The Bullied Omega's Return

Chapter Three

Here's the thing about taking care of werewolf pups that the supernatural romance novels conveniently leave out—they're basically regular babies crossed with Tasmanian devils, with bonus features like premature fangs and the inability to understand that human skin isn't chew toy material. Less "aww, adorable" and more "dear god, why is there fur in my mouth and blood on my favorite shirt?"

"Malik, I swear to the Moon Goddess, if you bite me one more time—" I yelped as tiny needle teeth sank into my forearm. Again.

"Language," Maria chided, expertly bottle-feeding twin female pups while somehow maintaining her Disney Princess composure. "They understand more than you think."

"Good. Then Malik understands I'm adding him to my enemies list, right below Victoria and right above the inventor of skinny jeans." I gently extracted my arm from the four-month-old's surprisingly strong jaw. "Look, kid, I get it. The world is confusing and sometimes you just need to bite something. I relate. But maybe choose the chew toys literally surrounding you instead of the poor omega who's already had enough sharp objects in her personal space today."

Maria stifled a laugh, her dark curls bouncing as she shook her head. "Only you could turn puppy care into existential commentary."

"It's my special talent." I dabbed at the small pinpricks of blood on my arm. "That and being a walking, talking cosmic joke."

The nursery was the one place in Silver Fang territory that didn't make me want to perform a spontaneous self-exorcism. Maybe because it was the domain of omegas—Maria and her small team ran it with minimal interference from higher-ranked pack members who considered pup care beneath them until the cute photo ops rolled around. Or maybe it was because pups didn't care about your rank or the weird cosmic graffiti on your face. To them, you were either a food source, a toy, or a warm body for napping.

"So," Maria began in that careful tone people use when they're about to bring up something unpleasant, like terminal illness or the fact that you've had spinach in your teeth all day. "Victoria cornered me in the laundry room."

"My condolences to your mental health." I scooped up Malik before he could make another attempt on my arm, cradling him against my chest where his murderous tendencies temporarily subsided. "What fresh hell did she assign me to this time?"

"Council banquet tonight." Maria winced sympathetically. "Server duty."

"Of course." I rolled my eyes so hard I briefly saw my own frontal lobe. "Because nothing says 'we respect pack traditions' like parading the marked omega around as a visual aid for 'genetic lines we don't want to continue.'"

"She had a uniform delivered to your room already." Maria's voice dropped. "The gray one."

"Fantastic." The gray server uniform was the omega equivalent of a neon sign flashing INFERIOR BEING—a shapeless shift dress with the pack symbol embroidered above the heart, deliberately designed to identify pack members who existed solely to serve others. "Did she also order me a bell to wear around my neck, or is that coming separately?"

"Ari..." Maria sighed.

"No, it's fine. Really." I adjusted Malik, who had started gnawing contentedly on my hoodie string. "Just another fun milestone in my 'Road to Eighteen' adventure tour. Three more days of this circus, then I either get magically rescued by my fated mate—" I made exaggerated spirit fingers with my free hand "—or formally assigned to a lifetime of scrubbing Alpha toilets. The suspense is killing me slowly."

"Maybe the council announcement will be something good," Maria offered with the optimism of someone who still believed in concepts like fairness and unicorns.

"Sure. Maybe they're announcing Free Omega Day, where we all get to pick an Alpha and make them fetch our slippers." I snorted. "More likely they're instituting some new archaic rule about how omegas need to walk backward in the presence of Alphas or only speak on every third Tuesday."

"Actually, Damien seems super excited about it," Maria said, switching pups with practiced ease. "I overheard him talking to Kyle in the hallway earlier. Something about his father 'finally making the right decision' and how it's going to 'change everything.'"

I frowned. Damien Blackwood excited about pack politics was like a shark excited about blood in the water—never a good sign for smaller fish in the vicinity.

"Well, that's terrifying." I gently placed Malik in his play pen, where he immediately began wrestling with a stuffed rabbit twice his size. "Anything that makes Alpha Junior happy generally makes my life exponentially worse. It's basically a law of physics at this point."

The nursery door swung open, cutting off Maria's response. Speak of the devil, and he shall appear in designer jeans and a henley that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe.

