CHAPTER TWO

LYRA'S POV

The smell of bleach burned my nostrils as I scrubbed the corridor outside the Alpha quarters. My knees ached from kneeling on the cold stone floor for the past three hours, but I didn't dare stop. Not when Mattres Franca could walk by at any moment with her sharp eyes and sharper tongue.

"Lyra! You missed a spot near the window."

I flinched at her voice, barely looking up. "Yes, Ma, sorry, Ma.""

She sniffed, her expensive perfume cutting through the bleach. "Honestly, I don't know why Kael keeps you around. You're practically useless."

My hands tightened around the scrub brush, but I kept my head down. That was the omega way. Silent. Obedient. Invisible.

Three weeks had passed since the mating ceremony. Three weeks since I'd felt their hands on my body, their mouths claiming every inch of me. Three weeks since I'd heard them laugh about how pathetic I was.

I hadn't seen them since. Not really.

Oh, they walked past me in the halls. Kael with his perfectly pressed suits and distant eyes. Riven with his loud laugh and roaming gaze that never quite landed on me. Cassian with his easy charm that he wasted on everyone except the omega cleaner scrubbing his floors.

They looked through me like I was glass.

Like that night never happened.

Maybe for them, it hadn't.

I dumped the dirty water in the servant's sink and refilled my bucket. My reflection stared back at me from the grimy window: pale skin, shadows under my eyes, hair pulled back so tight it made my scalp ache. I looked exactly like what I was, a nineteen-year-old nobody with nothing.

The morning passed ok Quickly. The other omegas whispered when I walked by. They always had, but now it was worse. Somehow, they knew. Maybe they smelled it on me. Maybe the walls had ears.

"Did you hear she tried to seduce Alpha Kael?"

"Desperate. Absolutely desperate."

"As if any of them would look twice at her."

I kept my head down and scrubbed harder.

By noon, the nausea hit.

It started as a flutter in my stomach, then became a rolling wave that sent me stumbling to the nearest bathroom. I barely made it before I was retching into the toilet, my body heaving even though I'd barely eaten that morning.

When I finally emerged, pale and shaking, the head housekeeper was waiting.

"You're sick," she said flatly. "Go home. I can't have you contaminating the Alpha's quarters."

"I'm fine, I just…"

"Go. Home."

I nodded and gathered my things, relief and shame twisting in my gut.

The walk back to the omega housing was longer than usual. My legs felt like jelly, and twice I had to stop and lean against a tree, breathing through another wave of nausea.

Something was wrong.

I knew it in my bones, in the way my breasts felt tender and swollen, in the exhaustion that clung to me like a second skin. I knew it in the way my wolf had gone quiet, curled up somewhere deep inside me like she was protecting something precious.

No.

No, no, no.

I stumbled into my tiny room barely more than a closet with a cot and collapsed on the bed. My hand went to my stomach, flat and unchanged, but somehow different.

I couldn't be.

We'd been drunk. It was one night. These things didn't happen from one night, did they?

But even as I thought it, I knew I was lying to myself.

Wolves were fertile. Especially omegas. Especially during a full moon. Especially when knotted by not one, but three alphas.

Oh, goddess.

I pressed my face into my pillow and tried not to cry. Crying was weak. Crying solved nothing. But the tears came anyway, hot and bitter, soaking into the threadbare fabric.

What was I supposed to do?

I couldn't raise a child here. I could barely feed myself on my cleaner's wages. And if anyone found out the father was an alpha, three alphas I'd be cast out. Or worse.

The nausea returned with a vengeance. I ran to the shared bathroom down the hall and threw up again, my body rejecting the half slice of bread I'd managed to eat that morning.

When I looked up, another omega stood in the doorway. Mira. She was older, maybe thirty, with kind eyes and greying hair.

"You're pregnant," she said softly.

I shook my head, even though we both knew it was pointless. "I can't be."

"You need to see the pack doctor."

"I can't afford.."

"The clinic offers free services for omegas. Go tomorrow." She knelt beside me, her hand gentle on my back. "And Lyra? Be careful who you tell about the father."

My throat tightened. "How did you know...."

"I've been around long enough to recognize that look." She stood, her expression sad. "Alphas don't take responsibility for omega bastards. Especially not the heirs."

She left me there on the cold tile floor, and I knew she was right.

I was completely, utterly alone.

That night, I barely slept. Every time I closed my eyes, I felt their hands on me again. Kael's gentle possession. Riven's wild hunger. Cassian's wicked words. Then I'd hear their voices in the hallway, cold and dismissive, and my stomach would twist into knots.

By morning, I'd made my decision.

I had to know for sure.

The pack clinic was on the far edge of the territory, a small building that smelled like antiseptic and sadness. The waiting room was full of omegas like me, tired, scared, trying to be invisible.

I gave my name to the receptionist, a beta woman who barely looked at me.

"Dr. Harrison will see you shortly."

I sat in a plastic chair and counted the cracks in the ceiling. Twenty-three. There were twenty-three cracks, spreading out like spider webs, like everything in my life was breaking apart at once.

"Lyra Hart?"

I stood on shaking legs and followed the nurse down a narrow hallway. She left me in an exam room that was too bright, too cold, too real.

Dr. Harrison entered a few minutes later. He was middle-aged, with grey streaking his temples and a kind but clinical expression. He'd been the pack doctor for as long as I could remember.

"Ms. Hart. What brings you in today?"

I swallowed hard. "I think... I think I might be pregnant."

He nodded, no judgment in his eyes. "When was your last heat?"

"Six weeks ago."

"And you've been sexually active since then?"

My cheeks burned. "Once. Three weeks ago."

"Any symptoms? Nausea, fatigue, breast tenderness?"

"All of it."

He gestured to the exam table. "Let's run some tests."

The next twenty minutes were a blur. Blood drawn. Urine sample. Questions I answered in a monotone voice while staring at the wall.

When he finally sat down across from me, his expression was gentle but serious.

"Lyra, you're pregnant. About three weeks along."

The room tilted.

I'd known. Of course I'd known. But hearing it out loud made it real in a way that terror couldn't quite capture.

"Are you... are you sure?"

"The tests are conclusive." He leaned forward. "Do you have support? Family? The father?"

I almost laughed. The fathers. Plural. Three alpha heirs who'd rather see me dead than acknowledge what we'd done.

"No," I whispered. "No one."

He sighed. "You have options, Lyra. If you're not ready to carry this pregnancy to term—"

"No." The word came out sharp, protective. My hand went to my stomach. "No. I'm keeping it."

"Then you'll need prenatal care. I'll set up appointments…."

"I can't afford…"

"We'll work something out." His voice was firm. "But Lyra, you need to tell the father. He has a legal obligation to provide for you and the child."

I stood on trembling legs. "Thank you, Doctor. I'll... I'll think about it."

I left before he could say anything else.

Outside, the sun was too bright. The world was too loud. Everything felt surreal, like I was watching my life happen to someone else.

I was pregnant.

With their child.

And they would hate me for it.

But as I walked back toward the pack house, something hardened in my chest. A determination I didn't know I had.

They needed to know.

Even if they rejected me. Even if they denied it. They deserved to know they were going to be fathers.

I just had to find the courage to tell them.