Chapter 18: Chains of Silk
Kaia’s POV
The chains were gone.
Not because I’d been freed—because I was being claimed.
Rough hands yanked me upright, my limbs heavy from days of stone and darkness. My muscles screamed in protest, stiff from the cold floor of the dungeon. But I didn’t flinch. I wouldn’t. That was what they wanted—for me to break before they dragged me into the light.
The omega women surrounded me like ghosts, silent and brisk. They didn’t speak. Didn’t look at me. Just tugged, pinned, and wrapped fabric over bruised skin like I was a canvas for their ceremony.
They dressed me in royal blue—the color of queens and warriors. But I didn’t feel powerful. I felt shackled. This wasn’t a celebration of love. It was a sentence. Each shimmering thread bound me tighter to a fate I
