Chapter 3

     "Really, why?”


“Because he’s so handsome and he told me a joke.”


I laughed it off — she’d told me she wanted the mail guy to be her daddy last month too.


It was the weekend already. Kaila sat on the floor at the foot of the couch, playing with her dolls, while I was sprawled across the couch when, without warning, my mind drifted back to the rumored Alpha.


I tried to push the thought away, but somehow, it kept circling back to him.


The Alpha.


I let out a frustrated growl. “Why do I keep thinking about him?” I muttered. “I haven’t even met him.”


I had no reason to care. Especially after everything the maid had said about how dangerous he was.


So why couldn’t I get him out of my head?


 I was at Walton’s pack house when I heard it.


The commotion.


My hands stilled over the table I was cleaning. 


What had happened?


 I dropped the cloth and hurried toward the noise, pushing through the small crowd gathered around the yard, my heart already hammering before I even understood what I was looking at.


Then I saw her.


Mrs. Walton stood in the middle of the courtyard, her face twisted with anger, one hand raised. Towering over a small figure.


My breath caught.
 Those emerald eyes.
 I could recognize them among thousands.


“Kieran.”


My baby.


 He stood his ground, chest heaving, not backing down an inch; his tiny fists clenched at his sides, his clothes covered in dirt. A red scratch ran across his cheek, and there were marks on his little arms.


I lost all reasoning. Something inside me snapped.


I saw red.


 My gaze immediately searched the courtyard for Kaila.


There.


She was sitting on the ground a few feet away, tears streaming down her cheeks. Her dress was covered in dirt, and one knee was scraped.


My blood ran cold.


I crossed the yard before I even realized I was moving, stepping between Mrs. Walton’s raised hand and my son.


“Don’t.”


The word came out as a low grumble, steady and dangerous.


Nothing like the girl who stumbled through her mornings apologizing for being late.


“Mama.”


Kaila called out in her soft, broken voice, before throwing herself into my arms.


“He pushed me,” she sobbed, pointing toward a boy standing behind Mrs. Walton.


My eyes moved to him.
 Mrs. Walton’s son stood behind her, his shirt rumpled and tears streaking his face. He kept rubbing his arm where Kieran had bitten him.


“Do you have any idea what your son just did to my boy?” Mrs. Walton screamed.


“I don’t care what happened”.


My voice shook with rage.


 “You will not raise a hand to my child”.


Slowly, my gaze moved back to Kieran.


And then I saw his eyes.


Emerald.


 Flickering between shades, lighter to darker, like something inside him hadn’t settled yet.


The courtyard went strangely quiet. Even the adults who had gathered around stopped whispering.


I felt it too.


Something.


A strange pressure in the air.


Kieran was only three years old. Yet for that brief moment, there was something about him that made even the adults hesitate to talk.


 He was still staring at the boy. Not crying. Not afraid. Just staring.


I pulled Kieran against my side, feeling him tremble — not from fear, but from the effort of holding himself back.


Mrs. Walton, still not ready to back down, looked at me and said, “A mere omega like you has the guts to”


“Yes,” I said, cutting her off.  “I’m an omega. But don’t ever mess with a mother ready to bring down the world for her child.”  With that, I reached for Kieran’s hand and pulled him toward me.


“We’re leaving.”


Mrs. Walton’s face reddened.

“You can’t just walk away after what your son did!”


I turned back.


“No.”


I looked around the pack house where I had spent countless hours cleaning, cooking, and being treated like I was less than everyone else.


 “I can.”


I untied the apron around my waist and let it fall to the floor.


For years, I had swallowed every insult.
 Every order.
 Every time Mrs. Walton made me feel like I was nothing more than an omega lucky to have a job.


Not anymore.


I looked her straight in the eyes.


“I quit.”


The drive back to the apartment was eerily quiet, there was none of Kaila’s usual giggling, no excited hands pointing outside the window, and no little voice asking me a hundred questions before I could even answer the first one.


She was fast asleep in the back seat, still hiccupping every now and then from crying so hard. And Kieran, he hadn’t said a single word.


His small hands were curled tightly into his lap, clutching the fabric of his shorts as he stared silently out the window.
 It wasn’t until I closed the door behind us — until the lock clicked behind us that something in Kieran finally came crashing down.


He didn’t cry loudly.


It started with his shoulders. A small, uneven shake, like he was trying to hold something back and losing.


“Kieran?”


He didn’t answer. His small hand curled at his sides, and when I knelt in front of him and reached for his face, he flinched — not from me, I realized, but from himself.


“Baby, look at me.”


He lifted his head, and that was when I saw it — not anger anymore. Not the strange, unsettling stillness from the courtyard. Just a three-year-old, overwhelmed, terrified of what he’d felt inside himself.


“I didn’t mean to,” he whispered. “I couldn’t stop. I felt—” His voice cracked. 


My chest ached.


 “You protected your sister,” I said softly, pulling him into my arms. “That’s all that matters.”


“But I scared everyone.” His voice was muffled against my shoulder now, small and shaking. “Even you.”


I held him tighter.
 “You could never scare me.”


That was when he finally broke — the sob tearing out of him like it had been waiting all day for permission. I sank to the floor right there in my small apartment, holding Kieran against me, and let him cry until there was nothing left to cry out.


I sat at the edge of the bed, watching the rise and fall of their chests. That was when all the feelings I’d bottled  up came crashing down.


Where will I find a job now?