Damien Blackwood filled the doorway like he was personally responsible for its dimensions, all six feet of Alpha arrogance wrapped in a package that the universe had unfairly decided to make aesthetically appealing. Like making a venomous snake metallic pink—dangerously misleading.

"Well, if it isn't Cinderella and her furry mice," he drawled, leaning against the doorframe in that calculated way hot people do when they want to remind you they're hot. "Touching to see you've found your people, Reyes."

"I wasn't aware the nursery was on your regular patrol route, Blackwood," I replied, mentally adding 'interrupting my one peaceful hour' to his extensive list of sins. "Did you get lost on your way to Inflated Ego Anonymous?"

Maria made a small choking sound beside me, her omega instincts clearly battling between amusement and horror at my casual insubordination.

Something flickered in Damien's amber eyes—a dangerous glint that made my birthmark heat up like someone had pressed a hot quarter to my face. Great, another fun supernatural side effect they don't warn you about in "So You're a Defective Werewolf" pamphlets.

"My mother sent me to make sure the serving arrangements are set for tonight," he said, his gaze sliding over me with the clinical assessment of someone checking produce for bruises. "She mentioned Victoria volunteered your... services."

The way he lingered on "services" made my skin crawl in two distinctly different directions—one heading straight toward outrage, the other venturing into territory I refused to acknowledge without a signed permission slip from my therapist, if I could afford one.

"Yes, I'll be there, gray sackcloth and all," I confirmed, busying myself with organizing bottles to avoid his gaze. "Now if you'll excuse us, we're in the middle of very important pack business. These future Alphas won't raise themselves."

Instead of leaving, Damien did the most annoying thing possible—he stepped fully into the nursery, his scent (pine, amber, and essence of entitlement) immediately putting the pups on alert. Several of the older ones recognized him, their tails wagging in excitement. Traitors, the lot of them.

"I need to speak with you," he said, his voice dropping to that commanding Alpha register that made omegas instinctively want to comply and my contrary ass want to do exactly the opposite. "Alone."

Maria was already backing toward the door, her self-preservation instincts clearly more developed than mine. "I'll just... check on the formula supply," she murmured, sliding past Damien with the careful movements of someone passing an unexploded bomb.

Once she was gone, an uncomfortable silence settled between us, broken only by the oblivious sounds of pups playing. I focused on reorganizing supplies that definitely didn't need reorganizing.

"Fascinating as it is to watch you pretend those bottles are complex puzzles," Damien finally said, "we need to talk about tonight."

"Let me guess—Victoria's assigned me to personally feed you grapes while fanning you with palm fronds? Hard pass."

His jaw tightened, a muscle ticking in his cheek. "You're not serving tonight."

I blinked, momentarily knocked off my snarky rhythm. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me." He stepped closer, invading my carefully constructed personal space bubble. "I don't want you anywhere near the council members during dinner."

A familiar anger bubbled up in my chest, hot and bitter as gas station coffee. "Wow, tell me how you really feel. Is my hideous face that offensive to your delicate Alpha sensibilities?"

"Don't be dramatic," he snapped, running a hand through his artfully tousled blond hair in frustration. "It's not about your face."

"Really? Because that's not what you implied this morning when you said seeing me first thing ruined your appetite."

Damien's eyes narrowed, his expression shifting to something more complex than the usual disdain. "This isn't about—" He stopped abruptly, inhaling deeply with the subtlety of a bloodhound catching a scent. "Why do you smell different?"

"Is this where I'm supposed to be flattered that you've catalogued my scent?" I asked, edging backward until my hip hit the supply counter. "Maybe it's my new perfume—Eau de Omega Desperation, with notes of Pine-Sol and crushed dreams."

"No." He followed my retreat, crowding me against the counter with his ridiculous Alpha height. "Different. Like something's... changing."

My birthmark flared hot against my cheek, like it was trying to communicate in some cosmic Morse code only it understood. One of the pups—Lily, the smallest female—whined softly from her playpen, picking up on the sudden tension.

"Maybe I'm allergic to entitled Alphas," I suggested, ducking under his arm to put solid furniture between us. "Now if you'll excuse me, some of us have actual work to do instead of issuing arbitrary decrees."

