The alarm on my phone buzzed at 5:47 AM, thirteen minutes before the rest of the Obsidian Shadow Pack would stir. I'd learned early that those thirteen minutes were mine—the only privacy I'd get all day.

I sat up in the narrow bed, my fingers automatically reaching for the amber bottle on the nightstand. Three years, and the routine never changed. Two capsules, dry-swallowed, bitter on my tongue. "Vitamins," Beta Morris had called them when he'd pressed the first bottle into my trembling hands. "To keep you healthy for the Alpha's heir."

Healthy. Right.

I dressed quickly in the plain gray uniform all Omegas wore—shapeless, forgettable. The mirror above the sink showed a girl I barely recognized anymore. Naomi Porter, wolfless Omega, breeder to the most feared Alpha in the region. My fingers drifted to the unmarked skin of my neck, tracing the spot where Christian had promised to claim me.

Three years since the Rogues tore him apart. Three years since I'd agreed to this blood oath to honor his sacrifice.

I pushed the memory down and focused on the herbs. Chamomile, valerian root, a touch of lavender—Alpha Wylder's morning tea, brewed exactly how he liked it. The pack kitchen was empty when I slipped in, and I worked quickly, my hands steady despite the exhaustion that never quite left my bones. At least I was good at this. At least I could do something right.

"Breeder's up early." The sneer came from behind me.

I didn't turn. Delta Sarah, one of the pack warriors, always had something to say. "Making the Alpha's tea."

"How domestic. Tell me, does he actually look at you when he—"

"Sarah." The warning growl came from the doorway. Marcus Kane, the Beta, filled the frame with his broad shoulders. "Don't you have patrol?"

She left with a huff, and I exhaled slowly.

"Thank you," I whispered.

Marcus said nothing, just watched me pour the tea into Alpha Wylder's preferred mug. I felt his pity like a weight on my shoulders, and somehow that was worse than Sarah's cruelty.

The walk to Wylder's office felt longer every day. I knocked twice, soft, and waited.

"Enter."

His voice alone made my pulse stutter. Not from attraction—I'd buried that part of myself in Christian's grave—but from pure, primal fear. Alpha Wylder Montgomery radiated power like other people radiated heat. Even now, seated behind his massive desk, he looked like he could tear the world apart with his bare hands.

I set the tea on his desk, careful not to meet his eyes. "Your morning tea, Alpha."

"Sit."

My stomach dropped. He never asked me to sit.

I lowered myself into the chair across from him, hands folded in my lap. He was scrolling through something on his phone—my cycle tracking app, I realized with a flush of humiliation. He'd insisted I download it, insisted on monitoring every detail of my body like I was livestock.

"Your cycle starts in four days," he said, still not looking at me. "We'll try again after."

Try again. Like I was a failed experiment.

"Yes, Alpha."

He finally glanced up, and I made the mistake of meeting his gaze. His eyes were the color of storm clouds, cold and assessing. But then something flickered there—something that made his jaw clench and his fingers tighten around his phone.

He reached across the desk to hand me the phone, and his fingers brushed my wrist.

The reaction was instant. His eyes flashed gold, his wolf surging so close to the surface that the air itself seemed to crackle. I jerked back, my chair scraping against the floor, and he stood abruptly.

"Get out."

I didn't need to be told twice. I practically ran from his office, my heart hammering against my ribs. What was that? In three years, he'd never—

"Naomi."

Marcus caught me in the hallway, his expression unreadable. "The Alpha wants you to accompany him to the Grand Alpha Summit this weekend."

The Summit. Where all the regional Alphas gathered to discuss territory and politics and things that had nothing to do with a wolfless Omega like me.

"I don't understand."

"You'll attend to his needs. Serve him during the meetings." Marcus's tone was carefully neutral, but I heard the apology underneath. "He's ordered a scent-masking cloak for you. You'll wear it at all times."

Of course. Can't have the other Alphas knowing their peer keeps a human-scented breeder.

"When do we leave?"

