The Useless Omega
1604 Words
Ashen
Callan had the Same face. Same alpha-born height. Same sharp blue eyes.
But where Callan’s gaze struck like a blade, Cael’s often slid away at the last moment.
Not kindness.
Not yet.
But sometimes shame wore a face very close to mercy.
I stood. “It will be ready shortly, my lord.”
Callan looked at the half-filled tub. “Shortly?”
“I had to gather more water.”
“You had to gather more water,” he repeated slowly, as if tasting the stupidity of it. “Do you hear that, Cael? The omega has discovered the mystery of baths. They need water.”
Cael said nothing.
Callan stepped close enough that his alpha scent pressed against my skin—pine, dominance, smoke, and the sharp edge of command.
“Damn useless,” he muttered. “You cannot even serve properly.”
I lowered my gaze.
His pressure thickened.
Most omegas would have trembled. Some would have bent at the knees. A few would have shown their throat before being told.
I counted the cracks in the stone floor.
One.
Two.
Three.
The fire popped behind me.
The bathwater steamed.
Callan’s eyes narrowed.
“Are you ignoring me?”
“No, my lord.”
“Then move.”
I moved.
I hauled another pail. Stoked the fire. Added hot water. Tested the temperature with my wrist. Too warm, maybe, but not enough to burn.
Callan dipped one finger into the tub and jerked back dramatically.
“Too hot.”
I blinked once. “Forgive me.”
“Do you want my skin boiled off?”
“No, my lord.”
“Fix it.”
I reached for the cold pail.
My anger was small. Smaller than a spark. But anger had never needed size to become dangerous.
The moment my fingers touched the pail, frost slipped across the metal rim.
Then the bathwater stopped steaming.
Not cooled.
Stopped.
The surface went still and glassy.
Cael noticed first.
His gaze flicked from the tub to my hand.
I released the pail.
The frost faded.
Callan shoved my shoulder. “I said fix it, not stare at it.”
“Yes, my lord.”
I mixed in warmer water with steady hands.
Cael moved beside me when Callan turned toward the mirror. Something hard pressed into my palm.
A piece of bread.
Small. Stale. Barely worth the risk.
“You look dead,” Cael muttered under his breath.
I closed my fingers around it. “That would delay the bath.”
His mouth twitched.
Then he looked away before his brother could see.
I slipped the bread into the pocket of my apron.
Not for me.
Nara had looked pale this morning.
My sister always tried to pretend she was not hungry, which would have been more convincing if her stomach did not argue with her every time the kitchen smelled of food.
I finished the bath, gathered the wet cloths, and hurried toward the dining room.
I was three steps from the door when Nara entered, carrying the breakfast tray.
She was seventeen, though fear had a way of making her look younger. Her dark hair was tied back with a ribbon I had mended twice. Her cheeks were flushed from the kitchen heat, and her thin arms shook beneath the weight of the tray.
I caught her eye.
She smiled, just a little.
That was my first mistake.
I smiled back.
That was hers.
Callan saw it.
He stepped into her path.
Nara tried to move around him, but his foot slid out.
The tray flew.
Plates shattered.
Eggs, bread, sugared pears, and hot tea spilled across the polished floor.
Nara hit her knees with a gasp.
The room went silent.
Callan looked down at the mess, then at my sister.
“Stupid omega,” he said. “Watch where you are going.”
Nara’s hands trembled over broken porcelain. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Didn’t mean to ruin breakfast?” Callan crouched in front of her. “Didn’t mean to make us wait? Didn’t mean to remind everyone why omegas should stay in the kennels?”
Her eyes filled.
My wolf moved.
The fire in the hearth bent low.
The steam from the twins’ bath drifted through the open door behind us, turning suddenly white and cold.
A thin sheet of frost crawled across the edge of the spilled tea.
Cael saw it.
Again.
This time, he swallowed.
Callan did not.
He picked up a broken plate shard and tapped it against Nara’s chin.
“What should the punishment be?” he asked lightly. “Ten lashes? No. That hardly teaches anything.” His smile widened. “Twenty.”
