Poisoned Trust

Ivara’s POV

The omega quarters smelt like old firewood and unwashed linen, nothing like the room I slept in for three years.

“You. New girl.” A woman shoved a bucket into my hands before I had even set my bag down.

“Wells need scrubbing, all four of them. Selara wants it done before sundown.”

I then looked at her, waiting for a name, a greeting, anything that told me this is a mistake but nothing came.

“I’m not new,” I said quietly. “I’m the Lun..”

“You’re nobody now.” Another voice cuts in, and I didn't need to turn around to know who it belonged to.

Selara stood in the doorway wearing a dress the color of blood, her arms crossed, her smile sharp enough to cut glass.

“Word travels fast in a pack,” she said, stepping closer.

“Everyone already knows you signed your own papers. No fighting. No begging. Very dignified.” She tilted her head.

“Or very stupid. I can’t decide which.”

“What do you want, Selara?”

“I want these wells scrubbed by sundown.” She nodded at the bucket in my hands like she had already forgotten we were talking about anything else.

“And after that, the kitchen floors. And after that, whatever else needs doing, because that is what omegas do here. You are an omega now, Ivara. Did nobody explain that to you?”

My jaw tightened. Three years I ran this pack’s trade agreements.

Three years I settled disputes between alphas twice Draven’s age.

Now I was scrubbing wells for a woman who walked in yesterday and kissed my husband in front of me.

“Fine,” I said, because there was nothing else to say. Fighting her gave her exactly what she wanted.

She watched me a moment longer, something calculating behind her eyes, like she expected more resistance and was almost disappointed not to get it.

“Three years married and he never even marked you,” she said suddenly, tilting her head like she was studying something pitiful.

“Did you ever wonder why? A real husband claims what’s his. He never claimed you. You were only ever a wife on paper, Ivara. Nothing more.”

The words landed harder than I let her see and I pressed my lips together and walked past her toward the wells.

The days blurred together after that and I scrubbed floors until my knuckles cracked and bled.

I carried water until my shoulders screamed and Selara found new ways to humiliate me every single day, always with an audience, always with that same satisfied smile, like watching me break was the only thing that made her happy.

The worst part was not the work. It was the memory of that one soft night, of Draven’s hands on me, of the way he said my name like it meant something.

I used to think a mark would come eventually, once he learned to love me the way a husband should.

Now I understood it never would have, some part of him always knew I wasn’t the one meant for him and that was probably why he never marked me at all.

I never saw Draven, not once in two weeks and I heard his voice sometimes, carried through the halls when I was delivering firewood, but he never looked for me, never asked how I was managing, and never seemed to remember I existed beyond the ink on a signed page.

I then told myself it didn't matter. I told myself every night before I fell asleep on a mattress thinner than the towels I used to own.

It was late on a Thursday when everything fell apart.

I was scrubbing the last of the kitchen floors, alone, everyone else already asleep, when I heard shouting from the main hall, feet pounding and a woman’s voice screaming for help.

I didn't think, I ran toward the noise like the years of training as Luna hadn't left my body yet, like some part of me still believed I was responsible for whatever chaos was happening in this pack.

I rounded the corner and found chaos. Selara was on the floor, convulsing, blood at the corner of her mouth, servants crowding around her screaming for the healer.

Draven was on his knees beside her, holding her face, shouting her name.

“What happened?” I asked, pushing through the crowd. “Is she…”

“Poison.” The healer’s voice cut through the noise, and it was sharp and certain. “She’s been poisoned.”

The room went very quiet, and then, all at once, every eye turned to me.

“She was in the omega quarters tonight,” someone said. “I saw her near Selara’s room earlier.”

“No.” My voice came out too fast, too high. “I wasn’t near her room, I was in the kitchen, I have been scrubbing floors all night…”

“Search her room,” Draven said, not even looking at me, and his hands still cradling Selara’s face like she was made of glass.

I wanted to scream that this was insane, that I would never, that I have spent two weeks scrubbing his pack’s floors without a single complaint.

But before I could say anything two guards were already moving, already gone toward the omega quarters.

They came back faster than should be possible, one of them holding a small glass vial between two fingers like it’s something diseased.

“Found under her mattress,” he said.

“That’s not mine.” My whole body went cold. “I have never seen that before in my life. Draven, please, look at me…”

He did look at me then, finally, after two weeks of pretending I didn't exist but there was nothing in his eyes except disgust, like I was something he stepped in.

“Take her to the prison cell,” he said.

“Draven, I’m your wife…”

“You were,” he said, and his voice didn't shake at all. “Take her away.”