Chapter 6 Catch Up Day

• POV: Echo
• Working with the laundry has never been so uncomfortable in my life. I quickly emptied the dryers and then ran the washers again to rid the clothes of the stale damp scent clinging to them from sitting wet for three days.
• The pain in my back twinged every time I reached too far into the machines for the clothing, resulting in me having to almost crawl inside the massive dryers to get everything out. As I do so, I can feel Brady watching my every move with a purely animalistic gaze of desire. He stands just behind me, his eyes darkening with his wolf, making me desperate to get out of the basement before he acted on his desire.
• I thanked the Moon Goddess when I finished, and he simply gestured for me to head up the stairs in front of him. Not wanting to provide him with the time or opportunity to touch me or change his mind, I scrambled up the stairs as quickly as I could.
• Three steps into the kitchen, I paused, stifling a horrified gasp when I saw the state of it. In three days, they had covered every single surface in the room with stacks of dirty dishes and empty takeout containers.
• My pause gave him the opportunity he was waiting for. Alpha Brady came up behind me, shoving me roughly face-first against the wall and pressing himself against me. I tried to pull away, but there was nowhere to go.
• “Don’t forget Little Doll, I own you. Don’t worry about cooking anything, just get this house cleaned up.” He growls, running his nose up my neck, behind my ear, and breathing in my scent.
• He grabs my hips and slowly grinds himself against my ass several times before pulling away and leaving the room. I dropped to the floor the second he was gone, silently sobbing as tears poured down my cheeks. He had never once touched me like that outside of the basement before now, and I had hoped to be safe once we’d reached the main floor. Hoped he would still try to hide his obsession with me from the rest of the pack. Obviously not. I only allow myself a moment of weakness.
• With four days of work to get done and only one day to do so, I don’t have time for tears now. Wiping the tears from my face with determination, I started my task by throwing out the piles of takeout containers and starting on the dishes.
• The rest of the morning is spent alternating between scrubbing the kitchen clean and switching load after load of laundry from the washer to the dryer. I fold the dry laundry as soon as it comes out of the dryer, as I don’t dare risk letting it sit and become wrinkled.
• My afternoon is spent catching up on stripping the rooms of the missed days. The rooms are on a weekly sheet-changing schedule, so normally only a few rooms need fresh sheets at a time. Today, I have four days’ worth of rooms to strip.
• Towels are typically collected from all the rooms daily, and after missing three days, most of the bathrooms now have a pile of dirty, musty towels sitting in the corner. There are some pack members that will drop their laundry down the chute, especially if it builds up for any reason. Some absolutely will not and will leave it for me to deal with, some even add their own little disgusting surprises to the piles. By the time I am done stripping rooms on the first two floors, the laundry chute is backed up to the second floor.
• On the third floor, the guest rooms were all empty, so there was nothing to be done with them today. The Beta, thank the Goddess, is relatively self-sufficient. On stripping days for his living area, I typically find all of his rooms striped, and the laundry ready to be dumped down the chutes.
• He tried dumping the baskets down the chutes himself one time when he first took over the position. The Alpha and Luna saw him and hunted me down, beating me within an inch of my life.
• They assumed I’d not done my job and dragged me, black and blue, to apologize to him for my laziness. Furious, they had threatened, right in front of him, that the next time they saw their Beta having to do my chores, they’d beat me even worse, and toss me down the third-floor chute.
• Beta John had whispered a hurried but heartfelt apology the next time he and I were alone in the hallway. Since then, he has left his stripped linens in baskets in an unused spare room in his quarters.
• Frowning at the non-stop burning coming from my back, I dump his laundry down the chute and replace the baskets. Moving to the last area for the day: the Alpha and Luna quarters. I hate stripping their rooms, and they demand that it be done every couple of days. The Luna has a vicious temper, and often my presence in their quarters alone was enough to earn a slap.
• I stopped outside their door, sending a true prayer to the Moon Goddess for the first time in a long time. ‘Please, if you have any mercy left for me, please don’t let them be in their apartment. Please, I just want to do my chores with no problems!’
• Taking a deep breath, I knocked on the door. I waited for a moment and knocked once more, waiting for a response. Hearing nothing, I opened the door and hurried into the first room.
• Their quarters comprise two bathrooms, a kitchenette with everything they’d need to cook for themselves, a living room and dining room, and, of course, the master bedroom. There are also four additional rooms, meant to be for any future children the Alpha and Luna may have.
• These rooms can be used for home office spaces, game rooms, or whatever they want until they have children. Alpha Brady and Luna Embry have a different take on what to do with their four spare rooms. Two of the rooms have a fully made bed in them, as they refuse to sleep on the same sheets twice. One room was turned into an expansive closet, and the other into a game room.
• Given that I would have missed their last linen-stripping day, I wasn’t sure what to expect. This was not it.
• The first room I enter has a pile of dirty sheets in one corner, and what must have been a freshly made bed at one point. Now, the sheets are crumpled, the blankets and pillows tossed on the floor, and the sheets are covered in the stench of sex.
• I haul the previously stripped sheets to the chute and come back to strip the bed. Once I’m done with that room, I move to the next. It is in much the same shape, and I roll my eyes in frustration.
• The makeshift closet room was a disaster. At some point, Luna had apparently become angry and pulled all her clothing from the racks and stomped on them. I carefully removed the hangers from each item and made five trips to the chute with all the clothes, knowing that it was expected that they would all be rewashed now.
• Next, there was only a small pile of towels in the main bathroom, as they typically used the master bath. Removing any dirty clothes, hand towels, throw blankets, etc. from the kitchen and living room, before I make my way to the master bedroom.
• Just as I grabbed the handle to open the door, I couldn’t help but wonder in amazement at how fortunate I’d been that they hadn’t come home while I was working. I knocked sharply on the door, and, as expected, there was no reply.
• Opening the door and stepping into the dark room, I closed the door firmly behind me. Their scent was heaviest in this room, and while it was overwhelming in the rest of the apartment, it’s unbearable here. Focusing on breathing through my mouth, I tried to limit the amount of the scent I breathed, working to calm the rising panic in my chest.
• I shake my head roughly, drawing myself out of the horrible, resurfacing memories and into reality. Their smell brings me back to some of the worst experiences of my life. Most recently, being the brutal wolfsbane-drenched wake-up call.
• As my breathing evened out, I reached out and flicked on the lights. My feet were moving towards the bed, while my eyes roamed about the room, taking in the pile of sheets in the corner, and their clothes were strewn about everywhere. Making a mental note of all the items to be collected from around the room, I moved forward on autopilot.
• Only a couple of feet from the bed, I suddenly noticed him sitting at the foot of it. Jerking to a halt, I also notice the bed behind him is perfectly made, but not with the bedding meant for the alpha apartment.
• “Little Doll,” he says huskily, licking his lips. My breath catches in my throat. This is the last place I ever want to be caught by Alpha Brady alone. He stands, prowling towards me with a predatory glint of desire in his eyes.
• The rush of pure terror flowing through my body immobilized me entirely, making me easy prey. Brady wasted no time scooping me up and tossing me roughly onto his bed.