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

Chapter 6 – Among the Outcasts

The next morning, someone bangs on my door before the sun has fully dragged itself over the treetops.

“Up,” Brynn’s voice snaps through the wood. “Breakfast. Then training. Alpha’s orders.”

I peel myself out of a sleep too thin to be restful, every muscle tight from a night spent replaying words I can’t take back—his and mine.

The air is cold on my bare arms as I dress. No silks here, no embroidered coats. Just the plain clothes they left folded on the chair: dark leggings, a thick sweater, boots that look made to survive mud instead of marble. They smell faintly of smoke and someone else’s wolf, but they’re warm.

When I open the door, Brynn is leaning on the railing, arms crossed. Her hair is more silver than black now, pulled back in a rough knot. She looks me up and down once, snorts.

“Better,” she says. “At least you don’t look like you’re about to host a ball.”

“I left my tiara in the car,” I mutter.

Her mouth twitches. “Shame. Would’ve liked to see you try to keep it on when I knock you on your ass.”

We step out into the morning.

The clearing is different at this hour. Softer. Smoke from the central fire curls lazily upward. Wolves move in loose lines toward a long building that smells of bread and meat and too many bodies. Pups chase each other between legs, tumbling in the frost‑silvered grass until someone scoops them up by the scruff and deposits them back in a line.

Brynn leads me to the big house without comment. Inside, the air is warm and loud. Long tables run the length of the room, benches crammed with bodies. Wolves shoulder to shoulder, talking, laughing, eating. No assigned seating, no head table. Just… pack.

Conversations dip as we enter, then surge again, thinner and sharper. I feel eyes on me from every direction, sliding over my clothes, my hair, the set of my shoulders.

Siofra waves from halfway down the table, patting the empty space beside her.

“Here,” she calls. “Before Jarik decides the ‘guest’ should eat in the corner.”

Brynn grunts approval and veers toward her. I follow, ignoring the way my skin prickles under the weight of so many stares.

Siofra slides a plate toward me as I sit. Eggs, thick slices of bread, something that smells like spiced meat.

“We don’t do servants,” she says. “You want more, you get up and get it yourself. You want less, you hand it off to the nearest bottomless pit.”

As if on cue, a lanky young man across from us, maybe nineteen at most, perks up.

“That’s me,” he says, grinning. His wolf scent is wild and a little off—like it hasn’t quite decided on a shape. “I’m Tavin. I accept all charitable donations, especially if they involve meat.”

He reaches for an extra slice off my plate without waiting. I arch a brow.

“Bold,” I say. “Do you do that to all potential Lunas or am I special?”

He freezes, eyes widening, then flushes so hard I can see it under his freckles.

“I— I mean— I didn’t mean—”

Siofra laughs, low and delighted. “She’s teasing you, pup. Sit down before you vibrate off the bench.”

Tavin collapses back into his seat, still pink. “Right. Sorry. I just… uh. We don’t get many highborns at our table.”

“We don’t get any,” Brynn corrects dryly, tearing a loaf in half. “The last one tried to have us all exiled for breathing too loud.”

Heat flickers up my neck. I don’t need to ask whom she means.

“Relax, old wolf,” I say, surprising myself. “I only exile people for crimes much worse than that. Like stealing my food.”

Tavin lets out a strangled noise that might be a laugh. Across the table, a couple of wolves snort. The tension doesn’t vanish, but it loosens by a fraction.

I take a bite of bread. It’s rough, a little burnt at the edges, but warm. Real. My stomach remembers suddenly that I haven’t eaten properly since before the car left Vaelan land. The first bite disappears faster than I intend.

“So,” Tavin says, regaining some of his nerve. “What’s it like up there? In your big stone palace. Do you all eat separately in tiny rooms so you don’t have to smell each other?”

“Sometimes,” I say. “Sometimes we eat at a long table while we pretend we can’t smell the resentment from three seats down.”

Siofra chokes on her drink. Brynn barks out a laugh that turns a few more heads.

“And the omegas?” someone further down the table calls. “Do they get a special corner, or do you just throw scraps over the balcony?”

The words hit like a slap. My throat tightens.

Memories surge. Rowan on the training field, smaller than the others, slower to heal. The way some of the betas would “forget” to pass him a plate at meals, laughter dripping off every syllable.

“We were… not kind,” I say, choosing my words like stepping over broken glass. “To anyone who didn’t fit the picture.”

“And you?” Brynn asks quietly.

I force my gaze up to meet hers. “I learned from the best.”

She studies me for a long, uncomfortable heartbeat. Then she grunts, breaking eye contact first.

“Eat,” she says. “You’ll need the energy if you’re going to survive my training circle.”

“Training?” Tavin perks up. “Can I watch when Brynn throws the princess—”

His sentence cuts off with a yelp as Brynn’s elbow finds his ribs.

“Alpha said she runs with us,” Brynn tells me. “Fights with us. Bleeds with us, if necessary. We don’t carry dead weight, no matter how shiny the wrapping.”

“Understood,” I say.

My wolf stirs, stretching. She remembers battle. She likes the promise in Brynn’s voice.

As if summoned, a ripple passes through the room. Conversations dip. Heads shift subtly toward the far end.

Rowan has entered.

He doesn’t sit at the head of the table. There is no head. He just takes a spot where there’s space, sliding onto a bench beside a young mother with a pup on her hip, across from Jarik. His plate is filled by whoever’s ladling stew, no ceremony. Wolves nod to him, offer quick smiles; a few reach to clap his shoulder.

His presence settles over the room like a second skin. The pack’s collective tension eases, breaths syncing, shoulders dropping. I feel it too, despite myself—the instinctive part of me that recognizes alpha and wants to fall into his orbit.

His gaze skims the table once. It brushes over me, a brief, unreadable touch, then moves on.

No public summons. No private stare.

Somehow, that stings.

“Finish up,” Brynn says, standing. “Then meet me on the training grounds. Let’s see if that pretty posture holds when you’re in the dirt.”

As I rise, Siofra’s hand brushes my wrist, just for a second. When I glance down, her eyes are soft but unwavering.

“They’re watching,” she murmurs. “All of them. Not to see if you’re perfect.” She smiles faintly. “To see if you’re willing to fall and get back up.”

I swallow, nod once.

Outside, the air is sharper, the ground still slick with frost. Wolves already ring the packed‑earth circle near the treeline, some stretching, some sparring. Brynn steps into the center, rolling her shoulders.

“Vaelan,” she calls. “In.”

Dozens of eyes swing my way.

Guest or prisoner, Luna or traitor—it doesn’t matter right now.

Right now, I’m just a wolf walking into a ring, under a sky that no longer belongs to me alone.