Chapter One - The Omega's Shame

The cold water from the bucket hit my face like a thousand needles, and I gasped, choking on the shock of it.

"Get up, Omega." Maya's voice dripped with contempt. "The Alpha's son wants his breakfast, and you are late."

I scrambled to my feet, my thin nightdress clinging to my soaked skin. The stone floor of the pack house basement bit into my bare feet as I stood before her, shivering. Maya, the Beta's mate, looked at me like I was something she had scraped off her shoe.

"I am sorry," I whispered. "I will go now—"

Her hand cracked across my face before I could finish. The sting brought tears to my eyes, but I blinked them back. Crying only made it worse.

"You will address me properly, orphan."

"I am sorry, Beta Maya." The words tasted like ash. "It will not happen again."

She snorted. "It better not. Alpha Blackthorn is already displeased with your performance. One more mistake and you will find yourself sleeping with the rogues outside our borders."

She swept out of the room, her expensive perfume lingering in the dank air. I waited until her footsteps faded before allowing myself to touch my burning cheek. This was my life. This has always been my life.

I dressed quickly in the gray servant's uniform that marked me as the lowest of the low—an Omega without family, without worth, without a future. The Shadowpine Pack had taken me in when I was three years old, found wandering alone in the forest. They called it charity. I called it eighteen years of hell.

The kitchen was already buzzing with activity when I slipped inside. The other servants barely glanced at me as I hurried to prepare the Alpha family's breakfast tray. My hands moved automatically—this routine was burned into my muscle memory. Eggs were perfectly scrambled. Toast golden brown. Coffee black and strong, the way Alpha Kieran liked it.

Kieran.

Just thinking his name made my chest tight. The Alpha's son was twenty-three, powerful, devastatingly handsome, and completely out of my reach. He was also the only person in this pack who had ever shown me kindness.

When I was twelve and the older wolves had cornered me behind the training grounds, Kieran had been the one to stop them. When I was fifteen and collapsed from exhaustion after three days of non-stop work, he had carried me to the healer himself. Small mercies that I clung to like a drowning woman clings to driftwood.

I was pathetic.

"Stop daydreaming and move." The cook shoved the tray into my hands. "The young Alpha is in his study. And Sera—do not embarrass us today. We have important visitors coming."

I nodded and hurried out, balancing the heavy tray carefully. The pack house was enormous, all dark wood and stone that spoke of old money and older power. My reflection in the hallway mirrors showed a ghost of a girl—too thin, too pale, silver-blonde hair pulled back in a severe braid. Only my eyes held any color, an unusual violet that people said proved I was cursed.

Maybe they were right.

Kieran's study door was slightly ajar. I knocked softly.

"Enter."

His voice sent shivers down my spine, deep and commanding. I pushed the door open and immediately wished I had not.

Kieran was not alone.

He stood behind his massive desk, and he was magnificent—six feet and three inches of pure dominant male, dark hair disheveled like he had been running his hands through it, amber eyes that could freeze or burn depending on his mood. But it was the woman draped across his desk that made my stomach drop.

Lydia Frost, daughter of the visiting Alpha from Silvercrest Pack. Beautiful, confident, everything I was not. And she was looking at Kieran like he was her next meal.

"Your breakfast, Alpha." I kept my eyes down, setting the tray on the side table.

"Sera." Kieran's voice was tight. "You can go."

But Lydia's laugh stopped me at the door. "Is that a famous charity case? The orphaned Omega?" She studied me like I was an interesting insect. "She is... plain. Are all your servants so dull, Kieran?"

"Lydia—"

"I am just saying, when I am Luna of this pack, we will need to upgrade the staff. First impressions matter."

The words hit me like a physical blow. Luna. She was going to be his Luna.

"Sera, leave." Kieran's command cracked like a whip.

I fled.

I made it to the servants' corridor before the tears came, hot and humiliating. Stupid. I was so stupid. What did I think? That the Alpha's son would ever look at someone like me? That I was anything more than an obligation, a burden this pack barely tolerated?

Tomorrow was my eighteenth birthday. The day every wolf discovered their true nature, their ranking, their destiny. Maybe I would finally learn what I was. Maybe I would discover I was more than an Omega.

Or maybe I would just be disappointed again.

I wiped my tears and returned to work. There were floors to scrub, meals to prepare, a life of servitude to resume. This was my reality.

I had no idea that in twenty-four hours, everything would shatter.

I had no idea that Kieran Blackthorn was about to destroy me in ways I could not imagine.

And I had no idea that the mate bond, when it snapped into place

, would feel like both salvation and damnation wrapped in the same cruel gift.