The Bullied Omega's Return

Chapter Eight

The creatures emerged from the shadows with deliberate slowness, as if savoring my fear. Not wolves—at least, not entirely. Their forms were twisted parodies of the lupine shape I knew so well, with elongated limbs and misshapen muzzles that spoke of failed shifts and feral existence. Rogues. Werewolves who'd been abjured like me, but who'd surrendered their humanity to survive.

The largest circled to my left, yellow eyes reflecting moonlight in jagged shards. Matted fur hung in patches from skin ravaged by old scars, and when it opened its mouth, I could see teeth worn to jagged points, designed for tearing rather than killing cleanly.

"Well, well," it rumbled, the voice barely recognizable as human. "Silver Fang throws out another one."

A second creature slunk forward on my right, this one more wolf than human but with unnaturally long forelegs that gave its movements a spider-like quality. "Fresh," it growled, nostrils flaring. "Still has pack scent on her."

"Not anymore," said the first, and the others—I could now see there were five in total—made sounds that might have been laughter. "She's marked. Abjured. No one's coming for this one."

I should have run. Should have fought. Should have done anything but stand there, frozen in the headlights of my own destruction. But the pain of rejection still pulsed through me in waves, each one draining whatever survival instinct I might have possessed. My wolf, always a distant presence compared to the alphas and betas I'd grown up among, was now completely silent—dormant or destroyed by the severing of mate and pack bonds.

I couldn't shift. Couldn't heal. Couldn't even summon the energy to be properly afraid.

"Please," I whispered, though I knew there was no mercy to be found here. These creatures had once been werewolves like me—abjured, abandoned, forced to survive in the spaces between territories. Whatever humanity they'd once possessed had been consumed by bitterness and the feral instinct to survive at any cost.

"Listen to that," mocked one with a feminine voice, though her form was so twisted I couldn't have identified gender by sight alone. "Still thinks asking nicely will save her."

They closed in, moving with the coordinated precision of creatures who'd hunted together before. The scent of their unwashed bodies and fetid breath threatened to choke me as they circled closer, growls rumbling from deformed throats.

The first blow came from behind—claws raking across my back, shredding my already tattered shirt and the skin beneath. Pain bloomed hot and immediate, driving me to my knees with a cry I couldn't suppress. In the past, such wounds would have begun healing almost immediately, my werewolf nature sealing cuts and knitting flesh. Now, without pack bonds, blood flowed freely, soaking what remained of my clothing.

"Not even fighting," observed the largest rogue, sounding almost disappointed. "The marked ones usually have more spirit."

"Broken already," agreed another, landing a kick to my ribs that sent me sprawling onto my side in the dirt. "No fun in that."

They fell on me like shadows given weight and teeth, tearing and slashing with a detached efficiency that suggested this wasn't their first abjured wolf they'd hunted. I curled into myself, trying to protect vital organs as pain exploded across every nerve ending. Each new wound came with fresh agony, but somehow less shocking than the one before—as if my body was reaching its capacity for suffering.

I screamed—for help, for mercy, for the death they seemed determined to draw out. The sound echoed through the empty forest, answered only by the cruel laughter of my attackers and the distant hoot of an owl, untroubled by the violence below.

No one was coming. No one cared. I was nothing now—less than nothing. A marked omega, rejected by her mate, abjured by her pack. Not even worth killing quickly.

A particularly vicious s***h across my abdomen sent new, blinding pain through me. Something warm and wet slithered against my hands as I clutched at the wound, trying desperately to hold myself together in the most literal sense. The metallic scent of blood—my blood—filled the air, joined by the acrid stench of my own fear and the rogues' excitement.

"Think she'll last till morning?" one of them asked conversationally, as if discussing the weather.

"Doubt it," replied another. "Gut wounds are slow but sure."

They were right. Even through the haze of pain, I knew this was a mortal wound. Without pack bonds, without the ability to shift, my body had no supernatural resources to draw upon. I was dying, alone on a dirt road, surrounded by monsters who'd once been people like me.

The absurdity of it struck me then, drawing a bubble of hysterical laughter that quickly turned to a wet cough. All those years of fearing the Northern Alliance, of dreading a life of servitude—and instead, I would die here, unmourned and forgotten before the sun rose on my first day as an adult.

As my vision began to dim at the edges, the rogues' attacks grew more frenzied, as if they sensed my impending unconsciousness and were determined to extract every possible ounce of suffering before I slipped away. I no longer felt individual wounds, just waves of agony washing over me, pulling me under.

I thought of Damien then, my mate for the briefest of moments before he'd chosen to reject me. Was he feeling this too, through the remnants of our bond? Or had his choice severed the connection so completely that my death would pass unnoticed? I hoped it was the latter. Despite everything, I wouldn't wish this pain on anyone.

