CHAPTER 1 — THE OMEGA WHO DOESN'T BLEED

Isla pov

"Drop the knife, Isla."

Kael's voice crawls up my spine like cold fingers, soft and commanding, but my blade doesn't move from where it rests against the assassin's throat.

The steel kissing skin so thin I can see the pulse underneath, frantic and rabbit-quick.

"The client wants him dead, not mutilated," Kael continues.

he his closer now, his breath touching my ear.

"I know what the client wants," I say, my voice comes out flat and empty, exactly how I need it to sound, exactly how I've trained it to be for the last three years.

The man beneath me whimpers, his fingers claw at the frozen ground of the Borderlands, dirt and ice jamming under his nails.

"Please, I have a family, I have…."

I press the blade deeper, just a fraction, just enough to stop the begging.

I don't want to hear about his family or his reasons or whatever excuse he thinks will save him, they never do.

"Do it," Kael says. his voice drops lower, intimate in a way that makes my skin crawl….

"Show me that perfect control."

I draw the blade across in one smooth motion, muscle memory takes over and I watch the light go out of the assassin's eyes with the same detached interest I'd give a candle burning out, his body goes slack and blood spreads dark across the snow.

"Beautiful," Kael murmurs, he's crouching beside me now, I didn't hear him move.

"you're absolutely beautiful when you work."

I stand and wipe the blade on the dead man's coat, methodical, thorough and I gnore the way Kael's eyes track every movement…..

"What's next? “I ask, because there's always a next, always another job, another kill, another reason I'm useful enough to keep alive.

Kael reaches out and catches my wrist, his grip firm, possessive, his thumb strokes over the pulse point there like he's feeling for proof I'm real, "something special.”

I hate when he touches me, hate the way his fingers linger too long, hate that he knows I hate it and does it anyway because he can

I pull away but slowly, carefully, can't show too much resistance or he'll push harder.

"Dylan Thornwood," Kael says the name like it's a secret, like its power, "Alpha of Bloodfang Territory."

"You want him dead," I state, not ask, already calculating distances and guard rotations and the hundred ways to kill an Alpha.

"Eventually," Kael tilts his head, studies me the way a collector studies a rare specimen, "but first I need you inside his fortress, I need information, vulnerabilities, access to his inner circle."

"Infiltration," I say.

"As a captured omega," he adds, watching my face for a reaction.

I don't give him one, never do, "sold at the border markets, broken and scared and perfect."

I can do broken. I've been broken enough times to know exactly how it looks, how it sounds, how it moves through a body like poison, “when?”

"Tonight," Kael's hand finds my wrist again, tighter this time, claiming, "my men will make it convincing, rough you up a bit, then you'll be transported with the next omega shipment to Bloodfang."

"And inside," I prompt.

"You observe, you learn, you find his weaknesses," Kael's eyes go cold, flat, empty in a way that mirrors my own, "and Isla, remember who you belong to."

The words settle in my chest like stones, heavy and suffocating, I nod because I have to, because the alternative is worse than anything Dylan Thornwood could do to me, worse than death.

"Good girl," Kael says, he releases my wrist and I feel the absence of his touch like freedom, brief and fleeting, "don't disappoint me."

I won't, I can't, disappointment means pain and pain means breaking and I've already been broken too many times to survive another shattering.

Trust no one, feel nothing, survive everything.

The mantra repeats in my head as I walk away from the body cooling in the snow.

The chains are real iron…. heavy and cold, they bite into my wrists and leave marks that will bruise purple by morning.

Kael's men didn't have to hit me as hard as they did but they enjoyed it.

Marcus smiled when his fist connected with my ribs.

"Make it convincing," he'd said, right before the next blow split my lip.

Now I'm pressed into a cart with twenty other omegas, they're crying, shaking, reeking of fear so thick it coats my tongue.

I keep my breathing steady and my eyes down, play the part.

The cart jolts over rough ground, wheels catching on rocks and roots, someone beside me sobs into their hands. Another girl whispers prayers to gods that stopped listening years ago.

"Quiet," a guard barks from the front, his voice sharp as a whip crack.

The sobbing doesn't stop, just gets quieter, muffled into sleeves and palms.

We pass through gates that scrape the sky, iron and stone and the skulls of those who tried to escape mounted on spikes as warnings….Bloodfang Territory announces itself in blood and darkness, torches line the path to a fortress that looks carved from the mountain itself, all sharp angles and shadows.

"Out," a guard yanks the cart door open, grabs the nearest omega by her chains and drags her into the dirt, "move."

I step down carefully, keep my head bowed, watch everything through lowered lashes, guard positions, exit routes, weak points in the torchlight, always cataloging, always planning.

They herd us toward a pit in the center of the courtyard, stone walls rising up on all sides, faces peer down from above, alphas and betas assessing their new property.

Then I feel it…..a gaze different from the others, heavier, more focused, dangerous in a way that makes my instincts scream.

I look up.

He stands at the edge of the pit, tall and broad-shouldered, power radiating off him in waves that don't need announcement, dark hair, darker eyes, a scar cutting through his left eyebrow, Alpha Dylan Thornwood.

Our eyes meet and something shifts, the air goes electric, wrong, like recognition even though we've never met, like he sees past the chains and the blood and acts straight down to whatever's left of me underneath.

His expression darkens, confusion flickers across features that look carved from granite, something primal rising in his gaze, something that makes my pulse kick hard against my ribs.

He turns to the man beside him, silver-haired and sharp-featured, "put that one in the East Tower, alone."

The beta stiffens, "Alpha, she's just an omega"

"No," Dylan says, his eyes never leaving mine, burning through me like he can see the weapon I am, the killer hiding behind the mask, "she's something else."

My heart slams once, twice, hard enough to hurt.

He's already watching me, already suspicious, already more dangerous than Kael prepared me for.

Everything just changed