Damien moved with that unnerving werewolf speed, cutting off my escape route. "Just stay out of sight tonight," he said, voice dropping to a near-whisper. "Please."

The 'please' knocked me off-balance more effectively than his intimidation tactics. Damien Blackwood didn't say please to omegas. He didn't say please to anyone. It was like hearing a cat start speaking Portuguese—so unexpected I briefly questioned my own reality.

"Why do you care?" I asked, genuine confusion temporarily overriding my snark reflex.

Something complicated passed across his face—frustration, anger, and beneath it all, something that looked disturbingly like concern. The birthmark on my cheek pulsed in time with my heartbeat, a supernatural sync I wasn't equipped to interpret.

"I don't," he insisted, but the denial sounded hollow even to my ears. "Just... the council members are traditional. Very traditional. They wouldn't understand..."

"My hideous deformity?" I supplied, the old pain surfacing despite my attempts at emotional Kevlar. "God forbid they lose their appetites over little ol' cursed me."

"That's not—" He made a frustrated sound somewhere between a growl and a sigh. "Just stay in the kitchen or something, okay? The announcement tonight is important. For all of us."

Before I could respond with something appropriately cutting, Maria reappeared in the doorway, arms laden with supplies she definitely hadn't needed to get. Her eyes darted between us with the fascinated horror of someone watching a car crash in slow motion.

"Sorry to interrupt," she said, her tone suggesting she was anything but sorry.

Damien stepped back immediately, his Alpha mask sliding into place with practiced ease. "We're done here," he said dismissively. "Remember what I said, Reyes."

As he brushed past Maria, I could have sworn I heard him mutter, "Three more days," but the words were swallowed by his retreating footsteps.

"What," Maria began, her eyes wide as dinner plates, "was that about?"

"The continuing saga of 'Damien Blackwood: Confusing Asshole,'" I said, slumping against the counter. "He basically ordered me to hide in the kitchen during the council dinner tonight."

"That's... weird. Even for him." Maria set down her armload of clearly unnecessary supplies. "And did you notice how he was looking at you?"

"Like I was something stuck to the bottom of his designer shoe? Yeah, hard to miss that."

"No, like..." She hesitated, choosing her words carefully. "Like he was arguing with himself about something. And the way he was scenting you..."

"He wasn't scenting me," I protested, ignoring the phantom sensation of his breath against my skin. "He was probably checking if I'd remembered to shower since the Pine-Sol incident."

Maria gave me a look that clearly communicated she wasn't buying what I was selling. "Arianna, I've been around enough mated pairs to recognize that kind of tension. It was almost like—"

"Don't." I cut her off with a slashing motion. "Whatever weird Alpha power play Damien's running, it has nothing to do with... that. He's made his feelings about me perfectly clear since we were sorting shapes in kindergarten."

Maria looked unconvinced but mercifully dropped the subject. "So what are you going to do about tonight? Hide in the kitchen like he wants?"

I thought about Victoria's smug face when she'd informed me I'd be wearing the omega server uniform—her carefully calculated humiliation strategy. I thought about Damien's bizarre behavior, the almost desperate note in his voice when he'd said "please."

I thought about the council members, those ancient wolves with their traditional values and judgmental eyes, who would look at my birthmark and see only a curse, a bad omen, something to be hidden away.

"f**k that," I decided, lifting a suddenly squirming Malik from his playpen. "If they want a server, they're getting one—birthmark and all. Let them choke on their 'traditional values.'"

Maria's expression was equal parts horrified and impressed. "You're either incredibly brave or completely suicidal."

"Por qué no los dos?" I grinned, feeling reckless energy bubbling up inside me. "Besides, what's the worst that could happen? They fire me from my non-existent job? Make Victoria dislike me more, which would require breaking several laws of physics?"

"They could make things difficult after your birthday," Maria said quietly. "Council assignments aren't always... kind."

The sobering reminder of what awaited me in three days dampened my rebellious streak slightly. Council assignments determined an omega's fate if no mate bond appeared on their eighteenth birthday. And the council wasn't known for its progressive stance on marked wolves.

"I'll take my chances," I said, with more confidence than I felt. "Now help me finish up here. I've got a uniform to squeeze into and an Alpha to piss off."