Chapter 2

After I lowered my head and apologized that day, I thought the packhouse might stay quiet for a few days.

I was wrong.

From that moment on, Mrs. Hale seemed to find the sharpest blade she could use against me. She stopped humiliating me in private and started doing it in front of guests, calling me that Omega who could not give the pack an heir without the slightest restraint.

All I could do was stand there with stinging eyes and pretend I did not hear.

That morning, my head hurt so badly I could barely think. I dropped a bowl, and it shattered on the floor.

Mrs. Hale’s face changed at once. “What can you do right? You cannot even hold onto a bowl. Are you worse than the lowest wolf servant in this house?”

“It slipped,” I said quietly. “I’ll clean it up in a minute.”

“It slipped?” she said with a cold laugh. “You’re an Omega with no wolf soul. Other than clinging to the Alpha’s mate bond, what exactly are you good for?”

Then she grabbed my arm. “I’m talking to you. Have you gone mute?”

She dragged me out of the kitchen and shoved me into the center of the main hall.

“Look at her,” she said to the women gathered there. “She’s been sitting in Blackthorn’s future Luna’s place for years, and her womb has stayed empty the whole time. Now she cannot even manage a meal.”

I lowered my head and said, “I’m not feeling well today. Could I please go lie down for a while?”

“Lie down?” Her voice rose at once. “What right do you have to rest?”

“This packhouse feeds you. Adrian protects you. You do not have to scrape for survival like other Omegas. You do not have to work the lower levels like the wolf servants. You stay inside all day, and you still cannot manage this much. And now you want to talk about feeling unwell?”

Every eye in the room was on me.

They were watching me the way people watch a public disgrace.

I lowered my gaze and sent Adrian a message.

Can you come home? Your mother is doing this again.

He did not answer.

Ten minutes later, I sent another.

I’m sick. My head really hurts. Can you please come see me?

Still nothing.

The voices in the hall kept coming.

One woman said a mate who could not produce an heir should have the decency to step aside.

Another said that in any other pack, an Omega like me would have been sent to serve in the lower shrines long ago and never allowed to remain in the Alpha’s residence.

I blacked out.

When I opened my eyes again, it was already later, and Adrian had finally come back.

I told him what had happened that day.

He did not even look at me.

“Adrian, I...”

“Mom already told me,” he cut in, impatient. “How big of a deal was it really? Did you have to turn it into this?”

I stared at him.

“She humiliated me in front of other people. I felt awful.”

He frowned, and there was nothing soft in his face.

“She’s my mother. She’s an elder. Can’t you let her have her way for once?”

Then his voice turned colder.

“You spend all day in this house. You do not deal with pack council business. You do not handle border patrols. You do not worry about money. And somehow you still manage to throw the whole household into chaos. Can you stop looking for problems?”

I went still.

I had protected the one secret that could have destroyed an Alpha.

I had given up my studies, my future, and the life I wanted for him.

I had endured his mother trampling over me again and again.

And in the end, all he saw when he looked at me was trouble.

After that, he stopped coming home at night.

He had an excuse every time. Council business. Pack matters. Something that needed his attention.

That evening, he told me again that the council was keeping him late.

For once, I did not believe him.

I followed him.

He drove east, toward Silver Bay. Then he pulled up in front of a private villa.

I stayed back and watched.

The front door opened, and a woman ran straight into his arms.

“Adrian, you’re finally here. The baby missed you.”

Under the light by the doorway, I saw her face clearly.

Lydia Ashcroft.

The daughter of the Alpha of Redcliff Pack. The same woman Mrs. Hale had once praised at the full moon banquet for her bloodline, the same woman she had called the perfect mother for Blackthorn’s future heir.

And her stomach was already beginning to swell.