The Cursed Omega's Revenge

Chapter Seven

SAMIRA

The interview room smells like fear-sweat and furniture polish. They've set it up in the old library, books nobody reads anymore watching like blind eyes from dusty shelves. I wait my turn outside, listening to Maya's voice shake through the door as she recites the lies we've all been taught.

"Yes, sir. Very happy here. Alpha Carver treats us real good."

My stomach turns itself inside out. Not from hunger—though breakfast was hours ago and lunch ain't coming for omegas today. It's the knowing. Knowing Maya's got cigarette burns under her sleeves. Knowing she'll say whatever keeps her breathing another day.

Hector's hand lands on my shoulder, and I don't flinch. Twenty years of practice makes perfect.

"Your turn next, Mud." His fingers dig into the bruise he left yesterday, precise as a surgeon. "Remember what we discussed. Tell the truth." His lips brush my ear, and my skin tries to crawl off my bones. "Little Tam's counting on you to be honest about how well we treat you."

The threat tastes metallic in my mouth. I nod, keep my eyes down, play the broken thing he expects.

The door opens. Maya stumbles out, tears tracking through the makeup they made her wear. Our eyes meet for half a second—survivor to survivor—before she hurries away.

"Next," calls a voice that shouldn't make my spine feel like melting wax.

I enter on legs that don't shake because shaking shows weakness and weakness gets you sold. Or worse.

Three men sit behind a mahogany table older than the lies I'm about to tell. The Morrison brothers, all clean suits and government authority. My wolf—that broken thing that never learned to properly exist—stirs under my skin like she's trying to remember something important.

The leader sits center, green eyes cold as winter rivers. Looking at him feels like staring at the sun—necessary but painful. Something in my chest pulls tight, a string tugged by invisible hands.

"Please sit." His voice carries no emotion. Just professional distance wrapped in expensive education. "This is a routine interview. Answer honestly and completely."

I take the chair across from them. The wood's hard against bruises that never fully heal. My hands rest in my lap, still and careful, while inside my blood runs hot and strange.

"State your name for the record." The middle brother holds a pen like a weapon.

"Samira Lim. But everyone calls me Mud."

"Age?"

"Twenty."

The youngest one makes a note. His fingers drum patterns on the table, and I wonder what secrets he reads in the wood grain.

"How long have you been with Bloodthrone Pack?" The leader asks, and Mother Moon help me, his scent drifts across the table. Pine and winter storms and something wild that makes my wolf whine.

"All my life, sir. Since I was a baby."

"Your parents?"

The question hits like ice water. Nobody asks about parents. Nobody mentions the dead.

"Don't know nothing about them." Truth tastes strange on my tongue. "Not allowed to ask."

His green eyes narrow just a fraction. "Not allowed?"

"Past is past. That's the rule." I keep my voice flat, empty of the curiosity that's eaten me alive for twenty years. Who were they? Why did they die? Why did nobody want me after?

"Tell us about your daily routine."

Safe ground. I recite my life like ingredients in a recipe. Wake at four. Clean until my hands bleed. Serve breakfast. More cleaning. Serve lunch. Cleaning again. Serve dinner. Fall into bed too tired to dream.

"And you're satisfied with this arrangement?" The middle brother's voice carries weight I don't understand.

"Yes, sir. Grateful to have a place."

Lies flow easier than truth. Yes, I'm happy scrubbing floors. Yes, the Alpha treats us well. No, I've never seen omegas disappear in the night. No, I don't know nothing about trucks that come monthly to take crying wolves away.

The leader leans forward, and his movement sends another wave of that scent. My wolf presses against my ribs, desperate for something she can't name. Heat pools low in my belly, foreign and frightening.

"Are you receiving appropriate medical care?"

The question catches me sideways. Medical care? For omegas?

"We heal quick enough."

"That's not what I asked."

His eyes hold mine, and the room shrinks. My skin feels too tight, like something inside wants out. Between my legs, wetness gathers that ain't never happened before. Not in twenty years. Not even when other omegas went into heat around me.

