The Alpha's Rejected Luna: I Am The Blood Wolf Queen

I've been invisible for eighteen years. That's the curse of being an Omega in the Blood Moon Pack. You're not hated, exactly. Hate requires someone to notice you exist. I'm less than that. I'm furniture. I'm the girl who scrubs the packhouse floors at dawn, who mends torn training uniforms, who eats alone in the kitchen after everyone else has finished. My own parents gave me away when I was six years old. They told the Alpha it was for the good of the pack. An Omega daughter was bad for the bloodline, they said. A weakness that would taint our family's standing. I remember my mother's face as she handed me over. Not sad, not guilty. Relieved. Like she was finally rid of a burden she'd been forced to carry. I haven't seen them since. The packhouse is cold this morning. My fingers are cracked and bleeding from scrubbing the great hall floor. The warriors tracked mud everywhere after last night's training. Thick, dark clots of earth mixed with sweat and pine needles. I've been on my knees for two hours, and my back screams with every movement. I don't complain. Omegas don't get to complain. We just kneel and scrub and hope no one kicks us on their way past. Last week, one of the warriors did kick me. Right in the ribs as I was cleaning the entrance hall. He laughed when I gasped. Said I was lucky he didn't aim higher. I heard his friends chuckling as they walked away. I didn't cry. I've learned not to cry where anyone can see. "Aria." Luna Meredith's voice cuts through the quiet like a knife. I flinch before I can stop myself. That's another Omega trait. We flinch at everything. The Luna's heels click against the stone floor I just finished polishing, leaving faint marks. I'll have to redo that section. She doesn't notice. She never notices the things I do. "Get up," she says, her tone clipped and dismissive. "There's a ceremony tonight." I know about the ceremony. Everyone knows. It's the Mating Moon. The one sacred night each year when the Moon Goddess reveals fated mates to the unmated wolves of the pack. Every she-wolf between eighteen and twenty-five is required to attend. Even me. The thought makes my stomach twist into cold, hard knots. "Yes, Luna," I whisper, keeping my eyes fixed on the floor. It's safer that way. Eye contact with a superior wolf is considered a challenge. An Omega challenging a Luna? I might as well slit my own throat. She doesn't respond. She just walks away, her perfume trailing behind her. Roses and something sharper underneath. Disdain, probably. That's what most pack members smell like to me now. After twelve years of being the lowest wolf in the hierarchy, I've learned to read the scents around me. Disdain is the most common. I finish scrubbing and retreat to my corner of the servants' quarters. It's barely a room. More of a closet with a narrow cot, a chipped washbasin, and a cracked mirror that warps my reflection into something even more pathetic than reality. But it's mine. The only thing in this entire pack that belongs to me. I sit on the edge of the cot and stare at my reflection in that warped glass. Pale skin stretched tight over cheekbones that are too sharp. Dull gray eyes that used to be silver, back when I was small and still believed the world could be kind. Hair the color of dirty dishwater, pulled back in a messy braid that's coming undone. I'm not ugly. I know that much. I've caught glimpses of myself when the light hits just right, and there's something there underneath the exhaustion. But I've learned to make myself as small and unnoticeable as possible. A visible Omega is a target. I think about the Mating Moon ceremony tonight. My wolf stirs anxiously inside my chest. She's small and quiet. She has to be. But tonight, she's restless. Almost hopeful. I crush that hope the moment I feel it. Hope is dangerous for someone like me. No Alpha wants an Omega mate. It's practically unheard of. Alphas are destined for strong she-wolves. Betas at minimum, preferably other Alphas from allied packs. The Moon Goddess wouldn't be so cruel as to bind an Alpha to someone like me. She wouldn't. Would she? I shake the thought away and pull my one good dress from the tiny shelf above my cot. It's gray. Faded, shapeless, hanging loose on my thin frame. I sewed it myself three years ago from fabric someone threw away. The stitches are uneven, and the hem is slightly crooked. It's the best I have. As I change, I catch my reflection again. For just a moment, the warped mirror shows me something different. My eyes don't look gray. They look silver. My posture doesn't look broken. It looks like someone bracing for a fight. My wolf pushes against my consciousness, and I feel something ancient and powerful stirring far beneath my skin. Then the moment passes, and I'm just Aria again. The Omega. The lowest wolf. Tonight changes nothing, I tell myself. No one will pick me. No one ever does. But as I smooth down my dress and head for the door, I can't shake the feeling that something is about to break. Something fundamental. Something that has been waiting for eighteen years to crack wide open. And when it does, nothing in the Blood Moon Pack will ever be the same.