The Male Omega

Chapter 11: The Alpha’s Sister

I did not want to see Xylie again.

That thought stayed with me through the night and into the next morning, heavy and unpleasant, like a stone I could not swallow and could not spit out.

I should have felt relieved that she was gone.

Instead I felt restless.

Every little sound in the corridor made my stomach tighten. Every knock—real or imagined—sent a flash of panic through me before I could stop it. Amanda’s smile and Xylie’s cold eyes had stayed with me long after they left, clinging to the room like perfume that refused to fade.

Rowan noticed, of course.

He noticed everything.

“You didn’t sleep,” he said the next morning.

I sat near the weak hearth with a blanket around my shoulders and kept my gaze on the fire. “I did.”

“A little,” he corrected.

I said nothing.

He was right. Sleep had come in broken pieces, and each time I woke, I woke feeling watched even when the room was empty.

I hated that.

Hated that they had stepped into my room for only a few minutes and somehow made it feel less mine than it already had.

A tray of food had been brought up not long before. Bread. Fruit. Tea.

I had managed some tea.

The rest sat untouched.

Rowan stood over the tray now with the same expression he always wore when I made him worry too openly—annoyance stretched over fear, both of them too familiar to hide from me anymore.

“You need to eat.”

“I know.”

That was not the same as doing it.

He picked up the plate and crossed the room. “A few bites.”

I looked up at him, then at the bread.

My stomach turned.

Not from the food itself. From the pressure of trying.

“I can’t.”

The words came out smaller than I meant them to.

Rowan’s face changed instantly. Softer. Tired.

He set the plate down on the table instead of forcing the matter.

“Later,” he said.

That should have comforted me.

Instead guilt crawled up my throat.

“Sorry.”

His eyes closed briefly.

“Kyle.”

I lowered my head at once. “I know.”

No more apologies.

No making myself smaller.

No excusing things that hurt.

Rowan had told me all of that already.

But habits like mine did not disappear because someone asked them to. They had lived in me too long. They came out before thought, before pride, before I could stop them.

A knock sounded at the door.

I froze.

Not a dramatic freeze. Not enough for Rowan to miss. My shoulders tightened. My fingers clenched into the blanket. Even my breath seemed to catch and hold itself.

Rowan saw all of it.

His face darkened.

“Stay here,” he said.

As if I would do anything else.

He opened the door only partway.

A servant stood outside—young, nervous, eyes lowered. That alone made something in me ease, just a little. It was not Xylie. Not Amanda.

But then the servant said, “Miss Xylie requests Mr. Knox’s presence in the family sitting room.”

All the air left my lungs.

Rowan’s voice turned flat. “For what purpose?”

The servant swallowed. “She did not say.”

Of course she had not.

Because she did not need to.

Because people like Xylie never explained themselves to people like me.

Rowan said, “He’s not going.”

The servant shifted uneasily. “Miss Xylie said to say the request comes on behalf of the women of the house.”

My chest tightened.

The women of the house.

That sounded official enough to be dangerous.

Not a summons from the alpha.

Not a command from the elders.

But something that still could not be refused without becoming another story told in the halls.

I looked down at the blanket in my lap.

I did not want to go.

I did not want Rowan to fight with them either.

If he refused for me, it would only make things worse later. I knew that the same way I knew cold before snow.

“It’s alright,” I said softly.

Rowan turned at once. “No.”

I flinched before I could stop myself.

Not because he had shouted.

Because he had sounded angry.

His expression changed the moment he saw me do it. Regret flashed across his face, quick and sharp.

“Kyle,” he said more quietly.

“It’s fine,” I whispered.

It wasn’t.

The servant was still standing there, head lowered, waiting for a decision that should never have been his to carry.

Rowan looked like he wanted to tear the whole estate apart plank by plank.

I wished, suddenly and fiercely, that I was the kind of person who could let him.

Instead I forced myself to stand.

My knees felt weak immediately.

Rowan reached out on instinct, steadying my arm before I stumbled. The touch was light, but I leaned into it for a second longer than I meant to.

“I’ll go with you,” he said.

The servant hesitated.

I saw it.

Rowan saw it.

We both knew what it meant.

Miss Xylie had not invited my brother.

