The Unwanted Omega

Elara's Perspectives

The similarity between my legs and gossip is that they spread real fast whenever Darius is concerned.

In the beginning, they were quiet. They were in the back of lecture halls, lockers, or filler in the mess hall, but they grew legs; they will follow you. Everyone knows that when you're the omega betrothed to Darius Blackthorn, they stick to you like glue.

"She must have trapped him."

"Probably faked the pregnancy."

"He's too good for her, anyway."

"She probably drugged him cause no way in hell she suddenly becomes attractive."

"Even a rogue loner won't mount her despite how drunk he was."

"She is so ugly. Let's hope the sire's genes save the pup."

"She looks like something you should throw up on."

All my life, I learned in keeping low, pretending as if I couldn't hear all of that. But then came days when claws sprouted out of those whispers, and no one would save me from pretending.

Finn noticed such every time.

"You are not going to hide in your room the entire weekend," he said that Saturday, blasting into my space like the hurricane of a friend he was. "You are coming with me to the market."

"I don't need anything," I told him, tightening the blanket around my shoulders.

"You're pregnant, Elara. You need everything. The first is clothes that fit you. Maybe even some pup things. You can't just keep pretending this isn't happening. And by the way, you weren't this shy when Darius was inside of you, pouring them pup in."

I sighed and stared at the ceiling. "People will stare."

"They're already staring," he said, squeezing my hand. "But they'll have to get through me first. Come on. I won't take no for an answer."

—

The market seemed to hum alive by even my small standards. Bright, polished floors; pretzel and moonbloom hanging in the air; packs walking flank in flank, pups yanking their sires behind them and howling all around.

He tied my hand with his directly like a shield. "Ignore them" he said just like that when I stiffened under the pressure of curious stare.

Us at the inside of den-shop were rows over rows upon rows of tiny little pup pelts and moonlit blankets. It gave me a heart squeeze just to look at it. Finn nudged me toward a silly little shelf displaying pup wraps small enough to fit into my palm.

"You smile," he teased.

"I didn't." I bit my lip, but warmth clogged my cheeks. Just for a moment, I pictured folding these wraps into dens, wrapping my pup in soft hides, creating this world with him—just me and him.

But that was shattered with one glance at him.

Darius.

He stood across the atrium, tall, careless, untouchably handsome. His arm draped around a silver-furred she-wolf, who laughed loud and bright, her paw on his chest as if it belonged to her.

My chest tightened.

Darius's eyes brushed over me, just a flicker of a memory, then he looked away, tightening his hold on the she-wolf and steering her away from me.

He didn't even blink.

Muffled laughter brought me back to the present. A pack of she-wolves from the academy had been watching. One loudly whispered, "Look at her face. Pathetic." Another added, "He'd rather be seen with anyone else than his betrothed."

Heat rushed up in my cheeks, burning me alive.

Finn saw it all. And Finn snapped.

He slammed the pup blanket he had been holding into the counter and stormed straight up to Darius. "Hey, Blackthorn!" His voice snapped like a whip. Heads turned. "You seriously going to act like she doesn't exist?"

Just a handful of seconds passed. Finn turned to me, ready to add more words, but Darius froze, left me behind, and with the full force of confidence he could muster, away he went from me. The silver-furred she-wolf cozied up next to him, all smirking like she'd just won some sick lottery ticket.

"Ain't no fools!!" Finn called then at him cutting through, so to speak, the muzzled chatter of the market. "You hear me? You're a damn coward!"

Gasps rippled around us. Howl-links were drawn, packs recording. My humiliation was complete.

I wanted to vanish, dissolve into nothing right there. Instead, I gripped the shopping pelts tightly, almost to hurt my palm with the handles.

Finn returned, cursing a fair amount beneath his breath. "Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable." He draped his right arm protectively around me. "Come on. We are outta here before I put my paw through his perfect muzzle."

We paid at the register in tense silence. The den-keeper's fake smile seemed to wane even in its effort to avoid my gaze. Finn glared at her until she threw the pelts across the counter.

Outside the market, the she-wolves who had earlier been whispering sauntered past us with their pelts dangling from their clawed fingers. One of them smirked and said, "Well, I guess status can't buy dignity, huh?"

Finn lunged forward, but I caught his sleeve. "Please, don't," I whispered.

He stopped, jaw tightly clenched, then turned back toward me. His voice softened. "You don't deserve this, Elara. Not the whispers, not the looks, and definitely not him. Darius Blackthorn doesn't get to define you. You hear me?"

I nodded, even though my eyes were burning.

He sighed. "Stay here. I'll grab the pack-runner. Two minutes, tops. Don't move."

—

Smell of earth rain and feral musk in the hunting grounds lot, with distance comes, hearing hunt calls through clear air. I stood at the edge of the trail, brooding my shopping pelts into my chest, keeping from crying.

It will be fine, I told myself. Finn wouldn't be long. Just breathe.

Then—screech.

A shrill noise of skidding paws. I turned my head.

An unkempt shadow-beast surged backward from its lair, shaking like a feral in chaotic fury. The rider's head sagged agonizingly against the rolled-down flank, a half-empty flask glimmering in his impotent claw.

I could feel my blood freeze.

He is drunk.

The glow-eyes lit my way as they appraised me; the shadow-beast roared backward, too fast, too close. I was frozen to the spot, fear cementing my paws to the ground.

Someone screamed. Maybe it was me.

Everything else faded away to a jumble of noise and bright lights—the grinding of claw against stone, the growl of the beast, and the roaring panic in my chest.

There was no time to move. No time to run.

Just a horrid realization: it is going to hit me.