The Male Omega

Chapter 15: First Blood in the Snow

The first attack came on the fourth day.

Not in some hidden stairwell.

Not in the woods.

Not even after dark.

It came in the pale gray quiet of afternoon, with snow beginning to fall outside the windows and the estate so still it seemed impossible that anything cruel could happen in it at all.

Rowan had gone downstairs.

Only for a little while. He had argued with one of the stewards that morning about winter clothes and the weak fire in my room, and when the man finally sent word that he would “review the household supplies,” Rowan had gone to make sure review did not become another word for delay. He had made me promise to stay inside until he returned.

I meant to.

I really did.

But the room had begun to feel too close again.

That happened sometimes when I was alone—the silence changed shape. The walls felt tighter. Every sound outside the door seemed sharper. I could hear footsteps in the corridor and imagine eyes attached to them even when no one knocked.

So I told myself I would only step out for a minute.

Just to the end of the corridor where the tall window looked over the outer garden. Just to breathe cold air through the glass and look at something beyond walls and doors and rooms that kept reminding me I was misplaced in all of them.

The corridor was empty when I stepped out.

Light from the narrow windows lay pale across the floor. Dust drifted in it. Somewhere lower in the house, a door shut softly. The whole wing felt half-asleep.

I walked slowly.

My body still tired too easily. That was another humiliation I hadn’t gotten used to yet. My legs felt heavy after too many stairs. My wrists still ached sometimes. Even the small cut on my palm from the rite had not fully stopped stinging if I bent my hand the wrong way.

At the end of the corridor, snow had started falling.

Not heavily. Just thin white threads drifting across the dark garden stones below.

I stood there looking at it longer than I should have.

That was my mistake.

Footsteps sounded behind me.

By the time I turned, Lucan Blackthorne was already too close.

My heart jumped so hard it hurt.

He wasn’t alone. Two others stood with him—young men I knew only by sight, sons of allied pack families, the sort of people who belonged in these halls and had likely never once been told they were taking up too much space.

Lucan smiled when he saw my face.

It wasn’t a pleasant smile.

“Well,” he said lightly, “I was beginning to think the estate had swallowed you.”

I stepped back at once.

The cold stone of the window alcove met my shoulder.

“I was just going back,” I said quickly.

My voice came out too soft.

I hated that.

Hated hearing fear so clearly in it.

One of the other men looked me over and made no effort to hide his disdain. “This is him?”

The word wasn’t spoken, but I heard the rest anyway.

This is him?

This is what the shrine chose?

This is what the alpha was bound to?

My hands had already started shaking. I tucked them into my sleeves.

Lucan leaned one shoulder against the opposite wall, trapping the narrow space between us with lazy ease. “You know,” he said, “people are talking.”

I stared at the floor.

Of course they were.

He went on, voice almost amused. “Most of them want to know whether the rite was flawed or the goddess simply cruel.”

A laugh came from one of the others.

My face burned.

I wanted to say something.

That I hadn’t asked for this.

That I didn’t want any of it either.

That if there had been a way to go back to being no one, I would have taken it without hesitation.

But my throat had closed.

So when I finally managed to speak, all that came out was a small, unsteady, “Please.”

Lucan’s smile sharpened.

“Please what?”

I couldn’t answer.

The word had been instinct. Not thought. The same weak, stupid instinct that always surfaced when I was cornered—as if sounding frightened might make cruel people gentler.

It never did.

Lucan’s gaze dropped to the bandage on my palm.

“Did you enjoy the shrine?” he asked. “Or was it embarrassing, standing there in front of everyone while the whole family watched the alpha get saddled with you?”

Something in my chest folded in on itself.

I think he saw it happen.

Because his expression brightened with that specific kind of satisfaction cruel people got when they found the exact place to press.

One of the others laughed again. “He looks like he might cry.”

Heat rushed to my face so fast my eyes stung.

“No,” I whispered, though I wasn’t sure what I was denying.

That I was about to cry?

That I had enjoyed none of this?

That I was sorry for being here?

Lucan stepped closer.

Instinct made me retreat, but there was nowhere left to go. The window ledge bit cold into my back through my clothes.