My father, who'd sacrificed my friends to save me from a fate that now seemed preferable to this slow, brutal end. Sophia, who'd finally gotten everything she wanted, who'd never have to live in the shadow of her marked twin again. Would any of them feel even a moment's regret when they found my body?

Darkness crept further into my vision as I felt myself slipping away. The rogues' voices grew distant, as if they were speaking from the end of a long tunnel. I surrendered to it, grateful for the promise of oblivion after so much pain.

Then—light. Blinding, artificial light cutting through the darkness, accompanied by the growl of an engine and the crunch of tires on dirt. The rogues scattered like cockroaches, melting back into the forest with surprising speed for creatures so misshapen.

"Over here!" a voice called—human, urgent. "Gods, I think she's still alive!"

Footsteps approached, too fast to register as individuals. Hands—gentle ones—touched my face, my throat, searching for a pulse.

"She's lost so much blood," said another voice, female this time. "Gabriel, we need to get her stabilized before we move her."

"The rogues might come back," warned a third, deeper voice. "This is the edge of Silver Fang territory. We shouldn't linger."

"I don't care whose territory it is," snapped the woman—Emily? "I'm not leaving her to die. She's been abjured—look at the energy signature. And there's something else... She's been rejected. Recently."

Hands moved to my abdomen, pressing against the wound that leaked my life onto the dirt road. I moaned, the sound barely human as fresh pain lanced through me.

"What's your name?" the woman asked, leaning close enough that I could see her face through my narrowing field of vision. Mid-thirties, kind eyes, dark hair streaked with silver. "Can you tell us who you are?"

I tried to speak, but only a wet gurgle emerged, coppery taste filling my mouth. My lips formed the syllables of my name, but no sound accompanied them.

"Don't try to talk," she soothed, pressing something against my wounds. "We're going to help you. You're safe now."

Safe. The word seemed to belong to another language, one I'd forgotten how to speak. Nothing was safe. Not pack, not family, not even my own body, which was now failing me breath by breath.

"We need to get her to the cars," said the deep voice. "The rogues are regrouping."

Through the fog of pain and blood loss, I was vaguely aware of being lifted, strong arms cradling me with unexpected gentleness. The movement sent fresh waves of agony through me, drawing a whimper I couldn't suppress.

"I know it hurts," murmured the man carrying me, his voice rumbling through his chest against my ear. "Hold on a little longer. Just a little longer."

But I couldn't. The darkness was too inviting, the pain too immense. As they carried me toward what I assumed was their vehicle, consciousness slipped away like water through cupped fingers.

The last thing I saw before blackness claimed me completely was a pair of golden eyes—not Damien's, but similar enough that my delirious mind superimposed his face over my rescuer's. In that moment of confusion, I thought I heard him say my name, thought I felt his hand reaching for mine.

Then his expression changed, morphing from concern to disgust. "I'd never mate someone like you," dream-Damien sneered, yanking his hand away. "Look at you. Worthless. Broken. Ugly."

Even in unconsciousness, the rejection cut deeper than any physical wound. I surrendered to the darkness completely then, too exhausted to fight, too broken to care if I ever woke again.

Voices penetrated the void from time to time—urgent, medical, concerned.

"BP's dropping—"

"—need more blood—"

"—never seen a rejection this severe—"

"—Luna, she's coding—"

Then a woman's voice, calm amid the chaos: "I've got you, little wolf. You're part of our pack now. Just hold on."

Pack. The word sparked something deep inside me—not hope, I was beyond that—but perhaps a final, flickering ember of will. Not enough to fight, but enough to not actively surrender to the waiting darkness.

It would have to be enough. It was all I had left.

---

I drifted through darkness, untethered from my broken body. Pain followed me even here, a constant companion that ebbed and flowed like a tide of knives. Sometimes it receded enough that memories rushed in to fill the void—memories I'd spent years trying to bury.

The refrigerator came first. I was eight years old again, small even for an omega child, my birthmark already the subject of whispers and sideways glances.

"Get in, freak," Jeremy Harper had said, shoving me toward the ancient appliance they'd found behind the packhouse. "We want to see if the curse can glow in the dark."

"I'm not cursed," I'd protested, but my voice had sounded small even to my own ears.

"Prove it," taunted Melissa, one of Sophia's earliest followers. "Real wolves aren't afraid of small spaces."

They'd been five against one—all beta children from respected families. I'd tried to run, but they caught me easily, stronger and faster even then. Their hands gripped my arms, leaving bruises that would fade before I got home, shoved me into the cramped, musty space. The door slammed shut with a finality that stopped my breath.