"I..." My voice cracks. "We get by."

"Have you experienced your first heat?"

The words hang between us like an accusation. Every omega has heats by sixteen. Everyone but me. Broken Mud who can't even be a proper omega.

"No, sir."

Something flickers in his green eyes. The youngest brother stops writing. The middle one goes still.

"You're twenty and haven't had a heat?"

Shame burns my cheeks. "Beta Hector says I'm defective. Born wrong. No Alpha would want..." I stop, swallow the rest. No Alpha would want a broken omega who can't even go into heat. Who's ugly and scarred and worth less than the dirt she's named for.

"Hector says a lot of things, it seems." His voice drops lower, does something to my insides that feels like burning and drowning at once. "What do you think?"

What do I think? I think I'm sitting across from a stranger who smells like home. I think my body's doing things it's never done, responding to proximity like I'm real instead of residue. I think my wolf's trying to claw her way out of my skin to get closer to him.

"I don't think nothing, sir. Not my place."

He leans back, and I can breathe again. Except breathing brings more of his scent, and my thighs clench against the ache building between them.

"Have you witnessed any abuse in this pack?"

The lie sticks in my throat. Maya's burns. Ben's broken silence. Tam's terror. My own body mapped in other people's violence.

"No, sir. Alpha Carver runs a good pack."

"Any omegas sold or traded?"

My wolf snarls silent. Rachel last spring, belly round with pups she'd never birth. Jayden two months back, too pretty for his own good. Dozens more whose names I keep like prayers.

"No, sir. We're all accounted for."

He knows I'm lying. I see it in the tightness around his eyes, the way his hands flatten on the table. But he just makes another note, professional mask perfect.

"One more question." He looks at me, and I swear the world tilts. "Are you safe here?"

Safe. The word tastes foreign. Safe is for real wolves, not omega trash. Safe is for people who matter.

But the way he asks, like maybe my answer matters...

"Yes, sir. Very safe."

The biggest lie of all.

"Thank you. You can go."

I stand on legs that shake now because whatever's happening in my body won't stop. The wetness between my thighs makes walking feel strange. My breasts ache like they're swollen, though I ain't changed size.

At the door, I turn back. Can't help it. He's watching me with eyes that hold storms and promises and something that looks like rage wrapped in ice.

Our eyes lock. My wolf throws herself against my control, howling a sound I've never heard. Home. Mine. Please.

I flee.

The hallway's empty, and I lean against the wall, trying to understand what's happening. My skin burns. My core aches. Between my legs, I'm soaked through my underwear.

This can't be heat. I don't get heats. Hector said so. Broken omegas don't get heats.

But my body says different. My body says the Alpha in that room—Morrison or whatever his real name is—woke something that's been sleeping twenty years.

"Mud." Hector appears like smoke, and my wolf cringes back. "How did it go?"

"Told them everything you wanted." The words taste like ash. "How happy we are. How good the Alpha is."

"Good girl." His smile makes me want to scrub my skin raw. "Keep being good, and little Tam stays off the special list."

Special list. The auction list. The one that means disappearing into trucks and never coming back.

He leaves, and I stumble to the omega quarters. Need to change underwear. Need to understand why my body's betraying me now, after twenty years of nothing.

In the bathroom, I stare at myself in the cracked mirror. Same ugly Mud. Same scars. Same worthless omega who can't even have a proper heat.

Except now my golden eyes look different. Hungrier. My black hair seems shinier. My skin flushes with warmth that's got nothing to do with fever.

He did this. The Alpha with green eyes and winter storm scent. One conversation and my body thinks it's allowed to want things.

Dangerous. This is dangerous.

I change clothes, try to ignore how sensitive my skin feels. Every brush of fabric sends sparks through me. My n*****s stand hard under my shirt, visible and shameful.

Back in the kitchen, I grab a knife and start chopping vegetables for dinner. Normal. Need normal. Need routine.

