I move closer, and her fingers tighten on the blanket. The foreign scent grows stronger with each step, familiar yet out of place in her room. It remindsme of a spice we use at the diner, with undertones of something else I can’t place.
Her hair spills across the pillow in tangled, unwashed waves, out of the norm for her usual meticulous morning routine. Dark circles frame her eyes, not the purple smudges of typical teenage sleep deprivation, but the shadows of true exhaustion.
“What happened?” I ask, maintaining control despite the alarm bells ringing in my head.
“Nothing.”
Too quick again. Too defensive.
I sit on her desk chair, close enough to see the minute tremors in her hands but far enough not to crowd her.
Her eyes dart away from mine, then back, and her wariness hurts more than any lie she could tell.
“I need you to tell me what’s going on,” I say, my heart pounding hard enough to show in my wrist.
She swallows before shaking her head once. “I just don’t feel well.”
The lie hangs between us, fragile as smoke and as impossible to grasp. I could push harder, demand truth, leverage the authority I’ve earned through years of sacrifice on her behalf.
But the way she clutches the blanket, unblinking… All of it signals a deeper issue than teenage rebellion or minor trouble she’s afraid to confess.
“Show me your nape, Lena.”
The words leave my mouth before the suspicion clicks into place, an instinct born from years of living in a world where Omegas are vulnerable to forces beyond their control.
She pales, which is confirmation enough before the tears spill down her cheeks. She lowers the blanket with trembling fingers and rolls onto her side, her back to me. With a trembling hand, she lifts her long hair to expose the ugly red imprint of a Mark on her pale skin. It’s rough at the edges, more of a mauling than a claiming. Unwanted. Out of control.
It’s not permanent, not a bond.Yet. But it’s enough to give the person Alpha Rights for the next thirty days. And that’s thirty days too many.
My lungs forget how to function as I stare at the biological brand of ownership on my baby sister’s neck.
My pupils dilate so rapidly that the edges of the room blur, peripheral vision sacrificed to the predatory focus of my hindbrain. The pulse in my neck hammers, blood rushing to prepare for fight or flight.
Someone put their mouth on my sister’s skin.Someone sank their teeth into her flesh without permission. Someone claimed her as property.
My right hand curls into a tight fist, my nails breaking the skin of my palm. Blood wells in tiny half-moons, lost to the static of pure rage crackling through my nervous system.
The room tilts beneath me as I stand. My blood pressure spikes, and black spots dance at the edges of my vision. I count my breaths, measuring each inhale and exhale to keep from exploding right here in front of her.
“Stay here,” I manage to say, the words scraped raw from my throat. “Give me a minute.”
Without answering, she burrows deeper into her blanket cocoon, a child again rather than the confident teenager she was seventy-two hours ago.
I back out of her room, closing the door gently while every cell in my body screams for violence.
“Ash?” Lena calls after me.
“I’ll be right back,” I promise, my voice not sounding like my own.
Five steps down the hall to my bedroom. Five steps that might as well be five miles as my body vibrates with contained fury. The floor seems to ripple beneath my feet as I force myself to move away from her door.
My bedroom door opens to a sparse, practical space that exists for function rather than comfort. A bed with plain sheets. A dresser with clothes folded by category. A small desk with bills stacked in order of due date. Nothing decorative. Nothing to speak of who I am beyond the necessity of survival.
The door closes behind me, and I twist the lock with numb fingers.
Then I shatter.
My fist connects with the wall, the impact jarring up my arm and into my shoulder. Pain blossoms across my knuckles, distant, belonging to someone else. I hit the wall again, harder this time, the drywall giving beneath the force of my rage.
