Bathing without being told, the rose scent clinging to her skin like a promise. Cooking her meals without burning anything, the kitchen filled with the domestic sounds of competence rather than destruction. Wearing the brown wool dress I gave her like she's proud of it, the fabric outlining curves that become more apparent each day.
Even saying please and thank you without prompting, the words flowing naturally from lips that once only knew how to demand and command.
I should have known it wouldn't last.
The warning signs have been building for days, subtle but unmistakable to someone who's spent centuries learning to read omega behavior. Tension in her shoulders that doesn't ease even after completing tasks successfully. A restless energy that makes her pace the halls at night when she thinks I'm not watching. The way her scent has begun to shift—still roses, but with an underlying sharpness that speaks of needs she doesn't understand.
She's approaching her first heat, though she doesn't know it yet. The omega nature I've been carefully cultivating is stirring, demanding acknowledgment. And when omegas near their first heat, they often test their alphas with increasing boldness.
On day twenty-one, I enter the kitchen to find her making breakfast—something that's become routine over the past week. But there's tension in her shoulders that wasn't there yesterday. Anger in the sharp way she moves around the stove, every motion a little too forceful, a little too aggressive.
She's spoiling for a fight.
"Good morning," I say mildly, settling into my usual chair at the small table.
She doesn't respond. Just slams the pan down harder than necessary, making the eggs jump and sizzle with violent enthusiasm. The sound echoes through the kitchen like a challenge.
Interesting. Three weeks of conditioning, and she's still got enough fire to rebel. I find myself almost admiring her persistence, even as I plan how to break it.
When she sets the plate in front of me, the evidence of her defiance is unmistakable. The eggs are burned around the edges, charred to black in places. The bread is deliberately overtoasted, bitter and hard. Even the tea tastes wrong—salt instead of sugar, the familiar morning ritual corrupted by spite.
A deliberate provocation. She wants a fight, wants me to react with anger so she can justify her own rage. It's a pattern I've seen countless times over six centuries—the omega testing her alpha's control, pushing boundaries to see how much she can get away with.
But I'm not some untested alpha who'll rise to her bait.
"This is terrible," I observe calmly, taking another bite of burned eggs with the same expression I might use to comment on the weather.
"Then make your own breakfast." She crosses her arms and glares at me with the kind of defiance that should have been beaten out of her by now. "I'm not your servant."
There it is. The real issue. She's been playing house for three days, and now the reality of her situation is chafing. She's remembering that she used to have servants—armies of them—attending to her every whim. Now she's the one doing the work, and her pride is finally rebelling against the role reversal.
"No," I agree pleasantly. "You're not my servant. Servants get paid. They have contracts and days off and the right to quit." I take another bite of the ruined food, watching her face flush with growing anger. "You're something else entirely."
"What am I then?"
"Mine." The word carries all the weight of legal ownership, of absolute possession. I watch her flinch as the truth hits home. "And things that belong to me take care of me. It's not servitude, princess. It's purpose."
"I don't belong to you!"
The words explode out of her with twenty years of entitled fury behind them. She picks up the plate—my plate, with my ruined breakfast—and hurls it across the room with all the force her slight frame can muster.
China shatters against the stone wall, leaving a mess of broken ceramic and ruined food scattered across the floor like evidence of her defiance.
Perfect.
I've been waiting for this moment, planning it since the day I first laid eyes on her at that meaningless society function. Waiting for her to push back hard enough to justify what comes next. She's been too compliant lately, too accepting of her new role. Time to remind her exactly what defiance costs.
More importantly, time to introduce her to the physical aspects of our relationship. The psychological conditioning hasbeen effective, but an omega approaching her first heat needs to understand that her alpha's dominance extends to her body as well as her mind.
"You're a brat who needs her attitude adjusted," I say, standing slowly. Ice begins to form in the air around me, responding to the controlled intensity of my emotions. "Come here."
"No." She backs away, finally sensing the danger she's awakened.
I gesture with one hand, and ice spreads across the floor from my feet—crystalline patterns crawling toward her in beautiful, deadly spirals. Not fast enough to catch her, but inexorable. The temperature in the room drops ten degrees in as many seconds.
She scrambles backward until she hits the wall behind her. Solid stone that offers no escape, no mercy. She presses her palms against it as if she could somehow push through rock by force of will alone.
"The ice will reach you in about thirty seconds," I say conversationally. "When it does, it will freeze you in place—not fatally, but thoroughly. You'll be an ice sculpture until I decide to thaw you out." The patterns continue their relentless advance. "Or you can walk over here on your own."