Darkness. Complete and absolute. The smell of old food and mildew. The rubber seal pressing against my face as I screamed and pounded, my voice muffled by decades-old insulation.

"Listen to her cry," one of them had laughed, voice distant through the thick door. "Pathetic."

"Let's go," another suggested. "Come back tomorrow, see if she's still alive."

"You can't leave me here!" I'd screamed, terror clawing at my throat. "Please! I can't breathe!"

But their footsteps receded, leaving me alone with my increasingly desperate gasps as the air grew thinner. I'd clawed at the door until my fingers bled, sobbed until my throat was raw. Hours passed in that lightless coffin, my young mind certain that death awaited me.

Then—salvation. The door wrenched open, and Evelyn, one of the pack's oldest omega servants, pulled me into her arms.

"I heard them laughing about it," she'd whispered, stroking my sweat-soaked hair as I gulped in fresh air. "Those wicked children."

I never told my father. What would have been the point? Victoria would have called it childish roughhousing, would have said I needed to toughen up if I wanted to survive pack life. So I learned the first rule of omega existence: silence equals survival.

The memory dissolved, replaced by the sharp sting of Victoria's palm across my face.

"Useless," she'd hissed, brandishing the silk blouse I'd accidentally burned while ironing. "Can't even perform the simplest omega tasks without failing."

I'd been twelve, still learning the endless list of chores that would define my existence. The iron had been old, its temperature gauge broken, but excuses weren't permitted.

"I'm sorry," I'd whispered, cheek burning from the slap. "I'll be more careful."

"Sorry doesn't replace Italian silk," Victoria had replied, eyes cold. "Your sister would never make such a careless mistake. But then, she wasn't born defective, was she?"

The blow to my stomach had come without warning, doubling me over on the laundry room floor. Victoria had watched me gasp for breath with the detached interest of someone observing an insect.

"Clean this up," she'd ordered, dropping the ruined blouse on my head. "And remember—you exist on our tolerance. Don't make me discuss your shortcomings with your father again."

The memory shifted, fragments bleeding into one another like watercolors in rain. Tenth grade, my first day at Silver Falls High—the school that served pack children and carefully selected humans who remained blissfully unaware of their classmates' true nature.

I'd been so careful that morning, ironing my uniform twice, braiding my hair to partially obscure the birthmark. Foolish hope had fluttered in my chest that perhaps high school might offer something new—if not friendship, then at least anonymity.

I'd made it three steps into the main hallway before it happened. The bucket had been rigged above the doorway, invisible until the tripwire activated its release. Filthy water—I later learned they'd collected it from the pack's dog kennels—cascaded over me, drenching me from head to toe in a stench that no werewolf nose could ignore.

Laughter erupted from all sides as I stood frozen in shock, the foul liquid dripping from my hair, my clothes, pooling at my feet.

"Oops," Sophia's voice had cut through the chaos, her perfect uniform and untouched hair a stark contrast to my soaked form. "Looks like someone needed a bath. That mark doesn't wash off though, does it, sister dear?"

Damien had been there too, golden eyes gleaming with amusement as he leaned against a locker, surrounded by his admiring entourage. "I think you missed a spot, Sophia," he'd drawled, pointing to a dry patch on my shoe.

I'd run then, leaving wet footprints down the hallway, the sound of their laughter chasing me all the way to the bathroom where I'd vomited from humiliation and the overwhelming stench. No one had offered me clean clothes. No teacher had intervened. I'd spent that day and many after in damp misery, the smell clinging to me no matter how I scrubbed.

The memories came faster now, picking up speed like a carousel spinning out of control:

Standing in the cafeteria, tray sent flying by a casually extended foot, Damien's insincere "Sorry, didn't see you there, Dark Moon" floating above the snickers.

Sitting in Ms. Carpenter's class as she compared my test score to Sophia's. "It's hard to believe you two share the same genes," she'd said, making sure the entire class heard. "Perhaps the mark affected more than just your appearance."

Finding my backpack in the toilet, books ruined, homework destroyed. Victoria's voice when I tried to explain why I hadn't completed the assignment: "Excuses are for the weak. Sophia manages to protect her belongings."

The superglue incident in chemistry class—sitting down without checking my seat, the sudden horrified realization that I was stuck, the agony of having skin torn away when the nurse finally freed me, the casual cruelty of the note left in my locker afterward: "Hope we didn't hurt your feelings. Just your ass. XOXO"

Even the memory of pain brought fresh waves of it, and I surfaced briefly from the darkness, aware of beeping machines and urgent voices before being dragged back under. But now the memories gave way to something worse—not the past, but a nightmare landscape my broken mind had constructed from equal parts fear and despair.