His voice dropped lower. “If you had any decency, you’d ask to be sent away before you disgrace him further.”

Him.

Not Xervic.

The alpha.

As if even saying his name in this context would stain it.

I could barely breathe.

“I didn’t do anything,” I said.

The words came out broken.

Too thin.

Pathetic, probably.

Lucan’s mouth twitched. “Exactly.”

Then he shoved me.

Not with enough force to look like an attack if someone turned the corner.

Not so hard that it would leave obvious damage.

Just enough.

Enough to send me sideways into the stone edge beneath the window.

Enough to make pain shoot hot through my hip and wrist.

Enough to wrench a small cry out of me before I could stop it.

The sound humiliated me more than the pain.

For a second the corridor tilted.

I caught myself badly, one hand scraping against the ledge, my injured palm flaring sharp under the bandage. Snow had blown in through the cracked window seam, just enough to make the stone slick beneath my boot.

I almost fell.

One of the men laughed.

Lucan didn’t.

He just looked down at me with cold contempt and said, “Stand properly.”

I tried.

My hip throbbed. My hand shook harder. I got halfway upright and had to catch myself again against the wall.

The others were still watching.

Still amused.

I wished, with a desperation so sharp it almost made me sick, that Rowan were there.

Lucan must have read something of that in my face.

He bent slightly, close enough that I could smell winter air and wolf and expensive soap on his coat.

“If you complain,” he said softly, “they’ll only ask why you were wandering alone.”

My stomach dropped.

He was right.

Or maybe not right, but believable enough. Easy enough. In this house, I had already learned how quickly discomfort slid toward my side of the scales.

Footsteps sounded at the far end of the corridor.

A servant appeared carrying folded linen and froze at the sight of us.

Lucan straightened instantly.

“Mr. Knox slipped,” he said with smooth boredom. “See him back to his room.”

The servant bowed at once, pale and flustered. “Yes, sir.”

Then Lucan and the others walked away.

Just like that.

As if nothing had happened.

As if I were the one who had embarrassed us all by failing to stand properly.

The servant came closer only after they had turned the corner.

“Sir?” she asked softly. “Are you hurt?”

I shook my head too fast. “No.”

A lie.

An automatic one.

The moment I took a step, pain flared through my side hard enough to make me suck in a breath.

The servant looked distressed. “Please—let me help.”

I wanted to refuse.

I always wanted to refuse.

But the corridor had gone blurry around the edges and my legs no longer felt dependable, so I let her guide me back slowly.

Rowan was already in the room when we reached it.

He took one look at my face and went still. Not the ordinary kind of stillness. The dangerous kind.

“What happened?”

I looked at the floor.

The servant twisted the linens in her arms.

“I slipped,” I whispered.

Rowan’s gaze shifted to the servant. “That’s not the truth.”

She looked as if she wanted to disappear.

“I— Master Lucan said—”

Rowan turned back to me.

His voice changed completely. Quiet now. Too quiet.

“Kyle.”

I couldn’t look up.

I couldn’t bear the anger that would be on his face, not when I knew it was for me and because of me.

“He pushed me,” I whispered.

Silence.

Then Rowan moved so fast the chair near the hearth nearly toppled.

He was at the door before I realized what he meant to do.

Panic struck harder than pain.

“Rowan—” My voice broke. I took one step after him and gasped when my hip flared. “Please!”

He stopped.

Looked back.

And I hated how frightened I sounded when I said the next words, because they were true and because I could not seem to stop being exactly this weak.

“Please don’t leave me.”

Everything in his face changed.

The rage didn’t go away.

It just turned.

He was back beside me in two steps, catching my arm before I lost my balance completely.

“I’m here,” he said, breath rough. “I’m here.”

Another voice came from the doorway.

“What happened?”

I went cold.

Xervic Blackthorne stood there, one hand still on the half-open door. His expression was unreadable for a second—until his gaze moved from Rowan’s face to mine, to the way I leaned helplessly against my brother, to the tears I had not managed to hide.

Something in his eyes hardened.

Not surprise.

Something colder.

Something that made the whole room seem to narrow around him.

And for the first time since entering the estate, I thought—

someone might actually be angry on my behalf.