But I can feel him. Somewhere in this house, that Alpha walks and breathes and exists, and my body knows it. My wolf knows it. She paces under my skin, whining for things we can't have.

"You okay?" Rosie appears beside me, eyes knowing. "You smell different."

Different. If she can smell it, others will too. Fear cuts through the strange heat.

"I'm fine."

"Mud." Her voice drops. "Is it happening? After all this time?"

Heat. She means heat. My first heat at twenty years old, triggered by a stranger who looks at me like I matter.

"I don't know."

"If it is..." She glances around, checking for listeners. "Be careful. First heats after so long, they come on strong. Make you stupid. Make you take risks."

Risks like wanting an Alpha who's only here to judge us. Risks like believing green eyes that promise safety I've never known.

"I'll be careful."

But careful's hard when my body burns. When every breath brings phantom traces of his scent. When my wolf won't stop crying for the Alpha who asked if I was safe like the answer mattered.

Dinner service passes in a haze. I don't see him—the investigators take their meal in private tonight. But I feel him. Feel the pull like fishing line through my chest, trying to reel me toward something I don't understand.

My body stays liquid heat. Wetness soaks through my second pair of underwear. My breasts ache so bad I want to cry. Everything hurts and wants and needs in ways I ain't got words for.

This is what I missed. This is what normal omegas feel at sixteen. This is why they go willing to Alphas' beds, seeking relief from the burning.

But I'm not normal. Never been normal. And the Alpha who woke this in me will leave in days, go back to his government job and forget the broken omega who lied to save a child.

The kitchen finally empties near midnight. I'm alone with dirty dishes and a body that won't stop screaming for something it can't have.

I splash cold water on my face, trying to shock sense back into myself. In the dark window's reflection, my eyes glow faintly golden.

Wrong. That's wrong too. Eyes don't glow.

A sound makes me turn. He stands in the doorway, the Morrison brother with green eyes and answers I need. Still in his suit but tie loosened, jacket gone. More dangerous like this. More real.

"You lied."

Not a question. I grip the counter, knees weak from his proximity.

"Had to."

"I know." He steps into the kitchen, and his scent hits full force. My legs actually buckle. Only my grip on the counter keeps me upright. "They threatened someone you love."

"Tam. Little Tam. She's eight."

Something shifts in his expression. Still cold, still distant, but underneath...

"We're going to help. All of you. But you have to trust us."

Trust. The word feels foreign as safety. Trust gets you killed in places like this.

"Can't. They'll know. They always know."

He moves closer, and my wolf goes silent. Waiting. Every cell in my body turns toward him like flowers seeking sun.

"What's happening to me?" The question escapes before I can stop it. "Why now? Why do I feel..."

"Feel what?"

"Burning. Empty. Like I need..." I can't finish. Don't have words for the ache between my legs, the way my body weeps for his touch.

His nostrils flare. He smells it on me. Smells what he's done to my broken body.

"First heat." His voice goes rough. "Twenty years late, but your body finally recognizes..."

"Recognizes what?"

He turns away. "Nothing. Side effect of stress. It'll pass."

Lies. He's lying like I lied. But I don't call him on it because what else is there? He'll leave. I'll stay. That's how the world works.

"Stay away from the Alphas until it passes. Lock your door. Don't trust anyone."

He's at the doorway when I find my voice.

"Why do you care?"

He pauses. Doesn't turn. "I don't. But dead omegas make paperwork complicated."

Then he's gone, leaving me with a body on fire and questions that burn hotter than any heat.

I stumble back to our quarters, lock the door like he said. But locks don't keep out the wanting. Don't stop my wolf from crying. Don't ease the ache that says maybe I'm not as broken as everyone thinks.

Maybe I just needed the right Alpha to wake me up.

Too bad he's leaving. Too bad he looks at me like a problem to solve instead of a person to save.

Too bad my first heat comes twenty years late for an Alpha who doesn't care.

But my body doesn't know that. My body only knows his scent, his voice, the way he asked if I was safe.

My body only knows it's finally alive, even if it's too late to matter.