Ashton wasn’t sure whether the mistress was pissed off or something, but she took it upon herself to make the rest of Ashton’s days hellish. From the moment he woke up, till the moment his feet gave out, all he did was train, train and train.

But that wasn’t all. As they did not have a simulator to use in his training, the mistress volunteered herself to be his opponent. She could have let Disha or one of the other bodyguards fight him. But nope. She wanted to do it by herself as she did not want him to get ‘injured’.

‘I seriously want to know what her definition of getting injured is!’ Ashton cursed under his breath.

Every day, a new part of his body was broken and although he did not feel much pain, the regular pain of breaking his bones was taking a bit of toll on him. At first, since his pain tolerance was going up, he was fine with it. But when it started happening every day, things took a turn for the worse.

It almost felt as if the mistress was enjoying doing so… like it was her way of punishing him. It was at that moment Ashton started to fight back seriously. He had had enough. But no matter how hard he tried, it was impossible to land a single hit on the mistress. A thing which surprised no one. 

The mistress was one of the strongest werewolves in the Lycanian kingdom. How could a kid defeat her, when even the King’s strongest warriors couldn’t?

Right now, the mistress had wrapped herself around him. No matter how hard Ashton tried, he could not get out of her grasp. The mistress was all smiles as Ashton started squirming around. 

Her sadistic smile sent shivers down the spines of everyone who was witnessing the fight. Thankfully, it was their last day there. So this was going to be the last time any of them would have to witness such a thing. 

The mistress finally let Ashton go as he was on the verge of collapsing, But not before she stepped on and snapped a few of his fingers. Blood gushed out of the broken fingers which had spread like petals of a flower.

The mistress nodded towards Disha who immediately rushed towards Ashton and expertly healed his wounds. But despite being a top-class healer, she could only heal his physical wounds. Not the mental wounds left in his head. 

‘Not yet… not yet… not yet…’ Ashton kept repeating in his head over and over again. 

All this… training made him hate the mistress even more. But rather than acting on his hatred, he decided to hold on to it. Soon he will have his revenge on her… soon. Till then, he would take all the anger, humiliation and pain he had suffered through her hands and store them in his heart. When the time was right, he would make the bitch pay for everything she had ever done. 

“You good?” Disha tenderly inquired.

Ashton nodded and got back to his feet. Disha was probably the only one under the mistress command who somewhat cared about his well-being. But then again it could also be one of the mistress’s ploys to cultivate a friendship between them so she could use Disha when the right time came.

This thought didn’t even cross his mind. Rose was the one to suggest that. In the last 6 days, Ashton had been going out to hunt regularly with her. Since Rose was a hybrid, she was well aware of the struggles of levelling up different genes simultaneously and wanted to help him. 

But the help came at a cost. Ashton would have to promise to participate at least once or twice a month in the underground fights. Not right then, but when she had figured out a way for him to conceal his identity. Till then, he was under her debt. 

“I think that’s enough for now.” The mistress signalled Disha to step back. 

Ashton was still injured. Disha could see that clearly, but when the mistress told her to step back, she did so without any question. At that moment, Ashton realised one thing… All of them were mere puppets to the mistress.

As long as they served their purpose, they were kept around, and if they couldn’t then… well, they were discarded faster than the mistress was discarded by her father. Ashton did not want to be of any use to her. But he also knew if he wanted to take his revenge he would have to get closer to her first. 

One way to do that would be to prove to her that he was worthy of her trust by completing the tasks she had been ‘cultivating’ him for. 

‘Till then… keep it all to yourself.’

“Ashton, I hope you don’t hate me more for what I have put you through these few days.” Suddenly the sadistic look she had was replaced by concern, “But I had to make you understand that you are still filth. You might be able to beat a bunch of kids but if you want to become truly useful to me, you will have to get much stronger.”

It took every ounce of self-control Ashton could find within his broken body to not laugh at her face. He was a kid, how the fck could she believe he would be able to defeat someone not only older than him but much stronger as well?

“The academy might look like it would take care of its students. But frankly, none of them, the professors, staff and even the director give two fcks about all of the students.” The mistress sat down next to him, “They only care about those who are strong and turn a blind eye towards everything they do. So you have to be one of them.”

She continued, “I’m not asking you to become an S ranked student. But at least get to A or B if you want to live your academic life a bit… peacefully. Otherwise… your life there would be made hell. Like mine was.”

“Wait what?” Ashton blurted out, “How come you’re so strong now?”

Just the thought of someone as strong as the mistress herself, being weak was absurd. 

“Sounds unbelievable, right?” The mistress smiled wanly, “That’s the power of evolution. It can turn the weakest into the strongest and the other way around. Within a span of a couple of weeks, my ranking jumped from C to S in the academy. But I had gotten lucky thanks to an early evolution. It might not be so in your case so… focus on getting stronger now. Is that clear?”

“Yes… mistress..” Ashton mumbled.