The Cursed Omega's Revenge

SAMIRA Dawn bleeds into the omega quarters like a wound that won't heal proper. Purple-black sky giving way to the kind of yellow that makes you think of old bruises, the ones that settle deep in the bone and ache when storms come. I wake the way I always wake—with Rosie's sharp elbow finding that tender spot between my ribs and the taste of fear coating my tongue thick as winter honey. Fear's got a flavor, see. Metallic and old, like licking the underside of spoons that ain't been washed right. Like blood before it spills. Been tasting it so long I sometimes wonder if my tongue remembers any other flavor. Maybe it tasted mother's milk once. Maybe it knew sweetness. But that was before, in the time nobody speaks of, when I was two winters old and the world turned upside down. "Up, pup." Rosie's voice carries the crack of age and too many years bent over wash basins. She's been mothering me since that night when everything changed—the night that swallowed the old Alpha and birthed Remus's reign. The night that made orphans of some and corpses of others. "Kitchen duty won't wait for your dreaming." Dreams. I don't tell Rosie that my dreams taste of silver fire and screaming. That sometimes I wake with my throat raw like I've been howling at moons I can't remember. Those are dangerous thoughts, the kind that get omegas disappeared. I untangle myself from our pile of bodies—seven souls wrapped together like pups in a den, sharing heat because omega lives ain't worth the firewood to keep us warm. We learned long ago that survival means becoming one creature with fourteen arms, seven beating hearts, and one shared prayer: make it through another day. The floorboards know me by now. Third plank sings its creaking song, seventh's got a nail that's tasted my blood more than once. I navigate by memory and the weak moonlight that filters through cracks like the goddess herself trying to find us in our darkness. No electricity down here in the omega quarters. Alpha Remus says we see better in the dark anyway. Says it's natural for us, being closer to beasts than real wolves. Lot of things Alpha says are natural. The way he looks at young omegas. The way bodies disappear. The way screams echo from the lower chambers and nobody asks why. Don't make none of it right, but right ain't got nothing to do with surviving. "Mud." The whisper floats from the corner where little Tam sleeps, curled tight as a fist. She's eight winters, maybe nine—hunger keeps you small, makes counting years harder. "You gonna bring back the bread ends today?" "Always do, little mouse." The lie sits sweet on my tongue, kinder than truth. Sometimes there ain't no bread ends. Sometimes Beta Hector counts every crumb like they're gold coins, and his pale eyes see everything. But Tam don't need truth right now. She needs the promise of maybe, the hope that keeps us moving when our bodies want to quit. I press a kiss to her matted hair—she smells like dust and dreams—and begin my climb. The kitchen stairs are twenty-three steps up from our hole. I count each one, a ritual old as my memories. One for Rosie who saved me. Two for Garrett who didn't make it through last winter. Three for the parents I can't remember but my bones seem to miss. Four for the omega who tried to run last moon. Five for the pieces they brought back... By the time I reach twenty-three, I've counted enough ghosts to fill a graveyard. The kitchen air hits thick with steam and the promise of food that ain't meant for our tongues. Real pack members—the ones with surnames and bloodlines they can trace back generations—they'll feast on eggs from chickens that see sunlight, bacon from pigs that lived free before dying, biscuits white as fresh snow. Down in the omega quarters, we'll get whatever's scraped from their plates, if Beta Hector's feeling generous. If not, we'll make soup from bones and memories. "Late." Cook's meaty hand finds my ear before I'm full through the door, the blow ringing like bells in my skull. "Thought you'd grown too good for kitchen work, Mud? Thought maybe you'd sprouted wings overnight?" I make myself smaller, pull everything inward—shoulders, spine, spirit—until I'm just a shadow serving shadows. It's an art I've perfected, this shrinking. You got to fold yourself up like paper, become nothing but function and fear. "Sorry, Cook." "Sorry don't get the Alpha's breakfast made." She shoves a mixing bowl at my chest hard enough to steal breath. "Biscuit dough. You know how he likes them." I do know. Alpha Remus likes his biscuits like he likes his omegas—white, soft, easy to break apart with gentle pressure. My brown hands work the pale dough, kneading and folding, and I pretend not to see the metaphor. Pretend not to think about how the dough feels like skin under my palms, how it yields and tears. The kitchen fills gradual-like with other ghosts. Maya drifts in with her scarred throat, the one Beta Hector decorated with his claws for speaking out of turn. Ben follows, silent since the day his brother got sold to the southern packs—ain't spoke a word in three winters, but his eyes scream plenty. Ancient Rosie comes last, moving slower each dawn but still standing between us younger ones and the worst of the storms. We work in the wordless dance of the broken, each knowing our place, our purpose. Maya shapes loaves with hands that shake only a little. Ben tends fires that reflect in his empty eyes. I roll and cut biscuits, roll and cut, trying not to count how many omegas have stood in this exact spot before me, hands covered in flour, hearts covered in scars. "Twenty minutes till service," Cook barks. "Any omega caught sneaking food gets the post. Beta Hector's orders." The post. Two words that make my spine remember leather's kiss, make my wrists ache with phantom rope burns. Beside me, Ben's stirring falters for just a heartbeat. We all carry the post's memory in our skin. Through the serving window, I watch the dining hall fill with wolves who walk upright. Betas strutting like peacocks in heat. Warriors comparing kills and conquests. Pack females preening in silk while omega females scrub their floors. And at the high table, raised above the rest like he's some