“No,” I said.
The word left me too fast.
Too clean.
Every eye turned.
Callan rose slowly.
“What did you say?”
I stepped between him and my sister, then lowered my head before he could name it defiance.
“She did not mean it,” I said. “I should have cleared the path. I was careless.”
Nara whispered, “Ashen, no.”
I did not look at her.
Callan’s alpha pressure rolled over me.
The servants along the wall flinched.
My knees did not bend.
So I bent them myself.
That was another useful lesson I learned young: if powerful men want to see you kneel, kneel before they can wonder why they had to ask twice.
“I will take the punishment,” I said.
Callan smiled.
Cael looked away.
Lady Seraphine’s voice came from the doorway.
“How noble.”
I kept my head lowered.
She walked in slowly, her gown whispering over the floor.
“Always so eager to suffer for your sister.” She touched Nara’s hair with false gentleness. “One might think you were trying to prove something.”
I said nothing.
Her hand dropped.
“Clean this mess,” she ordered Nara. Then her eyes slid to me. “And you will take the lashes after the royal announcement. I will not have the messenger hearing your pathetic noises.”
Royal announcement?
I lifted my head before I could stop myself.
Lady Seraphine smiled as if she had been waiting for that.
“Oh,” she said softly. “Did no one tell you?”
My mother’s ring turned cold beneath my shirt.
For one breath, the dining room vanished.
And I was ten years old again.
The birthing room smelled of blood, smoke, and lavender.
My mother lay against the pillows, her skin too pale, her lips nearly blue. A newborn pup whimpered weakly beside her, wrapped in a blanket too large for her tiny body.
My sister.
Nara.
Nara was born less than two years after me, but my memories of that night came in broken pieces—blood on white sheets, my mother’s shaking hand, and the cold ring she pressed into my palm.
My father stood at the foot of the bed.
He had not touched the baby.
He had not touched my mother.
He looked at them both as if they had humiliated him by existing.
“Another omega,” he said.
My mother closed her eyes.
“Please,” she whispered. “She is your daughter.”
“She is nothing.”
Then he rejected her.
No ceremony. No mercy. No waiting for her body to heal.
He severed the bond while blood still soaked the sheets.
My mother screamed once.
Only once.
The sound never left me.
I ran to her side, but I was too small to stop death and too young to understand why love could be used like a weapon.
Her shaking hand found mine.
“Ashen,” she breathed.
“I’m here.”
“Watch over her.” Her fingers forced something into my palm. A ring. Silver-white. Cold as winter. “No matter what they call you. No matter what he makes them believe.”
“Mother, don’t.”
Her eyes found mine.
Even dying, they were gentle.
“You and your sister are special.”
She tried to say more.
The words drowned in blood.
And then she was gone.
The room returned in pieces.
Broken plates.
Spilled tea.
My sister crying silently on the floor.
The ring beneath my shirt.
My promise sitting on my chest heavier than any chain.
A soft crunch came from near the doorway.
Veyra Moonwick leaned against the wall, eating an apple.
No one had seen her enter.
Or rather, they had seen her and decided, with the help of ancient fae magic, that she belonged there. That was the way Veyra’s disguise worked. People noticed her enough to not question her. Then forgot why they had noticed.
A servant passed behind her with a basket of fruit.
Veyra plucked another apple from the top without looking.
The servant paused, frowned at the basket, then continued walking as if apples regularly escaped by choice.
I stared at her.
She took a bite.
I gave her a look.
She raised her brows as if I were the unreasonable one.
When Lady Seraphine swept from the room and the servants began clearing the mess, Veyra drifted closer.
“You should stop doing that,” I muttered.
“Eating fruit? Ashen, I am wounded.”
“Stealing fruit.”
“Borrowing.”
“You never return it.”
“I return it to the earth eventually. That is how digestion works.”
I sighed. “Someone will get suspicious.”
Veyra looked around the room where no one was looking at her.
Then she looked back at me.
- Writer
