THE ALPHA’S CURSE WAS ME

The kitchen was too hot and loud, and it smelled like burning onions and sweat. A sensation that stung my eyes badly but I kept my head down, hands moving fast, peeling, chopping, scraping, and trying not to draw attention, trying to be invisible.They shoved past me and threw scraps at me, called me names like it was my job to absorb them, and maybe it was, maybe that’s what being omega meant, taking hits, swallowing shame, and pretending it didn’t matter“Faster, rat,” one of the head cooks snapped, tossing a cloth at my face, it hit me hard enough to stumble, but I didn’t flinch, I just nodded and kept going.“Stars above, do you even know how to hold a knife properly?” another scoffed, slamming a basket of potatoes onto the counter. “It’s like watching a squirrel trying to sew.”“She probably eats with her hands,” one of the scullery girls added with a snort. “Omegas don’t need manners. They just need to stay out of the way.”I kept my eyes down, because it was safer that way.“Do

I didn’t cryEven as I staggered through the cold, down the worn path that wound through the woods like a scar, even as the pain burned beneath my ribs like fire licking the edges of my bones, I didn’t cry.The trees whispered above me, the wind pushing through their branches like it mourned something. Me, maybe.I didn’t know how long I had been walking. Minutes, hours, days maybe. The stars shifted. The moon slid higher, casting a pale silver light across the frost-laced leaves, but I kept walking.Away.I didn’t look back, not at the hall where they cheered for Astra.Not at the gates where Kael had turned his back.My breath stuttered. My legs trembled. Something inside me twisted again. That same strange pressure I’d felt since the morning Kael last kissed me behind the herb garden.I pressed a hand to my stomach and there was no more wondering.I know now. I was pregnant.With his child.A tiny flicker of life pulsed beneath my palm. Weak, barely-there… but still real.And I was

I didn’t move.Even as she stepped into the packhouse like death had never touched her, I stood motionless. My mind couldn't catch up with what my eyes were seeing. Every instinct told me this was real, but everything else rebelled.Her voice lingered in my mind, reverberating through my thoughts with disturbing clarity.“Where is my child, Kael?”That single question unmade me. It wasn’t just the words, it was the weight behind them, the knowledge that I had no answer and the fact that I, an Alpha, her mate, the man meant to protect her, should’ve known. Should’ve done better. But I hadn’t and I failed her.“She can’t stay here,” Astra said beside me, her voice unsteady but edged with fury.I didn’t turn toward her. My gaze remained fixed on the direction Eva had walked. The woman who vanished seven years ago had returned, but she was no longer the girl we’d discarded.“That’s Eva,” I murmured. “She’s changed… but it’s her.”“She’s a threat,” Astra insisted, clutching my arm tighter

This was all because of me, the child that was before me became an entity of hate, all because of me.His sinister politeness wept pores in my skin. I could feel every ounce of treachery spiral, to think my heir was to be the one who wants to end my bloodline, to end his own mother.“My sole purpose has been to kill you mother” he said, and my heart traded into shades of guilt and agony.“Who sent you ?” I said to him, it was evident his former allies were not friendly.It was visible in his appearance, like a younger mini me, lean but muscular with an aura so supreme it even held his mother to cut.“It is not who sent me but why I was sent “He said, that was already portrayed, his sole mission was murder. “You will speak when I command,” I said, fed up with his evil curtesy.“And you shall command with caution” he said, spitting in her face and name.It was then I knew that I couldn’t accept him, he was a curse, a mistake burned out of me. And before he could do anything to harm Ev

I watched her leave with that curse she had adored.Eryx shadows clinging to her like death reborn.My wolf thrashed in me, a feeling I had to restrain.I wanted to drag her back, to lock her where she would be safe.I wanted to bury his throat, to stamp on the Vernon he was touched with. But an Alpha didn’t act on impulse An Alpha doesn’t grieve and let his emotions capture the serenity. No, an Alpha restrains and thinks. Build the blocks step by step and plan.I am that Alpha, I wasn’t like that before, and only acted at the east journey, taking the route of the already made, but not anymore… I was determined to behave like an Alpha, a leader and that would be done strategically.I went back inside, and just like I had imagined, words had spread round the pack.They had known of the accursed, of the child should never be.I turned to the pack, their eyes restless,lips drawn back over teeth. They were restless and hungry for condemnation.“She shouldn’t be alive, the boy smells w