god requiring worship, Alpha Remus holds court. He's beautiful, our Alpha. That's the cruel joke the moon played on us. Golden hair that catches light like honey, eyes blue as summer sky, the kind of face that makes visiting she-wolves forget to breathe. You'd never know from looking that he's got a taste for omega tears. Never guess that those perfect hands know exactly how much pressure it takes to snap finger bones, how to bruise without leaving marks that show. "Mud." Rosie appears at my elbow like smoke, voice barely more than breath. "Keep your head low today. Hector's hunting." My stomach drops to somewhere near my feet. When Beta Hector goes hunting, omegas disappear. Sometimes to the selling posts up north. Sometimes to the fighting rings where they bet on how long we last. Sometimes to places that don't got names, just rumors that taste of copper and screaming. "Who's he after?" "Don't matter. When one wolf bleeds, the whole pack limps." She grips my wrist, her fingers feeling more like bird bones each day. "You listen to old Rosie now. Keep your head down, keep your mouth shut, keep breathing. Whatever happens today, you just keep breathing." There's something in her eyes I ain't seen before. Not just fear—we all wear that like second skins. Something else. Like she knows something's coming. Like the wind's changed and she can smell storm on the horizon. The morning bell rings before I can ask. Time to serve. I load my tray careful-like with platters meant for the high table—biscuits still steaming, honey that costs more than an omega's life, butter whipped smooth as silk, jam dark as heart's blood. The weight makes my arms shake but dropping anything means worse than the post. Means Hector's special attention, and nobody survives that whole. The dining hall hits like a physical thing, all musk and dominance and barely leashed violence. Alphas and Betas fill the air with their presence, marking territory with scent and sound. I navigate through them like a mouse through sleeping wolves, each step calculated, each breath measured. "Watch it, Mud." A warrior's boot shoots out, trying to catch my ankle. I dance around it, years of practice guiding my feet, salvage the tray without spilling. Laughter follows me like thunder, but I don't react. Reactions get you noticed. Getting noticed gets you gone. At the high table, I set each plate with the precision of ritual. Alpha Remus don't look at me—I ain't worth seeing, ain't worth the effort of focusing his blue eyes. But Beta Hector watches with the intensity of a hawk studying prey. His face carries the kind of beauty that hides rot, all sharp angles and pale perfection. When he smiles, which is often, it never reaches those colorless eyes. "Clumsy today, aren't we?" His voice slides over my skin like oil over water, wrong and slick and making me want to scrub myself clean. I keep my eyes on the white tablecloth, counting threads. "No, sir, I ain't." "No?" He leans forward, and I can smell him—wintergreen and something medicinal, like the herbs they use to preserve dead things. "Then you're saying I'm wrong?" The trap closes neat as you please. Say yes, I'm clumsy, and he punishes clumsiness. Say no, he's wrong, and I've contradicted a Beta. Either path leads to pain. This is Hector's favorite game. "I—" His hand moves faster than thought, deliberately knocking the honey pot from my grip. It shatters on the stone floor, golden sweetness spreading like blood from a fresh kill. The sound echoes in the sudden silence. Even Alphas know when Hector's building to something special. "Now look what you've done." He leans back, smile sharp as winter ice. "Such a mess. And you know how Alpha Remus hates messes." My knees find stone before pride can protest. This is survival. This is what staying alive looks like when you're born nothing and raised to be less. "Clean it up." Hector's voice carries the kind of pleasure some wolves get from watching things suffer. "With your tongue. Like the animal you are." The laughter starts then, rolling through the hall like a living thing. I lower my head to the honey-slick floor and try not to think of the faces above me, try not to count the boots that could so easily find my ribs, my spine, my skull. The honey tastes like humiliation mixed with stone dust. Like every day that came before and all the ones stretching ahead like a road with no ending. But as my tongue traces the floor, something else stirs deep in my chest. A flicker of heat that tastes nothing like fear. It tastes like rage. Like lightning trapped in a bottle. Like the echo of something my body remembers but my mind's forgot. For just a moment, I imagine what it would feel like to rise from this floor and tear Hector's throat out with teeth that suddenly feel too sharp for my mouth. The image is so vivid I can taste his blood. "That's enough." Remus's voice cuts through my vision like cold water. "Hector, you've made your point." I raise my head, honey still sticky on my lips, and catch the Alpha watching me. For just a heartbeat, something flickers in those perfect blue eyes. Not kindness—Remus don't know that word. Something else. Like recognition. Like he sees something in me that shouldn't be there. Then it's gone, and he's waving a dismissive hand. "Get her out of here. The smell of omega is ruining my appetite." Hands haul me upright—Rosie and Maya, risking punishment to help me from the hall. As we stumble toward the kitchen, I hear Hector's laughter following us. "Did you see how eagerly she licked the floor? Like a b***h in heat. Maybe that's how we should feed them from now on." More laughter. Always more laughter. But that heat in my chest don't die. It spreads, warming parts of me that have been cold so long I forgot they existed. And for the first time in memory, the voice in my head don't sound like fear. It sounds like something ancient. Something with teeth. Soon, it whispers. Soon. I don't know what it means. Don't know what's coming. But as I scrub honey from my face with shaking hands, I know something's changing. The wind carries different scents. The moon feels closer. And somewhere deep in my bones, something that ain't quite wolf and ain't quite human begins to wake.