The Alpha's Ruin: The Omega's sinful secret

The floor in my small room is made of stone. It is always cold. Even in the middle of the summer, the chill stays deep inside the rock. It wakes me up before the sun is even a thought in the sky. I do not need a clock. My body knows the exact moment the world is about to change from black to grey. I sat up on my thin cot and felt the familiar ache in my lower back. I am only twenty years old, but my bones feel like they belong to someone much older. That is what happens when you spend your life trying to be invisible. I reached for my clothes. They were piled on a wooden stool near the wall. I do not have many things. I have two tunics and two pairs of trousers. They are all the color of dirt or old ash. This is on purpose. If you wear bright colors, people look at you. If people look at you, they might ask you questions. And if they ask me questions, they eventually realize that something is missing. I pulled on my boots. The left one has a sole that is coming loose at the front. It makes a tiny scratching sound when I walk. I have tried to fix it with sap and string, but it never holds for long. I stood up and stretched. My room is at the very bottom of the Iron Claw lodge. It is near the laundry and the coal storage. It is a place for things that the pack needs but does not want to see. I walked out of my room and down the narrow hallway. The air here smells like damp earth and old soap. It has a heavy smell. It feels like it sticks to your skin. I made my way to the kitchens. This is the first task of every day. The lodge is huge. It sits on top of a mountain like a crown. From the outside, it is beautiful. The walls are thick and strong. There are carvings of wolves everywhere. It looks like a place where everyone is safe and loved. But I know better. A lodge is just a box that keeps the powerful people on top and the weak people at the bottom. In the kitchen, the air was still and frozen. I went straight to the big stone hearths. There are three of them. They are the heart of the house. If they go out, the house dies. I knelt on the floor. My knees hit the stone with a dull thud. I gathered the tiny pieces of wood first. You have to be patient with a fire. You cannot rush it. I struck the flint over and over until a tiny orange spark landed on the dry bark. I blew on it gently. My breath felt warm against the cold air. I watched the spark turn into a flame. It grew larger and larger. It started to eat the wood. I added bigger logs. Soon, the kitchen started to lose its bite. The shadows on the walls began to dance. This is the only time of day I feel like I am in charge of something. I am the one who brings warmth. My name is Clara. In this pack, your name is just a label. The thing that really matters is your scent. Every wolf has a smell. It tells everyone else who they are. The Alphas smell like heavy storms and dark forests. The warriors smell like blood and metal. The mothers smell like milk and sweet grass. Even the weakest person in this pack has a scent that says, I am here. I have nothing. When I was fourteen, the pack doctor sat me down. My mother was standing behind me. She was shaking. She wanted me to be a great wolf. She wanted me to have a scent that would make a strong male notice me. The doctor leaned in and sniffed the air around my neck. He did it for a long time. Then he frowned. He told my mother that I was absent. Not a normal person. A hole in the world. He said I would never shift into a wolf. I would never have a scent. My mother left not long after that. She found a new mate in a different pack. She told me she had to go to survive. I stayed here. I became the girl who cleans the floors and lights the fires. I am a tool that walks and talks. The kitchen door opened. It was Mira. She is an Omega, and she is the only person who is kind to me. She smells like baking bread. It has a soft, warm smell. It makes me want to cry sometimes because it reminds me of what I don't have. "You are early again," Mira said. She sounded tired. She sat down on a wooden bench and rubbed her eyes. "The fire needed to be started," I said. My voice was quiet. I don't talk much. When you don't talk, people forget you are in the room. "You do too much, Clara," she whispered. She looked at me with pity. I hate pity. Pity is just a way for people to feel better about the fact that they aren't you. "It is just work," I replied. I went back to the woodpile. I carried the heavy logs across the room. My muscles burned. I liked the burn. It made me feel like my body was real. By eight o'clock, the kitchen was a loud mess. The cooks were screaming about the eggs. The servants were running back and forth with trays. I stayed in the corners. I moved around people before they even knew I was there. I am very good at reading the way a person moves. I can see a shoulder dip or a foot turn. I know when someone is about to get angry. I know when to move out of the way. Luna's servant came in at nine. She wore a dress that was too nice for the kitchen. She looked around with a look of disgust. Her eyes landed on me. She didn't see a person. She saw a solution to a problem. "The upper gallery," she said. She pointed a finger at me. "The floors are filthy. The Alpha wants them perfect for the meeting tomorrow. Take the vinegar and the brushes. Do not stop until you can see the ceiling in the floor." The upper gallery is the hardest place to clean. It is where the Alphas live. The floor is made of ancient stone that sucks up dirt. It is a long, long hallway. It takes hours of scrubbing on your hands and knees to make it shine. "I will go now," I said. I filled a heavy wooden bucket with hot water. I added the vinegar. The smell was sharp and hit the back of my throat. I carried the bucket up the back stairs. My arms felt like they were going to pull out of their sockets. The stairs were steep and dark. When I reached the top, the air changed. The Alpha wing is quiet. It is very clean. The walls are covered in expensive rugs and old weapons. It smells like power. It is a heavy, thick scent that makes it hard to breathe. It feels like the air is pushing down on you. I knelt at the end of the long hallway. I dipped my brush into the water and started to scrub. My knees hurt almost immediately. The stone is unforgiving. I pushed the brush back and forth. I watched the grey foam move across the floor. This is my life. I scrub the floors that other people walk on. I fix the fires that other people sit by. I am the silence in a house full of noise. I looked at the water in the bucket. I saw a reflection of a girl. She looked tired. Her hair was messy. She looked like she didn't belong in a place this grand. I realized then that the doctor was wrong about one thing. I am not an absence. I am a witness. I see everything because no one sees me. I know the secrets of this pack. I know who is lying and who is afraid. I went back to scrubbing. The vinegar stung a small cut on my finger. I didn't stop. The pain was a reminder that I was still there. I am Clara. I smell like nothing. But I am still here. And one day, being invisible might be the most powerful thing in the world.