Alpha Grant takes a purposeful step forward, narrowing his dark eyes at me. “And don't think about escaping your fate, Omega. You owe Blood Claw for the hut you're living in, the food you eat, and the clothes on your back. This is how you will pay back all that you owe.”
Gulping as I nod, I see the amusement in Alpha Grant's eyes, and I know there's no way out of this. He'll make sure of it.
In five years, it's not like I haven't tried to leave, but my attempts were never successful. Tonight will be no different, and I know this when the alpha tasks Dax with taking me to my hut.
The spotlight is back on me for all the wrong reasons, and there's no escaping my twisted fate.
Mating with one of the males who bullied me ever since I arrived in Seward?
That must be a cruel joke the universe is playing on me.
What's worse is that I've never been with a man before.
The last time I tried, I was rejected, and it spurred me on to run—straight into another prison, just one with different walls.
Even now, five years later, I can still hear his voice when I close my eyes. The calm cruelty of it, as though he was too composed to even raise it when he told me I wasn’t enough. A rejection spoken without hesitation, slicing deeper than claws ever could. I fled because I couldn’t breathe under the weight of it. Because I thought somewhere out there, there had to be a place for me.
Instead, I found Blood Claw.
I clutch the edge of my apron in my fists as Dax shoves me through the shadows toward my hut. Every step feels heavier than the last, as though the earth itself wants to drag me down. My throat burns where Alpha Grant’s hand had been, and each shallow breath reminds me that I belong to no one. Not my old pack. Not to myself. Not even to the Goddess.
Only to them.
“Sleep tight, runt,” Dax sneers as he throws me inside, his laugh echoing after him when the door slams shut.
I stumble in the dark, hands splayed against the rough stone walls until I find my cot. My body folds onto it, shaking, but my tears refuse to fall. Not anymore. Blood Claw has wrung them all from me long ago.
What’s left is a hollow ache. And the word that will never stop branding me…
Reject.
The air seems to thrum with it, each beat syncing with the faint tremors in my fingertips. I press my palms to my thighs, trying to still them, but the tingling only intensifies, sparking like invisible static beneath my skin. For a wild heartbeat, I wonder if it’s the stirring of madness—my mind unraveling at last.
But deep inside, something else whispers. A warning. A promise.
I shake it off, curling onto my side, pulling my thin blanket over my bruised body, not wanting to make up false senses of hope that don't exist in my reality. My gaze fixes on the cracked ceiling beam above me, tracing the jagged lines like a roadmap that leads nowhere. Tomorrow night, they’ll make me his. Tomorrow night, I’ll lose the last shred of choice I ever had.
I close my eyes, forcing the tremors in my hands to still, and whisper to the emptiness, “Please. Not like this….”
The hut doesn’t answer. Only the distant sound of cruel laughter carrying on the wind and the echo of my own heartbeat pounding in my ears answer, as if sealing my demise.
Still, that strange thrum lingers in my palms, like something locked inside me is stirring for the first time.
Madness. That's what it is. And for the first time in years, I wonder if maybe—just maybe—the nightmare I’m trapped in isn’t the end of my story.
Perhaps my madness can be unleashed and get me through this, get me to survive my impending fate somehow.
A stray tear slips out from my tightly shut eyelid just as an urgent knock rings out, nearly penetrating through the old, worn wood of my front door.
Were my silent prayers answered by the Moon Goddess? I wonder as the last spark of hope pulls me up and gives me enough determination to make it to the door, to nervously pull it open.
But the moment I meet my bullies’ faces outside, my heart drops.
I should have known better than to be hopeful. A worthless omega like me is undeserving of such luxury, and another round of abuse is the only thing I can look forward to when Sam grabs my arm and forces me outside.
Chapter 3 - Thane
The hunt for the woman from Rissa and Brooks's vision has become soundless, a different kind of tracking.
