THE ALPHA'S REJECTED MATE.

REMEMBRANCE AND SORROWS

The embers in the massive stone fireplace had faded to a dull, pulsing orange, casting long, distorted shadows across the dark velvety appearance of Alpha Devel’s private chamber. Lyra remained on the floor, her body curled into an uncomfortable, tight ball on the edge of the bearskin rug. Her joints ached from the cold stone beneath the fur, and a persistent cramp had begun to gnaw at her left calf, but she didn't move.

In her mind, the floor was the only place an Omega—or a "war prize"—belonged.

"Why am I here?"

she whispered into the silence, her voice sounding small and fragile against the vastness of the room.

"If I am a trophy of Stonefang's shame, why am I not in a cage? Why am I surrounded by silk and silver?"

The question haunted her,she felt out of place inside the alpha's Chambers, “is this how a war prize was treated”she wondered.

In the stories she had heard, captured wolves were thrown into damp pits to be used as fodder. But this... this felt different. This felt like a bird being kept in a gilded cage, waiting for the collector to decide whether to admire its song or pluck its feathers.

The thought of Alpha Devel—the man they called the Beast, the Shadow Alpha with emerald eyes—sent a shiver of pure apprehension down her spine.

Seeking a distraction from her fear, Lyra’s mind drifted back to the void where her family history should have been. She racked through the memory of her parents, but all she found were fragments:the low hum of her mother's lullaby she couldn't quite remember, and the feeling of her father's large, warm hands tucking a blanket around her chin.

A hot, solitary tear escaped and tracked a path through the expensive oils the service girls had rubbed into her skin. "Mother,father, I hope you can't see me now," she choked out, her shoulders trembling.

"I hope the Goddess kept you from seeing what became of your daughter."

She thought of the years that followed their death—the long, grueling days in the Stonefang kitchens.

She remembered Cliara, Elder Maeve’s granddaughter. Cliara was a Beta of high standing, but she possessed a soul of jagged glass. Because Lyra had been born with a natural, quiet grace and a beauty that no amount of ash or flour could fully hide, Cliara had made it her mission to break her,Cliara was clearly jealous and felt threatened by Lyra's beauty.

Lyra recalled the "accidental" trips in the hallway, the spoiled laundry she was blamed for, and the many nights she was forced to sleep in the drafty larder because Cliara had "misplaced" the key to the Omega quarters.

Lyra knew Cliara wanted Jaxon,she had been doted on by elder maeve and all the workers in the palace adored her and referred to her as the future luna,after all she was the daughter of one of the greatest knights stone fang had,her parents had fought bravely and relentlessly in the schism war even to their death,her parents were honored till this day so it's expected she is doted on by all and sundry.

She wanted the crown. And she had looked at Lyra with a hatred that was born of a deep, festered jealousy—fear that even as an Omega, Lyra possessed something she never would.

"Maeve got what she wanted," Lyra realized with a bitter hollow in her stomach. "She poisoned Jaxon’s mind with her prophecies of weak heirs, all so her own blood could sit on the throne. She made him choose power over the Goddess. She made him choose Cliara."

The thought of Jaxon and Cliara standing together where her spark should have been caused a fresh wave of agony. The bond was snapped, but the phantom limb of it still twitched with a ghost of love that had never been allowed to bloom.

A sharp, stabbing pain in her leg forced her to shift. Her muscles were screaming against the hard floor. She looked at the massive, circular bed in the corner. It looked like a cloud of dark velvet and soft pelts.

He isn't here yet, she told herself. I cannot serve him if I cannot stand.

With trembling limbs, Lyra crawled toward the bed. She felt like a thief as she climbed onto the mattress, the softness of the furs almost overwhelming her senses. She didn't dare go under the covers; she simply laid on top, her head resting on a pillow that smelled faintly of cedar and cold winter air—the scent of power.

The warmth of the room and the sheer exhaustion of the last twenty-four hours finally took their toll. Her eyelids grew heavy, the flickering firelight blurring into a soft, golden haze. Before she could talk herself back down to the floor, sleep claimed her.

She drifted off into a restless slumber, unaware of the heavy, rhythmic thud of boots echoing in the corridor outside. She didn't hear the obsidian doors groan on their hinges. She didn't see the towering figure in black leather pause in the doorway, his emerald eyes glowing with a predatory intensity as they fixed on the small, charcoal-clad figure sleeping in his bed.

The Beast had returned to his lair.