The Omega Division promised freedom, but it was just another cage. General Stone didn’t save us from the goodness of his heart. He wanted us in a holding cell, waiting for his experiment to begin.
Every path I’ve taken has been someone else’s design. And every one of them ends the same.
Even if I weren’t infertile and my father had reported my designation like he should’ve, I’d be on my back, spitting out babies for some Alpha drunk on power.
Omega.
Always at the bottom. Always meant to be owned.
But thanks to Shade's research, I know it wasn’t always like this. Omegas were once the crowning glory of Packs. Our power, and rightful place, was stolen from us.
Andthatmakes me angry.
It makes me fracking furious.
My hands tremble, and my nostrils flare as I indulge in being mad without restraint. I don’t have to reel it back in or be ashamed of it. Not like every time I’ve lost my cool around Knox. When the careful shields would shatter and pressurized molten rage would erupt from me.
This time, I feel it coming. Pulling over my vision like a veil, and instead of stuffing in back down, I lean into it, chasing the sensation.
“Good Halley, keep going,” Shade encourages.
The O-space folds in around me… but it’s wrong. There’s no shimmer, no soft hum at the edge of my senses. It doesn’t settle like a blanket dulling the world, suppressing whatever pain or fear I’m hiding from.
It crackles.
Sharp, electric, alive.
I stumble back, breath catching hard in my chest.
No.
I know this feeling. I know it too well.
It haunts my dreams, curled around the edges of every nightmare.
I’m back in Rheamont with that twisted seduction. That sick toxic compulsion that twines around my mind and tries to seize control. It wants to sink its teeth in and never let go.
It whispers to me now, slick and persuasive.
Give me control, and I’ll make them bow.
I’ll burn the world that caged you.
Oh… Oh,frack.
It hits me all at once.
The Command isn’t something separate from me. It’s not a parasite or a curse. It’s mine.
It’s me.
A raw, unfiltered expression of what’s been buried for too long. My rage. My burning need to prove that I’m capable of being more than what I’ve been allowed to be.
The power isn’t evil.
It’s not some invasive thing that took root in me without permission.
It’s the truth of who I am.
