I try to speak, but my mouth is dry as bone.
Wyatt’s gaze flickers over me—quick, calculating, almost bored. He says nothing. He doesn’t need to.
The Councilor looks like he wants to crawl into his own robe and die, but he reads the next name with a forced solemnity. Just like that, I am dismissed.
I have never been dismissed before. I don’t know what to do with my hands, my feet, my face. There’s a ripple of laughter somewhere behind me, quickly shushed, but it stings all the same.
I am supposed to step aside. I can barely move.
But something else is happening. Beneath the humiliation is a different burn—a recognition, sharp and awful, that the Everhart pack’s scents mesh with mine in a way I wasn’t prepared for. Campfire and apples, pine sap and honey, even the storm-bright ocean of the youngest one. It’s as if my body, traitor that it is, knows something my mind refuses to admit.
I stare right at Ranier, let the anger show in my eyes, and he stares right back. He looks almost… impressed? No, that can’t be right.
Bastion winks at me. The urge to claw his face is nearly overwhelming.
Wyatt—Wyatt won’t meet my gaze at all, as if the outcome was decided before the night even began.
I square my shoulders. My scent floods out, unbidden, a flash of cotton candy so strong it wipes the smile off Bastion’s face. Ranier’s nostrils flare. The entire front row shudders, and for a brief, giddy second, the balance of power shifts.
I turn on my heel and walk, not toward the back of the hall, but past the pack itself, making them see me, making them remember the girl they humiliated. My head is high. My heart is lava.
Eloise catches my hand as I pass. Her eyes are wide, wild, half in awe and half in terror. I squeeze back—too hard, maybe, but she doesn’t let go.
I hear my parents somewhere behind me, my mother’s sharp intake of breath, my father’s muttered oath. I don’t look back.
I keep walking, through the air that’s still vibrating with the aftershocks of my rejection, through the crowd that’s already starting to churn with gossip and re-calculation. I keep walking because I am not afraid of them—not Ranier, not Bastion, not even Wyatt, who can’t look at me but who, I suspect, already knows how this story ends.
I am not the first omega to be rejected by the Everhart pack. But I will be the last.
CHAPTER 4
Bastion
When the selectionis over and the last poor omega has run her gauntlet, we’re herded out of the grand chamber and back into Everhart Pack’s private personal suite. Which is funny, because even with the heavy oak door closed, everyone knows exactly what’s happening inside. The three of us—Ranier, Wyatt, and myself—are slumped across the velvet benches, each feigning composure in our own way.
Ranier is prowling, hands shoved so deep in his trouser pockets it’s a wonder he hasn’t torn the lining. He’s muttering to himself in short, vicious syllables I can’t quite catch. The angle of his jaw says he’s replaying our moment on the dais, frame by frame, trying to find an edit where he doesn’t look like a bastard.
Wyatt’s in the bay window. He’s got his legs kicked up on the marble sill and he’s scrolling his phone with glazed eyes and his thumb flicking the screen over and over. The blue glow from his screen paints the hollows of his face, making his freckles stand out like constellations. Every few seconds he looks up, gaze flicking to me, then back to the phone. He’s waiting for the next move.
And me? I’m pouring myself a glass of the worst scotch Ravencroft Hall could justify. I down it in one go and pouranother. My tongue is still sweet with cotton candy, but underneath it burns the bitter aftertaste of public spectacle. I shouldn’t care, but my hands are still unsteady and I catch myself grinding my teeth.
“Next time,” Ranier says, finally, “they can at least give us candidates who aren’t in it for the free tuition and some generic headline. Fuck’s sake. We’re not a rescue operation.”
Wyatt doesn’t look up. “Your father is going to love that spin. ‘Everhart pack turns down desperate, scent-matched omega out of charity.’ Let me know when you want me to leak it. Might as well steer the narrative.”
“Can you not, Whitlock?” Ranier growls. “Some of us have enough on our plate.”
I glance at Wyatt, daring him to escalate.
Wyatt just shrugs. “What? Don’t pretend you’re not following Royals Anonymous. I know you are. Everyone does.”
Wyatt’s phone buzzes. He angles it away, but the screen is mirrored in the glass: a new tip about Emery Grey, already making the rounds.
I laugh, low and mean. “At least they got my best angle.” I point at the photo—me, smirking as Ranier publicly crushes a girl’s future in three words or less.
He doesn’t laugh. “You looked like a smug asshole, Bastion.”
“Better than looking like I’m about to piss myself,” I retort. “You flinched. Cameras caught it.”
