The Omega I Humiliated Became an Alpha… and They Forced Me to Be His Luna

Chapter 12 – Dinner with the Pack

By the time the sun sinks, the words gutter alpha and trash wolves have done more damage than any fist.

Rowan shut the argument down before it bled into blows—one snap of his voice, one surge of alpha power that sent both Kerron and Jarik reeling back like they’d been hit. He ordered them apart, sent Kerron to cool off with the Vaelan contingent, Jarik back to patrol.

On the surface, it worked.

Underneath, the ground is cracked.

I feel it at dinner.

The longhouse is louder than the Hall’s feasts ever were—cutlery on plates, pups shrieking, someone at the far end singing badly out of tune. But there’s a sharpness under the noise tonight, like too many teeth just under too many smiles.

I hover at the door a second too long.

“Move, princess,” Brynn grunts behind me, nudging me forward with her shoulder. “Standing in the doorway makes you a target and a draft.”

Inside, the tables are even more crowded than the first morning. Vaelan wolves sit among Rowan’s pack now, some stiff‑backed and pale, others trying awkwardly to copy the relaxed sprawl of their hosts. The scents of the two groups knot in the air—rich Vaelan spice and polished leather tangling with woodsmoke and wet earth.

Siofra catches my eye and pats the bench beside her again. This time, when I reach the table, there’s no surprised hush. Just a few narrowed eyes.

Tavin grins up at me, already chewing on something that looks like half a roasted bird.

“Hey, Luna‑maybe,” he says. “You survived Brynn again.”

“Barely,” I say. “She tried to kill me in three different ways before breakfast.”

“She was being nice,” Brynn says, dropping onto the bench across from us. “I didn’t use the fourth.”

Pups at the far end giggle. Someone shoves a bowl of stew into my hands before I can object. The warmth seeps into my fingers, anchoring me.

For a few minutes, it’s almost easy.

Siofra asks about old Vaelan winter festivals; I describe ice sculptures and choreographed dances, and Tavin snorts so hard bread flies out of his nose. Brynn tells a story about Rowan falling out of a tree his first year as alpha and landing on Jarik; Jarik, listening from two benches down, flips her an obscene gesture without looking up from his plate.

My wolf relaxes, lulled by food and noise and the press of bodies. This isn’t the polished, brittle performance of Hall dinners. This is… messy. Real.

Then the question lands, pitched just loud enough to carry.

“Is it true?”

The voice belongs to a Vaelan wolf three places down—a young man with clever eyes and a healer’s hands, if his fingers’ fine scars mean anything. His gaze is fixed on me, not cruel, but sharp.

“Is what true?” I ask, setting my spoon down.

“That you rejected him.” He jerks his chin toward the far end of the hall, where Rowan sits with Jarik and a cluster of senior fighters. “In front of everyone. Made a show of it.”

Silence spills outward like water, dousing conversation.

Brynn’s eyes cut to mine. Siofra goes very still. Even the pups seem to sense the shift, laughter choking off mid‑giggle.

My throat tightens.

I could lie. I could smooth it over, call it rumor, a story grown in the telling.

But half the wolves in this room saw it. The other half were shaped by what it meant.

“Yes,” I say. My voice comes out steady. “I did.”

A muscle ticks in Brynn’s jaw. Tavin looks at me like he’s seeing a ghost.

The Vaelan—Garin, my mind supplies belatedly—leans forward, elbows on the table.

“Why?” he asks. Not accusing. Curious. Like he wants to dissect a specimen.

“Garin,” Siofra starts, warning.

“No.” I lift a hand. “He has a right to ask.”

I swallow, the stew turning to lead in my stomach.

“Because I was young,” I say. “Because I was stupid. Because I let fear talk louder than the bond.”

“Fear of what?” someone else mutters. I follow the voice—one of the older Vaelan betas, lines of resentment etched deep around his mouth.

“Of being seen as weak,” I answer, before he can spit the word himself. “Of losing my right to lead. Of giving up the image my father built for me.”

“And what about him?” Brynn’s question cuts clean through the air.

All eyes shift.

“What about the boy on the floor?” she asks, not kindly, not cruelly. “Was that fear about him too? Or was that just convenience?”

The memory rises, uninvited. Rowan’s face turning from hope to horror, the way the Hall’s laughter swelled, tidal, when I stepped back and let the bond snap.

I draw in a breath that tastes like old shame and woodsmoke.

“It was cowardice,” I say. “And vanity. And anger at a moon that gave me something I didn’t understand.”

My hands curl around the bowl until my knuckles blanch.

“I won’t ask you to forgive me for it,” I add, looking not at the Vaelan, but at Brynn. At Siofra. At Tavin. “But I won’t pretend it didn’t happen, either.”

Silence again. Heavier this time. Then, slowly, Siofra exhales.

“Honest,” she says quietly. “That’s more than we got from your elders in ten years.”

Tavin pokes at his food, eyes wide. “He… loved you, you know,” he blurts. “Back then. Before.”

“Tavin,” Brynn snaps.

“It’s true,” he insists. “He used to ask about you. If you were okay, if you’d eaten, if—”

“I know,” I cut in, voice cracking.

I don’t, not really. Not the details. But I know enough.

Across the hall, Rowan’s laugh rings out at something Jarik says—a low, rough sound that still manages to find every hollow place in my chest.

“How do you sit here now?” Garin asks, softer. “After that.”

“Because I have to,” I say. “Because Varek Sundr doesn’t care about our history, only about our weakness. And because if I run from this again, more people will bleed for my fear.”

Brynn stares at me a second longer, then grunts and stands.

“Good,” she says. “Then you can tell him that yourself.”

My pulse stutters. “Tell who what?”

She jerks her chin toward the far end of the hall.

Rowan is on his feet, moving toward us, expression unreadable.

“And maybe,” Brynn adds under her breath, “you can find a better way to stand next to him than the last time you were given the chance.”