The Male Omega

Chapter 10: Velvet Teeth

I did not leave my room the next morning.

Not because anyone told me not to.

Because I could not bear the thought of opening the door and finding eyes waiting on the other side.

The estate was quieter than I expected in the early hours. I could hear footsteps in the corridor sometimes, soft and measured, and once the far-off scrape of something heavy being moved below the windows. But no one knocked. No one came. It felt less like privacy and more like being forgotten on purpose.

Rowan had already been awake when I opened my eyes. He sat by the hearth with a cup of untouched tea in one hand and a look on his face that told me he had not slept much either.

When he noticed I was awake, he stood at once.

“How do you feel?”

I pushed myself up too quickly and regretted it immediately. My body still felt wrong—too hot in some places, too weak in others, as if the last two days had hollowed me out and left me with less strength than I remembered having before any of this began.

“I’m alright,” I said.

Rowan looked at me.

I looked away.

That was answer enough for both of us.

A tray had been left outside the door. Bread, broth, tea. I tried the broth because Rowan was watching. It tasted fine. I still had to force down every swallow.

Around midday, there was finally a knock.

My hand tightened so fast around the spoon that broth spilled onto the blanket over my knees.

Rowan was already on his feet.

He crossed the room and opened the door only enough to block most of the view beyond it.

I heard a woman’s voice—soft, cultured, perfectly controlled.

“Xylie has come to see the Blackthorne mate.”

Everything in me went cold.

Rowan’s silence sharpened. “Kyle is resting.”

“She knows he is awake.”

I stared at the blanket in my lap.

Xylie.

Of all the people in this estate, she was one of the last I wanted to face. Not because I knew her well. I didn’t. I barely knew her at all. But I knew the kind of person she was. Beautiful, high-born, careless in the way only people raised with power could afford to be. The type of woman who never had to lower her voice to make someone feel small.

And if Xylie had come—

Amanda was with her.

I knew it before I heard the second voice.

“Please,” Amanda said sweetly. “We only wish to welcome him properly.”

Something in the softness of her tone made my skin tighten.

Rowan did not move from the door. “That won’t be necessary.”

I should have stayed quiet.

I knew that.

But the thought of Rowan standing there arguing with them while I hid in bed made shame burn hotter than fear for one foolish moment.

“It’s alright,” I said softly.

Rowan turned at once. His expression said clearly that he did not agree.

I could not look at him for long.

“It’s alright,” I repeated, weaker this time.

It wasn’t.

We both knew it wasn’t.

But if I sent them away, would that make things worse? Would it become one more insult for them to carry back into the halls, one more reason to tell everyone I thought too highly of myself now that the bond had been spoken aloud?

Rowan’s jaw tightened.

Then, slowly, he stepped aside.

Xylie entered first.

She was exactly as I remembered—dark hair, fine clothes, sharp eyes that moved over the room and then landed on me with open distaste before smoothing into something more polite. Amanda followed close behind, pale and graceful in soft blue, her face arranged into perfect concern.

It made me feel sick.

I tried to stand.

That was a mistake.

The room tilted slightly, and I had to catch the bedpost before I lost my balance completely.

Xylie’s brows lifted. Amanda’s smile deepened in a way that did not reach her eyes.

“Oh,” Amanda murmured. “You needn’t rise for us.”

My face burned anyway.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

The words slipped out before I could stop them.

Rowan went very still by the door.

Amanda noticed that too. Of course she did.

She crossed the room with measured steps and set a small box on the table near the hearth. “A gift,” she said. “Something simple. Since you’ll be staying.”

I could not make myself ask what it was.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

Xylie looked around the room again, taking in the narrow hearth, the plain curtains, the smaller bed.

Her mouth curved slightly. “I suppose this wing suits the situation.”

I froze.

Amanda let out the softest laugh, as if embarrassed by her friend. “Xylie.”

But she did not sound disapproving.

I lowered my eyes. My hands had started shaking again, so I tucked them behind my back and hoped neither of them noticed.

Amanda moved closer.

“Everyone is rather… unsettled,” she said in that same sweet, careful tone. “You understand, don’t you? This is very sudden for the family.”

I nodded because that was easier than speaking.

The floorboards were much easier to look at than her face.

“And Xervic,” she continued, voice even softer now, “has so many responsibilities. This should be a time of stability for him.”

Something in my chest tightened painfully.

I knew what she meant.

Or rather, I knew what she wanted me to hear.

You are not stability.

You are the opposite.

You are trouble wrapped in moonlight and shame.

Xylie crossed her arms. “Amanda means that my brother has enough burdens without this becoming a spectacle.”

Rowan spoke before I could. “Then perhaps neither of you should be here adding to one.”

Xylie’s gaze snapped toward him.

I flinched without meaning to.

Amanda saw that.

I knew she did, because when she looked back at me, her expression had softened in false sympathy.

“No one wants to hurt you,” she said. “But you must understand your position.”

My throat felt tight.

“I do,” I whispered.

That seemed to satisfy her.

Amanda tilted her head slightly, studying me. “Do you?”

I could not answer.

Because the truth was that I did understand.

Too well.

I understood that she had once expected to stand beside Xervic in this estate and be welcomed for it. I understood that my existence had humiliated her in front of the whole family shrine. I understood that whatever words she chose, she had not come here to be kind.

She had come to look at me.

To measure me.

To confirm for herself that I was exactly as weak and unworthy as she needed me to be.

Xylie stepped closer to the table and lifted the lid of the small box Amanda had brought. Inside lay a silver moonpin worked in fine metal.

For one brief second, I was foolish enough to think it really was a gift.

Then Xylie smiled.

“Such a shame,” she said. “This was meant for the Blackthorne alpha’s future mate.”

I stopped breathing.

Amanda’s lashes lowered. “Xylie.”

Still no disapproval.

Just silk over teeth.

I stared at the pin until my vision blurred slightly at the edges. A proper response should have come to me then. Something dignified. Something calm.

Instead all I could manage was a quiet, humiliating, “I’m sorry.”

Rowan moved.

Not fast enough to startle, but fast enough that both women looked at him.

“You should leave,” he said.

His voice was flat now. Dangerous.

Amanda’s expression did not change, but Xylie’s eyes flashed.

For a moment I thought she might argue.

Then Amanda touched her sleeve lightly and turned back to me with one final, gentle smile.

“Rest well, Kyle.”

She said my name like a kindness.

That somehow hurt more than if she had spat it.

They left with all the grace they had entered with.

The door shut.

The room went silent.

I stood there for one awful second, then sat down too quickly on the edge of the bed because my knees no longer trusted me.

Rowan crossed the room at once.

“I’m throwing that thing out.”

I shook my head.

He stopped. “Why?”

Because touching it would make this more real.

Because if he threw it away, they would know it had mattered.

Because I was so ashamed I could barely breathe and did not want that shame handled by anyone else.

“I just…” My voice trembled. “Don’t.”

Rowan looked at me, then at the silver pin on the table.

When he spoke again, his anger had gone quieter. Worse.

“They came here to wound you.”

I stared at my hands.

“Yes.”

The word barely made it out.

Rowan crouched in front of me, close enough that I could smell the winter and leather still caught in his coat.

“Kyle.”

I kept my eyes down.

After a long moment, he said very softly, “None of this is your fault.”

My mouth shook before my voice did.

I whispered the only thing in me that felt true.

“They all think he would have been better off without me.”