But the servant, perhaps wisely, did not try to object aloud.

The family sitting room was on the brighter side of the estate, with tall windows, pale rugs, and furniture too elegant to invite comfort. It was warmer than my room. Softer too. Which only made it clearer that I had not been placed there by accident.

When I stepped inside, the conversation already in progress fell quiet.

Xylie sat nearest the window.

Amanda sat beside her.

Across from them were Luna Seraphine, Aunt Eveline, and one older woman I did not know well enough to name. Tea had been poured. Cakes and fruit rested untouched on silver trays.

No place had been set for me.

My face burned.

I stopped just inside the doorway and bowed my head. “You asked for me.”

Xylie’s eyes moved over me once, from the too-plain clothes to the way Rowan stood close at my side.

“We did,” she said.

Amanda smiled that same soft smile from before. I hated it on sight now.

“Please sit,” she said.

There was nowhere to sit.

Not unless I chose one of the empty chairs already occupied by their attention.

My hands began to shake. I hid them in my sleeves.

“It’s alright,” I said quickly. “I can stand.”

Aunt Eveline gave a faint laugh behind her cup. “So timid.”

The words were not loud.

They still landed like a slap.

I looked at the floor.

Xylie set down her teacup. “We thought it best to speak plainly before gossip grows worse.”

My stomach twisted.

Amanda folded her hands in her lap. “You must understand this situation has distressed the household.”

I nodded once.

Of course it had.

Everything about me seemed built now to distress people.

Xylie watched me in cold silence for a beat, then said, “My brother’s position requires dignity. Stability. A mate who reflects well on the Blackthorne line.”

I felt Rowan shift beside me.

Just slightly.

Enough to tell me he was angry.

Enough to make me more afraid of what would happen if he spoke.

I kept my eyes lowered and whispered, “I know.”

The room went very still.

Maybe they had expected me to deny it.

Maybe they had wanted me proud so they could break that too.

Amanda’s voice softened. “Then you should also understand why people are… unsettled by you.”

Something in my chest folded inward.

I nodded again because my voice had gone thin and uncertain.

“Good,” Xylie said. “Then don’t make this harder.”

The words should not have hurt as much as they did.

But they did, because I had tried so hard all my life not to make anything harder. Not for Rowan. Not for neighbors. Not for anyone who looked at me like I took up too much space simply by standing there.

And it still had not been enough.

I stared at the pale pattern in the rug and said the only thing I could manage.

“I’m sorry.”

Rowan moved at once.

Not enough to interrupt.

Not enough to start a scene.

But enough that his hand brushed the middle of my back, steady and warm and furious all at once.

No one in the room missed it.

Xylie’s mouth tightened. “Your apologies do not solve the insult.”

I went cold.

Insult.

That was what I was to them.

Not a person.

Not even a problem.

An insult.

Amanda glanced at Xylie, then back at me, all false gentleness. “We only want what is best for Xervic.”

I looked down harder.

What was I supposed to say to that?

I want that too?

I never asked for this?

I’m trying so hard to be smaller than the hurt you keep handing me?

Instead I said nothing.

My silence seemed to annoy Xylie more than tears might have. She rose from her seat and crossed the room until she stood a little too close.

I could smell her perfume.

Could hear the whisper of her skirts.

I made myself stay still.

“He shouldn’t have to look at you and remember this disgrace,” she said softly.

My throat closed.

Before I could shrink further into myself, Rowan stepped between us.

Not violently.

Not rudely.

But completely.

“That’s enough,” he said.

The room tightened.

Seraphine’s voice turned cool as winter glass. “Mind your place, Mr. Knox.”

Rowan did not move.

I looked at the back of his coat and felt something painful twist behind my ribs.

Because he was right to stand there.

Because I wished he didn’t have to.

I touched his sleeve with trembling fingers.

“Please,” I whispered.

He went still.

Then, after one long breath, stepped back beside me instead of in front of me.

That somehow hurt most of all.

Because I had asked him to.

Because even now, in a room full of people who wanted me smaller and quieter and easier to ignore, I was still the one making him retreat.

Xylie looked at me over Rowan’s shoulder.

Her voice, when she spoke again, was almost bored.

“Remember what you are, Kyle.”

I did.

That was the problem.