oesn't look up from her bread, but her voice is pitched low, meant only

noth

ooked at you." She finally lifts her eyes. "You should eat s

raping, wolves trading gossip about last night's crowning, and I have positioned myself at the farthest table fro

hard my knees buc

abs my arm before I t

les into something survivable, and by the time I trust myself to look up again, Aurelian is seated at t

. "Corvain's daughter. They've been arranged sin

er

nd that carries across the hall despite the noise, and the bond in my chest twists so vi

g again," the omega mut

m f

other piece of bread and doesn't eat it either, just turns it over in her fingers. "My name's Wre

io

rds still land like a slap. "You should be careful. Whatever that was up there, people d

about. He didn't choose me. Y

and the one for about half a second before he remember

it in less than a full day. I hate that I know the sound of his boots now, a specific weight to his stride that I could pick out of a hundred wolves walking the same hall. I hate that some tr

Ashen

and every head near me turns. My stomach

ned. Judgment

d is already walking away, and I am already standing, becau

hem to, and by the time the doors close behind me I am alone in a room of cold gray marble with n

way a wolf circles something wounded, slow, unhur

N

t here describing an omega who deliberately drew the new Alpha's attention during his crowning ceremony. Who positioned herself where

t do any

angerous than not looking at him. "And yet here we are. An omega with no name, no rank, no reason to matter, somehow catching t

how you're m

e spent forty years deciding what happens to omegas who become inconvenient, Liora Ashenvale

ecide, decide it. I'm tired of standing on cold m

han anything I've said out loud in years, and for o

s stops circl

out fast, buried again under a decade of practice, and I stand there in the cold and let him finish his

g when the chamber

be all, Eld

o just watched her betrothed's eyes catch on another omega to smile. Her hands are trembling. There's a leather folder pressed against her ch

nd something in her voice makes e

raphine crosses toward me slowly, her eyes doing something I don't understand, som

s quietly. "I'm here to save your lif

it, her voice drops to something low and deliberate, the kind of tone peopl

ora. It requires binding you to three

stare at the folder between us, at her trembling hands still resting on top of it like she isn't sure sh