Even Alphas kneel — Nobody’s Omega

Kelvin’s POV “Holy s**t. Holy s**t. I just got marked by a man. By my alpha boss.” The mark appeared in the evening. One second I was rushing up the stairs of the Kenti estate’s east wing, arms full of fresh linen, head down, invisible the way I had trained myself to be. The next I was slipping on the polished marble floor, pitching sideways – and a hand shot out and caught my wrist. Large and firm. The pain shot up my arm like fire, and I made a sound before I could stop myself. The grip let go right away, and I stumbled back against the wall, holding my wrist to my chest, staring at the mark already forming on my skin. A silver mark, Thin, spiraling, glowing faintly in the dim hallway like something impossible just became real. It was a fated mate mark. My stomach hit the floor immediately when I looked up. Alpha Zarek was staring at his own hand. Out of every person in this massive estate, the moon had picked a man as my mate. And not just any man, Alpha Zarek Kenti. A twenty-nine-year-old CEO of Kenti Holdings and the undisputed head of the most powerful wolf bloodline in the city. The kind of man that shut down conversations just by walking into them – tall, dark, ruthlessly put together, always in a black dress shirt with sleeves rolled up, sharp jawline, broad shoulders enough to block the hallway light, and impossibly hot and handsome. Alright, let’s be frank here: I have always found him attractive and impressive. But that was all. Nothing else. Except now his mark was sitting comfortably on my wrist, like it had not just ruined my entire life. His eyes lifted from his palm and found mine – dark, sharp, already narrowing – and whatever had cracked open in his expression for half a second sealed itself shut. “This is a mistake,” he said. Not "are you alright," not "what's your name." Just – a mistake. Flat and immediate like he was correcting a typo. “I know,” I said. My heart racing so fast that I thought it would explode. He blinked. “You’ll say nothing about this to anyone; is that understood?” “Of course, Alpha. I can swear that with my life.” One more second of those dark eyes on my face. My head bent downwards, avoiding his gaze. Then he turned and walked back down the corridor toward the sound of the dinner party he’d come from — two hundred guests, crystal glasses, the kind of event where my job was to stay unseen. I stood alone in the hallway, looked back and forth to see if anyone was around, breathed, and continued on my way. _______ By the time I made it back to the small staff room I shared with two other omegas, I had almost convinced myself I was fine. I sat at the edge of my bed, pushed my sleeve up, and looked at the mark in the dark one more time. For three months I had kept my head down in this house. Three months of early mornings and late nights and making myself invisible. I am Kelvin Dickson – omega, a 24-year-old transferred staff, here because my pack’s Alpha had defaulted on a territorial debt and the rest of us had been redistributed like furniture. No leverage. No rank. No reason for anyone above me to know my name. And somehow I had ended up marked to the man who owned this building. The bond pulsed warm and steady under my skin, utterly unbothered. “Don’t,” I told it silently. It pulsed anyway. Alpha Zarek wanted a Luna from a noble bloodline. Someone who strengthened alliances. Someone who made sense on paper. And a woman at that. But the moon goddess had given him a male omega who slept in a closet-sized room and carried breakfast trays and laundry around. I lay back and stared at the ceiling and told myself that tomorrow I would be invisible again. This changed nothing; Alpha Zarek would ignore the bond, and life goes on in our completely different words. ______ After a long while, I stood up from the bed and made it to the staff bathroom on the lower floor. I turned the tap on cold and pushed both sleeves up and braced my hands on the sink, letting the water run over my wrists. The mark on the left one had stopped glowing. I had no idea why the mark appeared on both wrists. From all I have heard and seen, it always appeared at one spot. I was scrubbing at it uselessly when the bathroom door swung open. “There you are – I’ve been looking everywhere for you –” Amy. She stopped in the doorway, one hand still on the door, eyes already bright with whatever gossip she had come to deliver. Amy was a kitchen staff, a beta, my closest friend in the house and the single biggest threat to my composure on any given day. Her eyes dropped to my wrist. The mark. I yanked my sleeve down so fast I nearly pulled a muscle. Amy’s mouth had stopped moving mid-sentence. She was staring at where my wrist had just been with an expression I did not like at all. “What was that?” she said. “Nothing.” “Kelvin.” “I said it's nothing, Amy.” “That wasn’t nothing.” She stepped fully into the bathroom and let the door swing shut behind her, her voice dropping to an urgent whisper. “That was a mark. On your wrist. I saw it – ” “You didn’t see anything.” “It was glowing –” “The lightning in here is terrible.” “It was silver –” “I have a rash. She stared at me. “You have a rash.” “Yes.” That was a very flimsy excuse, but that was all I could come up with, given the situation I was in. I turned the tap off and grabbed a paper towel and dried my hands like it was the only thing that mattered. “What were you coming to tell me?” Amy’s eyes were still narrowed. She looked at my sleeve, then back at my face, doing the mental arithmetic that I desperately needed her to get wrong. “It looked like a mate mark,” she said quietly. “Amy.” “I’m just saying what it –” “It was a rash. Possibly from the new cleaning supplies. I’m going to mention it to someone.” I met her eyes steadily. “There is nothing on my wrist.” A long pause. Amy chewed the inside of her cheek the way she did when she was deciding whether to push something. “Fine,” she said finally, lifting both hands. “Fine. Rash.Noted.” She pointed one finger at me. “But we are talking about this later.” “We absolutely are not –” The bathroom door opened again. One of the head maids, a stern-faced woman named Petra, came in with the expression she reserved for urgent things. “Kelvin Dickson.” Her eyes found mine immediately. “Alpha Kenti is asking of you.” The air left the room. Amy went still beside me. “Now,” I asked. My voice came out steadier than it had any right to be. “Now,” Petra said. “His private office. Don't keep him waiting.” She left. The door swung shut. Amy turned to me slowly. The look on her face was no longer teasing. It was something much more careful than that. "Rash," she said softly. I pulled my sleeve further down over my wrist and walked to the door. "Get some sleep, Amy." "Kelvin — " But I was already in the hallway, already moving, already telling my heartbeat to behave itself as I made my way toward the elevator that would take me up to wherever Zarek Kenti had decided this night was going to go.