Owned by the Exiled Alpha.

The proposal

Mandy's POV

Three weeks.

That is how long it took me to almost convince myself I was fine.

I got good at it. I got up every morning, made my bed with sharp corners the way my mama taught me, stood in the shower until the water ran cold, went to work at the flower shop on Crescent Street where nobody knew pack business and nobody asked questions.

I was fine.

"You haven't touched your food," my mom said one evening across the dinner table.

"I'm not hungry."

"You said that yesterday."

"Then leave me alone."

I snapped and got up from the table.

She didn't push. That was the thing about my mom that people didn't understand, she was loud and she was fierce and she loved in a way that took up every room she walked into. But she knew when to go quiet.

I didn't tell her about the wood, I couldn't tell anyone.

I had buried that night so deep I could almost believe it hadn't happened. But there were moments, standing at the flower shop counter, or…or lying awake at two in the morning with nothing but the dark and my own thoughts for company, when something would slip through the wall I'd built around it.

The way I had felt, just for those few hours, like I was nobody's omega and nobody's castoff.

Like I was just a woman and the world was just a night and nothing had a rank or a label or a verdict attached to it.

I'd feel it and then I'd brick it back up immediately.

It was one moment of weakness. A stranger whose name I never got. It meant nothing and it would remain nothing and I was moving on with my life.

I was fine.

The knock came on a Tuesday.

I remember because I was off work and I'd been sitting at the kitchen table doing absolutely nothing, just holding a cup of tea that had gone cold. My mom was in the next room. I heard her cross to the door, heard the latch click open, heard the low murmur of male voices on the other side.

"Mandy."

Her voice came through the wall differently from usual, it was flat in a way that raised every single hair on the back of my neck.

"Come here please."

I set down the cold tea and walked to the door.

Two men stood on our front step. Pack men, I knew it the moment I laid eyes on them.

They weren't young men running errands, these were the Alpha's men.

"Miss Amanda," the taller one said, with a nod that landed somewhere between respectful and final. "Alpha Cleansilver sends his regards."

I looked at my mom confused. Why would the Alpha be sending his regards?

Her face was a mask I had never seen on her before in my entire twenty-two years.

"Thank you," she said to the men. Her voice didn't shake. "Tell the Alpha we will be in touch within the week."

They left without argument.

She closed the door.

For a long moment she just stood there with her back to me, one hand still resting on the door handle, her shoulders were sagged.

A part of me broke just to witness this.

"Mama."

She didn't answer immediately. She took one breath, then another. Then she turned around and her eyes were glassy with tears and she crossed the room and sat down on the sofa and folded her hands in her lap.

"Sit down, Amanda."

I sat.

"There is something I should have told you a long time ago," she began, her voice low. "I didn't because I kept thinking I would find another way out of it. I kept telling myself I had more time. That I could fix it before you ever had to know."

She paused, then continued "Your father borrowed money from Alpha Cleansilver."

The kitchen clock ticked into the silence.

I looked at her. "When?"

"When he got sick." She pressed her lips together briefly. "Before he passed away. The bills became too much, we had nothing left to sell and the hospital kept sending your father to do more tests to determine how the cancer has spread and your father couldn't sleep anymore because of the weight of it." She exhaled slowly. "I had already sold everything I could find to sell, Mandy. My mother's jewelry. The car. Everything. And it still wasn't enough. So your father went to the Alpha."

I thought about my father, my big, quiet, handsome father with his large hands and a laugh he kept mostly to himself and a pride that lived permanently in his spine no matter what life did to him. I thought about what it must have physically cost him to walk through Alpha Cleansilver's door with his hat in his hands and ask for help.

"How much?" I asked.

She told me the number.

I closed my eyes.

Three years of her carrying this completely alone.

"Why didn't you tell me?" My voice came out smaller than I meant it to.

"Because you were grieving your father," she said softly. "And then time kept passing and I kept thinking, next month I'll have enough. Last year I nearly did. And then the roof needed fixing and…" She shook her head. "It doesn't matter now. The point is the Alpha has been patient for three years and he is done being patient."

I opened my eyes. "What does he want?"

"He wants the debt cleared," she said slowly. "And he has proposed a way to do that."

"Mom…."

"A marriage arrangement." She held my gaze and didn't look away because she knew if she looked away she'd never get through it. "His eldest son is unmarried. The Alpha wants to settle the debt through a joining of families. You would marry into the Cleansilver pack and the debt would be cleared."

The room went very still.

And then something in me that had been holding itself together by sheer force of will for three weeks just broke.

"Mandy…."

"Do you know," I said, and my voice was shaking so hard I could barely shape the words, "what he did to me? Do you know what Markus did to me in front of all those people?"

"Baby…."

"He stood there." The tears were coming freely now and I wasn't stopping them, I was done stopping things. "He stood there in front of everyone and he told me I was something to pass time with. He said I was low life, mom. Four years and that's what I was." I pressed both hands against my face and breathed through it.

"I know," my mom whispered. "I know, my baby."

"And now…." I laughed, and it came out terrible, wet and broken and without a drop of humor. "Now his family wants to hand me to the next one? Just like that? Like I'm a piece of furniture they're moving from one room to another?" I shook my head, tears streaming. "What if he's worse, mom? What if the elder brother is worse than Markus? At least I knew Markus. At least I chose Markus. This man I have never seen, I don't know his face or his name or what kind of man he is and I'm supposed to just…."

My voice broke completely. I couldn't finish the sentence.

My mom was beside me before I could draw another breath.

"Why would they even want an omega?" I sobbed into her shoulder. "Tell me that. Why? Th…they have their pick of anyone in any pack. Beta daughters, alpha daughters, women with rank and bloodline and everything that comes with it. Why would the Alpha's eldest son want an omega? What sense does that make?"

"It's not fair," I said.

"None of it is fair and I am so sorry, my love. I am so sorry that I couldn't fix it. I'm sorry I couldn't protect you from any of it."

We sat there together on that sofa for a long time.

Eventually my crying slowed to something quieter.

"When?" I asked. My voice was hollow and flat but it was steady. "When is the ceremony?"

My mom looked at me for a moment. Her eyes held an apology too large for words.

"Three weeks," she said quietly.

Three weeks.

I nodded once slowly.

And said nothing at all.