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

Chapter 2 – The New Alpha

I force myself to turn.

For three long years I’ve imagined this moment in every possible way. In most of them, he was still small. Still slight. Still something I could look down on.

Reality doesn’t care about my imagination.

Rowan Kestrel walks toward us with the slow, grounded stride of someone who knows every eye is already on him. He doesn’t rush. He doesn’t need to. The pack parts around him without a word, bodies angling just enough that he has an easy path through the crowd.

He’s taller. Broader. There’s power in the lines of his shoulders, in the way his simple black shirt strains across his chest. His hair is darker than I remember, pulled back at the nape of his neck, a few strands loose around his face. A jagged white scar cuts through one eyebrow and disappears into his hairline.

But it’s his eyes that knock the breath from my lungs.

Still green. The exact same shade. Forest after rain. Only now there’s no soft uncertainty, no panic. Just cool, steady assessment, like he’s cataloguing all the ways I could be a threat. Or a liability.

My wolf rolls onto her back with a whimper.

Rowan’s gaze slides past me, lands on Edrik.

“Uncle Vaelan,” he says. His voice is deeper, rougher than the boy’s voice I remember, but there’s a ghost of that old careful politeness lurking under the steel. “You made good time.”

Edrik exhales like someone punched him. “Alpha Kestrel,” he corrects himself quickly, with a short, stiff nod. “We are grateful you agreed to receive us.”

Alpha Kestrel.

Hearing it aloud is like biting down on glass.

Rowan’s mouth curves, not quite a smile. “You must be desperate,” he says conversationally. “Last I checked, Vaelan didn’t send heirs as messengers.”

He doesn’t look at me when he says it. That, somehow, hurts more than if he’d stared.

Edrik clears his throat. “Circumstances have… changed. There are matters of mutual interest we wish to discuss. Threats we both face.”

“Mm.” Rowan’s eyes flick once around the edge of the clearing, taking in his wolves, my guards, the car still lurking in the trees. “You came with two guards and an aging politician. Forgive me if I question how seriously Vaelan takes those threats.”

Heat licks up my neck. Edrik bristles so hard I can practically hear his teeth grind.

“With respect,” he begins, which always means there will be none, “I’m not here to—”

Rowan lifts his hand.

The gesture is small, but the air tightens. The scarred wolf beside us—Jarik, I realize belatedly, an echo of some half‑remembered patrol reports from years ago—straightens, eyes on his alpha. The rest of the pack shifts, a ripple of attention.

“My time is not cheap,” Rowan says quietly. “Neither is theirs.” He nods toward his wolves. “You said threats. Say their names.”

Edrik swallows. “Varek Sundr.”

A low growl shivers through the pack at the name. Someone spits in the dirt.

Rowan’s expression doesn’t change. Only his jaw tightens, a brief flex.

“Go on,” he says.

“Increased raids on our outer lands. Losses.” Edrik chooses his words like stepping stones over a river, careful not to fall in. “He’s pushing closer every month. Our borders are strained. Resources—”

“Depleted,” Rowan finishes for him, voice flat. “Allies tired of bleeding for your father’s mistakes. Debts called in. Old favors gone cold.”

Edrik’s face flushes a dangerous red. “We didn’t come here to be lectured on—”

“Yes,” Rowan says. “You did.”

Silence.

He takes another few steps forward, stopping just out of arm’s reach. Close enough that I can see the faint shadow of stubble on his jaw. Close enough that my traitor body remembers the heat of his skin from a night that never happened.

He still hasn’t looked at me.

“You came,” he continues, “because your pack is collapsing. Because the wolves you used like currency won’t be traded anymore. Because the neighbors you starved and the rogues you threw away are either under my protection… or very eager to watch you burn.”

His gaze flicks to Edrik, sharp as a blade. “And because whoever still pulls strings in Vaelan Hall decided their best chance is to send me a gift.”

Now he looks at me.

It’s not the way he used to look. Not that soft, stunned awe that made me want to claw my own skin off. This is clean, clinical. Weighing. Measuring.

“Isn’t that right, Lyris?”

My name in his mouth feels like a verdict.

I make myself meet his eyes. “If you’re asking whether they sent me here to bargain with you,” I say, keeping my spine straight, “then yes. They did.”

He studies my face for a long, excruciating moment. No flicker of recognition at the curve of my mouth, the angle of my jaw. No hint that his wolf remembers the girl who once crushed him under her heel.

“Bold,” he murmurs at last. “I’ll give them that.”

Edrik steps in, words tumbling over each other. “We propose an alliance. A joining of territories and forces. A formal bond between the packs.”

Rowan tilts his head. “Through marriage.”

The word hangs there, heavy and unavoidable.

My throat goes dry.

Edrik nods. “Through a Luna.”

Rowan’s gaze doesn’t leave mine. His eyes are unreadable, but I feel the tiniest flare of the bond we once shared—like a fingernail scraping over an old scar.

“A Luna,” he repeats softly. “How generous of Vaelan, to offer me what I was already promised and they stole.”

I flinch. I can’t help it.

His eyes catch the movement. Something sharp and satisfied flickers there, gone before I can pin it.

“I am not an omega boy on your father’s floor anymore, Lyris,” Rowan says, voice low enough that I’m not sure anyone else hears. “My pack doesn’t beg. We do not take cast‑off scraps as favors.”

He lifts his chin slightly, addressing Edrik without breaking our stare.

“You’ll have your audience,” he says. “We’ll discuss Sundr. Terms. Possibilities.”

Relief shudders through my uncle’s shoulders.

“But understand this,” Rowan adds, and now his voice carries, sure and cold over the watching wolves. “Vaelan asks. I decide. I owe your bloodline nothing.”

He lets that sink in, then finally, deliberately, steps past Edrik and stops right in front of me. Close enough that I can taste his scent, that warm rain‑and‑smoke note that once meant everything.

My heart stutters.

“You,” he says, so quietly it might be only for me. “You will stay here while I decide what your pack is worth.”

Our gazes lock. My wolf holds her breath.

“And whether,” Rowan Kestrel says, “you are still worth anything at all.”