fifteen years of hell I had endured living with the Rinn, I chose the familiarity of this hell over the uncertainty of an unfamiliar heaven.

“The family is in debt, '' Mason stated as he turned to stare at me. He was looking down at me, I mean this literally. I was never allowed to share a table, much less dinner, with the Rinn even when their father shared the same breath as us. He had made a small table beside the family's elaborate dining table, where I had to sit on the floor and eat only what was tossed at me. It’s been this way since the very first day I stepped my foot into this hell.

I was only five then, barely remembering my life before the Rinn. I only have one particular memory that I have held onto and that was the memory of my mother singing to me.

Unfortunately I cannot remember her face, just her beautiful voice.

“Father gambled a lot” Manson’s voice forces me back to reality “We are on the brink of losing the house, the estate and even the business” Mason explained. I am shocked that he even bothered to explain their actions to me. They never bothered to tell me anything

“We need help if we are going to get everything back and Sir Valerie Russo as offered to help us, with you in exchange”

I wanted to scream ‘Are you insane?’ But the words could not leave my mouth. Fear gripped me like a Python squeezing my bones and choking me just at the mention of the name Sir Valerie Russo. I don't know many names but I knew the name of the monster that shook the country.

There were rumors that Sir Valerie was wicked and Vile, plus he was 40 years my senior, known for pursuing young and beautiful girls with long black hair. I've heard the rumors that they never leave his home sane. The whispers said that he did unspeakable things to the girls and several had resulted in ending their own lives.

Everyone knew him for what he was, including my stepmother and step siblings, and yet they had decided to sell me off to a man whose name is spoken to stubborn kids to get them to behave. I could only imagine the torture I would endure if he owned me. Something tells me that the torture was exactly why they want to sell me off to him.

I felt my skin crawl at the possibility and my chest tightened at the mere thought of what he would do to me.

“No!” I suddenly screamed, startling the Rinns and myself. “I refuse to be sold off to that beast” my voice louder than it had ever been.

“Have you gone mad!” Mason questioned. I am not sure he wants to hear the answer to that “How dare you yell -“

“You are sending me off to die, aren’t you?” I cut him off.

I really need to shut my mouth before I get punished. I no longer have anyone to protect me from the three of them and the one person that had shown a pinch of compassion was now six feet deep. He was no longer here to stop them from punishing me and from selling me off and for the first time since he died I felt truly and utterly alone.

“Gosh, Ressa you are so selfish” Michaela decides to grace us with her voice. Like Madame Faye, she too was a ginger with darkness in her eyes and she scared me the most. She barely speaks to me and despite being a year younger, she has never gotten tired of showing me that she had more power than I could ever hope for.

“Since you came into our family all you have ever done is to drain us dry” She spoke, her voice like pin on my bare skin “You stole Father’s love from us, his affection -”

Is she high on opium? Father’s love and affection? The man hated my guts, he never failed to remind me that I am nothing but a drunken mistake. I don’t know why he took me away from my mother, why he raised me in the midst of wolves and turned a blind eye every time I was abused, only stepping in when I was on the verge of dying. He never sent me to school with them, or taught me how to ride horses or cars and Michaela thinks that I stole his love?

“You barely contributed to anything in this house and the one time that we actually need your help, you flip out like a child”

“That’s easy for you to say, you’re not the one getting sold off to a monster” I let my mouth run free and regretted it the second the words were out of my lips.

She stood up, dropping the cutlery and walked up to me. Michaela stood in front of me as I stared at her, my heart beating so fast I was afraid she could hear it. Michaela slapped me hard across the face. Tears threatened to fall from the corners of my eyes as she pulled my hair, yanking me back.

I yelped in pain. Tears threatened to fall from the creak of my eyes as she pulled me close “So what if we are sending you off to die?” She whispered “No one wants you alive, anyways”

I opened my mouth to speak but no words could come out of my mouth. She was wrong, my mother wants me alive, she’s the sole reason why I have been enduring this life, why I've been saving up any money I could get to change my name and run away. I dreamed of escaping on my 21st birthday to start the journey of finding my mother but all my dreams were destroyed because of his death.

He was never good to me when he was alive and even in death he still disrupts my life.

I bite my lips, swallowing my plan. If they knew that I had been planning to escape they would block every single means and maybe even hurt my mother so I bite down my secret as I stare into Michaela’s burning eyes.

“Take her to the dungeon” Madame Faye commands “It seems Ressa has forgotten her place” the snake hissed as the guards came to drag me into my hellhole.