CHAPTER 002: THE OMEGA'S BLEEDING CROWN

Sienna's POV

I woke up because I couldn't breathe right. My throat was already stinging, and it took me a second to place why. Bleach. Something under it too, sharper, metallic in a way that made my stomach turn before my mind caught up.

My eyelids were stuck together. I had to work to pull them open, and even then the room came in blurry at first, a bulb buzzing somewhere above me.

I tried to move my arm and metal caught metal. A restraint at my wrist, pinning me down. My pulse hammered against the cuff, harder the longer I lay there.

My wolf had stopped whimpering. She was pacing now, slow and mean, a snarl building low in my throat before I'd even turned my head to see what was on the tray beside me.

Lucas stood against the far wall. He wasn't looking at my face. His eyes stayed on my feet, like that was as high as he could manage.

"Oh, look," Ivy's voice came from somewhere to my left, too warm to be real. "The vessel is finally awake."

She stepped up beside him in a silk robe that didn't belong in a room like this one. She put her hand on his face and kissed him, and she kept her eyes open the whole time, watching me watch her do it.

He didn't pull away. When she stepped back, he looked at me, and there was nothing behind it at all.

"Mother, her heart rate is climbing," Ivy's voice had an eager edge now. "Let's not waste the moon. My son isn't going to be born weak because an Omega is hoarding the bloodline."

"Patience, Ivy," Morrigan stepped into the light in a white coat, carrying a tray of instruments the way someone carries something they've used before, without thinking about it.

Vessel.

The word sat in my chest and stayed there.

"Lucas," my voice barely made it out. "You marked me yesterday. You claimed me. Why are you doing this?"

"Stop it, Sienna," he turned his face toward the wall. His jaw tightened once, then went still again.

"You've always been fragile," flat, like he was reading it off a card someone handed him. "This is service."

"You're standing right there," I said, "while they're about to cut me open."

He didn't answer that.

"The moon's peaking," Ivy leaned in close, her face inches from mine.

"Ivy. Please," my voice cracked. "Let me go. I'll leave for the human cities. You'll never see me again."

She blinked, surprised for a second, like she hadn't expected me to actually ask. Then she laughed, low.

"You're stupid if you think this is about him," she dragged her tongue over the mark on my neck, the one he'd given me the day before with promises attached to it. "I want what she never gave me. A womb. A name. Blood that matters. You're the last thing in my way."

"Enough," Lucas moved. He came to stand by the bed, and for one second, stupid as it was, hope flared in my chest anyway.

"Lucas. Look at me," my voice was pleading and I hated that it was. "You told me I was your anchor."

"Sienna," he leaned in. His hand came up toward my hair, then stopped short of touching it, hovering there like he wasn't sure he had the right anymore. "I do love you." He swallowed. "My father is dying. This buys him time. The pack needs strength, and you're carrying it. Your blood is his future now."

I went limp against the table. There was nothing left to say to that.

He stepped back, turned away, and started muttering something under his breath. Pack words. The kind people repeat when they're trying not to think about what they're doing.

Nobody spoke after that.

Then the blade went in.

Pain cut across my stomach, cold and sharp, and my vision went white as the needle pushed deeper. Something pulled through me after that, a hollow, sickening drag, like being emptied out from somewhere I didn't know I had.

"It's working," Morrigan said.

I turned my eyes toward her hand. A glass vial. The liquid inside wasn't red. It was gold, and it moved on its own, and she stared at it the way someone stares at something they've wanted their whole life.

Then the sound in the room changed.

A roar tore out of my throat, something that didn't feel like mine. The bulb above me shrieked and blew apart, and the windows went with it, glass scattering out into the dark.

I couldn't see much after that. Just the tray hitting the floor, and Ivy screaming somewhere close by.

"Mother, it's burning through the glass!" she shouted.

Heat moved through me until I couldn't feel the table anymore, or the restraints, or anything at all except the gold leaving me, spreading out across the floor in a line that kept growing.

My heart stuttered once.

Then it stopped.

Then the dark came, and it didn't stop for a long time.