The Rejected Omega's Sovereign Reign

Chapter 5

Blood on the Snow

Exactly one year after the rejection and exile from my pack land.

The freezing air shattered before dawn when a brutal explosion of wood and snarls ripped through the forest den, jerking me awake so hard my whole body went rigid. Adrenaline slammed into my veins a second later, cold and sharp, and then the smell hit me; heavy, iron-rich blood spraying across the threshold as three massive rogue wolves burst into the stone hall with nothing but violence in their eyes.

There was no time to run. No time to hide. No time to mourn the wolf form in me that still refused to wake.

I lunged sideways across the cold stone floor, my hand closing around a discarded silver hunting blade just as one rogue snapped for my throat. I ducked beneath its jaws on pure instinct and drove the blade deep into its exposed neck.

It hit the ground hard, coughing black blood.

I staggered back, my chest heaving, startled by how fast my body had moved, how lethal it had become when fear left no room for hesitation.

To my right, a dark surge of power rolled through the hall as Lucien Xander fully engaged the threat. He moved like something carved out of war itself; terrifying, controlled, and devastatingly precise as he tore through the invaders without even shifting into his lycan form.

I caught the swing of a second rogue’s claw and turned it aside just as Lucien drove his fist straight through the chest of another.

For one brief, impossible second, we moved like we had been forged for this exact moment. His violence and my instinct met in a seamless rhythm, and the fear in my chest burned into something fiercer. Something proud.

The last rogue crashed to the ground, blood staining the white snow outside the shattered doorway.

The silence that followed did not last.

Lucien bent, snatched up a heavy iron training rod, and flung it straight at my chest.

I caught it on reflex, nearly losing my grip at the impact.

“Pick it up,” he commanded, his eyes cold enough to freeze the blood on the floor. His predatory presence filled the ruined hall, sharp and merciless. “The rogues showed you mercy by dying quickly; your enemies across the border will not be so gentle.”

I tightened my fingers around the rod and glared at him, my breath still uneven. “You really know how to make a girl feel special.”

He gave no answer, only stepped back and lifted his chin once, already looking at me like I was a problem he intended to solve.

For the next two hours, he pushed me past anything that could have been called comfort. His training was brutal, unyielding, and completely unfair. He struck without warning, forcing me to dodge, counter, and use my speed against his broad shadow of a frame.

I got angry. I got tired. I got soaked in sweat and scraped raw from the stone floor. My muscles burned so badly I wanted to curse him into the ground.

And he kept knocking me down.

Again and again.

Yet each time I hit the dirt, I rose faster.

My body was learning his rhythm. My instincts were sharpening around his attacks. He was not trying to break me; he was making me dangerous. Harder to underestimate. Harder to corner.

He was weaponizing the stubborn jaw I usually hid behind a smile.

“Again,” Lucien growled, his low voice turning darker as he watched silver sparks flicker behind my hazel eyes.

I dragged in a breath, wiped sweat and blood from my brow, and lifted the rod again. “I can do this all day, Alpha Xander.”

His gaze held mine for a beat too long, then dipped to the rod in my hands like he was calculating my refusal and deciding whether to respect it.

The training only stopped when Noah Reed walked into the clearing, his face uncharacteristically grim. He pointed a blood-stained boot toward the first dead rogue.

I followed the direction of his boot, then dropped to my knees beside the carcass. My breath caught when my fingers brushed against something heavy and polished, secured tightly to the dead male’s leather belt.

A silver-plated sigil.

Engraved with a roaring wolf.

Alfred Edward’s personal alpha token.

My stomach tightened.

It was not supposed to be here. Not out here. Not on a dead rogue’s belt where anyone could find it.

I looked up slowly, the meaning landing with sickening weight.

The attack had not been random.

It had not been wild, or accidental, or the work of desperate rogues wandering too close to the den.

This had been deliberate, cold, and calculated.

An inside job sent straight from my former home.

To make sure I never spoke the truth.