I walked a corridor that stretched endlessly before me, walls pulsing like living tissue, floor sticky beneath my bare feet. No doors interrupted the seamless surface, no windows offered escape or orientation. Just forward, always forward, into deepening gloom.

Hands reached for me from the walls—incorporeal at first, then solidifying into grasping fingers that clutched at my clothes, my hair, my skin. Each touch burned like acid, each grip threatened to pull me into the membrane-like surface that rippled with hungry anticipation.

"Worthless," they whispered, voices overlapping into a chorus of contempt. "Marked. Broken. Unwanted."

I recognized some voices—Victoria's sharp disdain, my father's quiet disappointment, Sophia's gleeful cruelty. Others were strangers, yet somehow familiar in their disgust.

"Even the Moon Mother rejects you," hissed a voice that might have been Damien's, might have been Alpha Richard's. "Too ugly for her realm. Too damaged for her blessing."

The corridor narrowed, ceiling descending until I was forced to crawl, hands and knees sliding through something slick and warm that I refused to identify. The whispers grew louder, more insistent, a hurricane of hatred pressing against my eardrums until I thought my head would split open.

"Please," I begged, though I wasn't sure who I was addressing. "Please, I just want it to stop."

The corridor ended abruptly in a circular chamber, its walls lined with mirrors that reflected not my image, but Sophia's—perfect, unmarked, smiling with cruel satisfaction. In the center stood a single figure, back turned to me.

Damien.

Hope flared briefly, painfully, as I reached toward him. "Help me," I whispered.

He turned slowly, and I recoiled. His face was half-rotted, flesh sloughing off to reveal bone beneath, one golden eye dangling from its socket by a glistening thread. Only his smile remained intact—perfect white teeth in a death's head grin.

"Help you?" he echoed, voice scraping like rusted metal. "Why would I help something like you?"

He gestured to the mirrors, and each Sophia laughed in perfect synchronization, the sound amplifying until it threatened to shatter my skull. "Look at you," they chorused. "Look at what you've become."

The mirrors shifted, reflecting my true self—broken, bloodied, organs spilling from my torn abdomen, birthmark glowing with sickly purple light that illuminated every wound, every failure, every rejection etched into my flesh.

"This is what you are," Damien's corpse said, reaching toward me with decaying fingers. "This is all you'll ever be."

I tried to scream, but blood filled my throat, choking me. The mirrors cracked, each fracture splitting my reflection into more pieces, more broken versions of myself. The chamber began to collapse, walls folding inward like a massive throat swallowing its prey.

Darkness consumed everything, and for a moment, blessed numbness followed. Then pain returned—not the metaphorical agony of the nightmare, but real, physical torment that dragged me gasping back to consciousness.

Light assaulted my eyes—too bright, too clinical. I blinked against it, trying to orient myself. White ceiling. Beeping machines. The antiseptic smell of a medical facility overlaid with unfamiliar werewolf scents.

A face appeared above me—the woman from the road, Emily. Her eyes widened as she noticed mine were open.

"She's awake," she called to someone out of my view. "Get Dr. Michaels."

I tried to ask where I was, who they were, what had happened—but nothing emerged from my throat but a wet, rasping sound. Panic flared as I tried again, hands flying to my neck in alarm.

"Don't try to speak," Emily said, gently pulling my hands away. "Your vocal cords were damaged. The doctor isn't sure if it's permanent or not."

My voice. They'd taken even that from me. The final indignity in a life defined by loss and rejection. I felt tears sliding from the corners of my eyes, tracking down my temples to dampen the pillow beneath my head.

"You're safe," Emily continued, misinterpreting my distress. "You're at Crescent Moon pack territory. We found you on the border road. Do you remember?"

I nodded slightly, the movement sending fresh pain spiraling through my skull. Memories flashed—rogues, teeth, blood, headlights cutting through darkness. Rescue, but too late to matter.

"You've been unconscious for three days," she explained, checking one of the machines beside me. "The doctor wasn't sure you'd wake up at all. You lost a lot of blood, and the rejection damage to your system was... extensive."

The rejection. Damien's voice echoed in my mind: I reject the bond. Three words that had shattered me more completely than any physical attack ever could. The memory alone sent fresh agony through me, and the machines registered my distress with urgent beeping.

"Try to stay calm," Emily urged, but darkness was already creeping back into my vision, the edges of reality blurring as my body succumbed once more to the injuries it couldn't heal without pack bonds or a mate connection.

The last thing I heard before consciousness slipped away completely was Emily's voice, tinged with desperation: "We're losing her again. Her vitals are crashing. Get the Alpha—now!"

Then nothing but blessed darkness, where pain couldn't follow, where memories couldn't torment me, where I could finally, mercifully, cease to exist.