Chapter 2

Keiran's POV

Even as I register the flare of Lucas’ nostrils when I pass him, another wolf’s teeth clamp down on my tail and drag me backward, my paws scrabbling at the ground. A high-pitched whine of terror is the only sound I can make as Alpha Randy uses his grip on my tail to slam me onto my

back. He leans down, taking a long sniff at my neck, then bares his teeth. A low growl rumbles up from his throat as he recognizes what type of wolf I am.

An omega, a male one, something considered at best useless and at worst an abomination depending on who’s telling the story. And even worse than that, I’m a male omega whose dad challenged the Alpha—and lost—only yesterday.

Randy shifts back in the blink of an eye, his face twisted with rage and disgust. He leans over me as I cower with my tail between my legs and my vulnerable belly exposed.

“Shift.” The whispered word vibrates with the same command from earlier, and I’m helpless to do anything but obey.

My fur recedes and my limbs reform, leaving me naked on my back in the dirt with my Alpha towering over me, one of his feet pressing against my ribcage and holding me down. I wrap my hands around his ankle and try to push him off.

“Please. I didn’t—”

“Silence,” hisses Randy as he presses harder into my chest, compressing my lungs. My ribs creak under the strain and I fight to get a full breath, my mouth opening and closing like a landed fish. Blackness creeps along the edges of my vision as tears drip from the corners of my eyes and trail down the sides of my face.

This is it. He’s going to kill me. I knew this would happen, expected it even, but I’d held out at least a little hope that maybe… things could be different.

I’m an idiot.

Randy sneers at me, leaning a little more of his weight onto my body and practically crushing the air from my lungs. Something cracks in my chest—a rib, most likely—and Randy finally lifts his foot away, disgust twisting at his lips. I roll to my side, curling into the smallest ball I can manage as I cough and fight for air, every inhale bringing a stabbing pain from the broken rib.

“Get up.”

The Alpha command rolls over me and I scramble to my feet, fear and pain making my movements stiff and jerky. My shifter healing is kicking in, but it’s not immediate.

“How long have you known?” asks Randy in a bland voice.

“About a month.”

“And you didn’t run?” He eyes me with something almost like respect.

“Did you think your daddy was going to spare you? Did you stick around thinking he was going to win?”

“No,” I say. I knew better than that. My dad never spared me from anything.

“Then why stay?”

“Because this is my home and—”

“Because you’re a fool.” He waves away a few younger pack members lingering in the clearing, then motions the large, reddish brown wolf forward.

Lucas.

My cousin shifts back without being asked and stands beside his father, uncertainty furrowing his brow. A couple of seconds later, two more men move to stand with Randy. One of them is John, the man who took my dad’s place as second after the failed challenge, and the other is Malachi, the pack cleric.

“Omegas are sacred,” says the cleric. “They are meant to be helpmates and guides to their Alphas, mothers to the pack. But a male omega serves no purpose except to lead Alphas from the path of righteousness. They cannot bear children. They are nothing but an unholy mistake of nature.”

I guess that means Randy and company are in the ‘omegas are an abomination’ camp.

I swallow and glance up to meet his eyes for a second before moving my gaze back to the ground. “I can’t help what I am.”

“No, you can’t,” says Randy almost conversationally. “But I will not let you lead this pack astray.” He jerks his chin toward Lucas. “Hold him.”

“What? Why?” My cousin looks so horribly confused in this moment that I almost pity him. Sure, the kid has never been particularly nice to me—he is his father’s son—but I doubt he’s ever put any serious thought into killing someone.

“Just do it,” snaps Randy.

I want to spare Lucas this—he’s so damn young—and tell Randy that I don’t need to be held in place, that I won’t run…

But I read some stories of what has happened to male omegas in the past and I don’t know if those are promises I can keep once it starts.

Lucas moves forward, eyeing his dad as he does, then grabs me by the upper arm with one hand. One of the other men snorts because that’s definitely not what Randy meant. It doesn’t really matter though once the first fist flies at my face, the shifter strength behind it breaking my nose and shattering my cheekbone. From there, it’s nothing but a blur of agony and whimpered screams, flesh bruising and bones breaking much faster than my shifter healing can keep up with.

There are 206 bones in the human body and they must break every one of them once and some, the larger ones like the femur and the ulna, they break at least twice. I’m probably unconscious for some of it, but I can’t tell because my entire world has become nothing but pain. At some point, they finally stop. All of them are panting from exertion or adrenaline, even Lucas, who I’m fairly certain didn’t take part beyond holding me up.

They must be taking a break—for themselves, not me—and they’ll probably allow me to heal for a bit before starting again. It’s the same thing Randy did to my dad after the challenge yesterday. Beating. Take a break. Beating. Take a break… so on and so on until there was nothing left to heal.

Weirdly enough, that gives me something to aim for before I die.

My dad always called me weak and useless. Even taking a beating isn’t new to me, but if I can survive more rounds of this than my dad? Well, then at least I beat him at something.

People say our wolves are the animal side of us, wild and ferocious. But I don’t think actual wolves would ever do something like this to a packmate.

Humans? I’m pretty sure they do shit like this daily.

I let my mind drift as far away from my pain-wracked body as I can, following the wind with my thoughts as it drifts through the trees.

I’m alone now. I’m not sure how much time has passed, but I’ve healed enough that blood no longer bubbles from between my lips with each breath and the agony has lessened somewhat. Footsteps sound at the edge of the clearing and grow closer until a pair of boots blocks my view of the woods.

There’s a thud and something falls to the ground beside my head.

“Dad’s back at the house and he’s already plastered. I don’t know if he’ll make it back out here tonight or not, but…” Lucas crouches down until he’s kinda sorta at eye level with me. “I know we aren’t exactly friends, but this…” He trails off, shaking his head, and I can see a sheen of moisture over his eyes.

Kid better toughen up or this pack is going to eat him alive.

“I got together as much food and stuff as I could without rousing suspicion. He’s occupied for now, but you need to get out of here.”

I can only blink and mumble out a thanks as best I can with my mangled jaw.

“Take care of yourself, Keiran.” He reaches a hand out, as if to pat my shoulder, then must think better of touching the battered joint and pulls his hand back.

I watch him as he walks away and returns to the only home I’ve ever known, the place I can never go again.

Dawn is creeping along the edges of the sky before I can pull myself together enough to shift into my wolf. I grab the bag Lucas left for me in my mouth and run as quickly as my still healing legs can manage.

I don’t look back.

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