The Rejected Omega is the Moon Goddess's Heir

Chapter 6

Chloe’s pov

My knuckles rapped against Lisa's door twice before it swung open.

She took one look at my face and pulled me inside without a word, the door clicking shut behind us. My knees gave out the second I crossed the threshold, and I dropped onto her kitchen stool, my whole body shaking. The first sob tore out of me before I'd even settled, my hands pressed against my mouth like I could shove the ugly sound back in.

"Why do I have to be the weak one?" I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes. "Why does everyone in that pack hate me just for existing? Why am I the one who has to marry into the Red Moon pack, Lisa? Why me?"

Lisa didn't rush to comfort me the way she used to when I was small. She pulled the other stool close and sat, her hands folded in her lap, waiting until my breathing evened out enough to hear her.

"Chloe. Do you remember what I told you?" Her soothing voice calmed me, the one she'd used to talk me through a hundred worse nights than this one. "More important than how others see you is how you see yourself."

I wiped my face with the back of my hand. "That's easy to say."

"It's not easy at all. It's the hardest thing I ever taught you." She reached over and tucked a piece of hair behind my ear, the way she had since I was six years old. "Do you remember the dark room?"

I did.

Every child in Twilight had gone through that test at ten years old where we were locked into a windowless room with nothing but their own hands and their own nerve, meant to find the hidden latch before their fear got the better of them. Every other child had screamed and pounded on the door until someone let them out. I'd sat down on the floor instead, forced myself to breathe, and felt along every inch of the wall until my fingers found the seam nobody else had bothered to look for.

"You solved it because you were yourself," Lisa said. "You refused to let the dark scare you just like it did to those kids.”

"That was different. That was a room."

"It was never about the room." She held my face in both hands, her thumbs brushing my cheekbones the way they had a hundred times before. "You are not an Omega, Chloe. You are not a bastard. You are not whatever that man calls you when he wants to feel bigger than he is. You are yourself, and you have survived things that would've broken anyone else in that pack a dozen times over. You can survive this too."

"I don't feel like I can."

"Feelings lie sometimes. What you've already lived through doesn't." She gave me a small, tired smile, worn from too much heartbreak. "You solved that room when you were ten years old and half your size now. Don't tell me a wedding is the thing that finally breaks you."

I wiped away the last of my tears, feeling much calmer even though nothing about the situation had changed. "What do I do if he tries to kill me? The Red Moon Alpha. Everyone says he does."

Lisa's expression didn't waver. She stood, crossed to the cupboard by the window, and came back with a small cloth packet and a dagger sheathed in worn leather, setting both in my hands like she'd been keeping them ready for this conversation all along.

"The herbs will put a wolf to sleep within minutes if you get them into his food or drink." She tapped the packet once, her fingers steady even though mine weren't. "The dagger will do the rest, if it comes to that. Aim under the ribs, angle up. Don't hesitate once you've decided, it’s either your life or his.”

My hands closed around both, heavier than I expected, the leather sheath cold against my palm. "Lisa—"

"If you feel your life is threatened, you fight back. You do whatever you have to do to survive, even if that means killing him." Her voice didn't shake once. "And if it comes to that, you run straight here to me. I'll have us both out of this territory before anyone thinks to look for us."

I stared at her, this woman who'd spent six years living in a house my own father controlled, offering to burn all of it down and run beside me if it came to blood. I set the dagger and the herbs on the counter and wrapped my arms around her instead, holding on longer than I had in years.

"Still so scared?" she asked against my hair, her hand rubbing slow circles between my shoulder blades the way she used to when I couldn't sleep as a kid.

I shook my head against her shoulder. "Not anymore."

I meant it, mostly. Enough to say it out loud, anyway.

When I finally pulled back, Lisa held me at arm's length and studied my face, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.

"There's more." It wasn't a question. "What is it?"

"It's nothing." I looked past her, toward the fire instead of her face.

"Chloe." She waited until I had no choice but to meet her eyes again. "What happened?"

"It's not important."

"Let me decide what's important." She said in a scolding voice. "You've been down since you walked in here. Tell me."

I opened my mouth to deny it again, and nothing came out. Whatever was left of my resistance gave way under the patience in her waiting, and it all spilled out of me before I could stop it.

I told her everything till I was exhausted, turns out it was heavy carrying such a huge secret. Lisa went quiet, studying me with a look I couldn't read.

"Show me," she said.

I pulled my collar aside and tilted my head, baring the smooth stretch of skin where the bite should have been.

She leaned in close, her fingers light against my neck, tracing the spot like she expected to find a mark hidden underneath it. Her brow furrowed, and for a long moment she didn't say anything at all.

"That's strange," she said finally, pulling back with an expression I'd never seen on her before. "Marks don't fade like that. Not once they've taken."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know yet." She squeezed my shoulder, already reaching for a shawl by the door like her mind had moved somewhere I couldn't follow. "But I intend to find out."