OUTCAST: Bow Before The Omega

CHAPTER SIX

“No!" I barked, feeling my heart break within me, "It can't be; she can't die." I mourned, placing both my palms on the ground and pushing with the force I could gather so I could get myself up, but I couldn't. The betas helped me up by grabbing my arms and pulling me up to my feet with force.

Catherine turned to me, and with fake concern on her face and forced tears in her eyes, she said, “She was found at the edge of the forest with herbs she had collected by her side and the luna's necklace around her neck.”

"I knew it, you stole that necklace!” Luna Aria exclaimed, pointing a finger at me.

“Aria, this is not the time.” Alpha Asher's voice boomed defensively. His face was marked with confusion, surprise and sadness rolled together. “Did you hear the pack’s doctor is dead?" I could tell he was hurt by the news. We both loved Dolly, but in this whole pack, nobody—not even one of them—had the right to grieve my grandmother because they threw her out like a paper bag just two days ago and disrespected her, ignoring that she was even the pack's head healer, and they have even tagged her as an accomplice to robbery.

“Don't you dare let her name pass your lips." I voiced, threateningly, as I tried to muster courage amidst the tears on my face and my heaving heart. “None of you—not even you, Asher—have the right to voice her name.”

I whipped landed across my back, sending pain rushing through my body as it came abruptly. “It's Alpha, slave!" One of the betas behind me scolded.

Tears poured out of my eyes, and I curled my fingers into a fist. “You killed my grandmother," I accused loudly, facing Catherine, who had a tear rushing down her cheek. “Was it quick...was it painless?” I said, repeating the word she had told to my face two days ago.

Alpha Asher took a faltered step toward me, and I could see in his eyes that he was hurt. This time it was all out; his hardened eyes were soft now and glistening with a tear threatening to fall.

“You have all called me a cheat, a liar, a thief, but now my grandmother's blood is on all your hands, and I promise you, Catherine, I will not rest until I kill you myself, or you'll have to kill me first.” I vowed. Murmurs began to ripple through the crowd.

The Luna walked up to me, and without warning she landed a hard slap across my face that turned my head slightly, but instead of breaking me, I found and looked at her with burning rage. I had had it with this pack, and as a vow to myself, I was going to do anything and everything to punish all of them from alpha to the lowest that had something to do with this council and my grandma's death.

“Aria!” Alpha Asher spoke in his Alpha voice, causing everyone in the room to turn to him.

“She took my necklace, my king, and now she is threatening to kill a pack member in front of all of us. What makes us wait any longer in kicking her out of this pack? What if she is even the same person that killed our doctor?”

I threw my leg abruptly, and I connected with her jaw. The betas dragged me back, slamming my already injured back to the ground with a loud thud that sent blood spilling from my nose. My skull ached, and my body began to shiver slightly from the pain.

“I want her removed from this pack!” I heard the Luna plead, and her voice sounded like she was crying from my attack. The rest of the council were on her side, shouting in unison, “Throw her out, throw her out!"

There was a loud silence at once, and I could tell it was from the alpha's signal. “By the power vested in me,” I heard Alpha Asher say, “I pronounce you Artemis Starr, no longer a member of the Blue Rock Pack. From now on you are to be considered a rogue, and if you are ever found near the Pack's territory, you are to be dealt with severely.”

For a moment, everything stilled. The pain in my body dulled, replaced by a hollow, unbearable ache that spread through my chest like a black void. It was as if something vital—something tethered to my very soul—had been ripped away. A suffocating silence filled my mind where my wolf’s presence had once lingered.

My breath caught in my throat, and an icy chill crawled up my spine, prickling my skin as the invisible bond shattered. The absence left behind was heavier than the beating I had endured, it felt like a weight pressing into my chest and pulling at the edges of my sanity.

I felt smaller, weaker, and untethered—like a ship adrift in a storm, lost without its anchor. My blood ran cold, yet my cheeks burned with shame as the murmurs of the crowd washed over me. I couldn’t even lift my head to meet their eyes.

When I tried to take a breath, the air felt too thin, like it didn’t belong to me anymore. I was no one now, nothing. The pack’s rejection coursed through me like poison, leaving me trembling and hollowed out.

And yet, beneath the despair, a strange flicker of freedom, stirred. It wasn't that bright, it was buried under layers of agony and loss, but it was there—like the first spark of a dying flame. Now I was no longer a pack member, and I could punish them to any degree I found fit for everything they had done to me.

My little happiness was short-lived as I heard the pack's members shouting the alpha's name with fear, and I heard the sound of many feet rushing past me. When my eyes flicked open, I was being dragged out of the council room, and in the haze I could see Alpha Asher being surrounded by pack members for some reason, but I couldn't get to see what it was when the doors slammed and the betas threw me out.

A park announcer, as was our custom, followed me wherever I passed, even to my grandma's place, where I went to get my things, and he kept shouting that I was no longer a pack member and nobody was to associate with me ever again, and if anybody was found being in contact with me, that person would be thought of as an enemy of the pack. He then announced the charges on which I had been disowned, saying that I cheated on my mate, stole from the Kingdom, and attacked the luna of the Blue Rock Pack.

When he had left, leaving me with only 20 minutes to gather everything that I could, it was already dark, and from my grandma's phone, which she had left on her counter, I saw the time was forty minutes past six. I stood before the mirror, looking at my disheveled self. Tears rushed down my cheek once more as I looked at the things that reminded me of her. I took a necklace that she had given me on my birthday and wore it around my neck. The locket was our names abbreviated together, ‘DA.’ I took off the one Calum had given me and wrote a letter to tell him how much I appreciated our life together.

When I had thought of the letter with the necklace in it, I was going to check on my grandma for the last time when right at the door, a pup who was my neighbor's daughter met me breathlessly.

“Artie," she gasped, “my dad said I should tell you that you'll have to run because Luna Aria has ordered for you to be killed. They believe that you have used sorcery on the king, and he is dying. Your death is the only thing that can break the curse. They are coming for you, and you don't have much time. Go!”