"Friday morning. Pack light."

I returned to my room in a daze and pulled my single duffel bag from under the bed. I didn't own much—a few changes of clothes, my herb kit, the silver locket Christian had given me before he died. I held it now, running my thumb over the engraving.

*Forever yours.*

My fingers found my neck again, that unmarked space that ached with phantom pain. He'd promised to claim me after his next promotion. He'd promised we'd have a real future.

Instead, he'd died saving me from my own weakness, and I'd spent three years in this beautiful prison, paying his debts with my body.

I packed the bag and sat on the edge of my bed, staring at nothing.

The Summit. A weekend away from these walls, from the sneers and the pity and the suffocating routine.

I should have felt relief.

So why did it feel like walking toward the edge of a cliff?

The Summit venue was everything I'd imagined wealth and power would look like—marble floors so polished I could see my reflection, crystal chandeliers that threw rainbows across the walls, and Alphas everywhere. Their auras pressed against my skin like invisible hands, each one trying to dominate the space, to prove they were the strongest in the room.

I kept my head down and my scent-masking cloak pulled tight. Marcus had positioned me near the service entrance with the other attendants, mostly Omegas from various packs who'd been brought along to serve. We didn't speak to each other. We didn't need to. We all knew our place.

"Champagne," a server hissed at me, shoving a tray into my hands.

I took it and moved through the crowd like a ghost. Invisible. That's what I'd learned to be. The conversations around me blurred into background noise—territory disputes, trade agreements, challenges to authority. Then I heard Wylder's name.

"Montgomery's position is weakening." The voice belonged to a broad-shouldered Alpha with a scar across his jaw. "Three years and still no marked mate. No heir. The Obsidian Pack will fracture without a successor."

"He should've chosen a proper Luna," another Alpha agreed. "Not whatever arrangement he's hiding."

I moved past them quickly, my cheeks burning. They were talking about me. About my failure to give Wylder what he needed.

I glanced across the room and found him standing near the main podium, his posture rigid, his expression carved from stone. But his eyes—they were scanning the crowd. Searching. When they landed on me, something in his jaw tightened. He looked away first.

I refilled glasses on autopilot, my mind elsewhere. Two more days of this. Two more days of pretending I didn't hear the whispers, didn't feel the weight of my own inadequacy pressing down on my shoulders.

Then the breeze came.

It swept through the open balcony doors, carrying with it the scent of the night—and something else. Something that made my entire body go still.

Cedar and pine.

The tray slipped from my hands. Crystal shattered against marble, champagne spreading across the floor in a golden pool. Heads turned. Someone cursed. But I couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything but follow that scent.

It can't be.

My feet carried me toward the VIP balcony, my heart slamming against my ribs so hard it hurt. The scent grew stronger with every step, wrapping around me like a memory I'd buried three years ago. I pushed through a velvet curtain, my hands shaking.

And there he was.

Christian Morris. Alive. Healthy. Laughing.

He stood with his arm around a woman—tall, elegant, radiating the kind of power that could only belong to an Alpha. Her dark hair cascaded down her back, and when she turned her head, I saw it. The mating mark on her neck. Fresh. Possessive.

The spot where Christian had promised to mark me.

My knees threatened to give out. This isn't real. It can't be real.

But it was. He was right there, his fingers trailing down her arm, his lips brushing her temple. The same lips that had whispered promises to me. The same hands that had held mine and sworn we'd have forever.

"You were right, Estelle," Christian said, his voice carrying across the balcony. "Getting rid of the dead weight was the smartest thing I ever did."

The woman—Estelle—laughed, low and satisfied. "I told you a wolfless Omega would only hold you back. You're meant for greater things, darling."

"God, I can't believe I wasted so much time on her." Christian's voice dripped with contempt. "Naomi was so pathetic. Always clinging to me, always needing reassurance. I couldn't stand it."

Each word was a knife between my ribs.

"And your father's plan worked perfectly," Estelle purred. "Faking your death, selling her to Montgomery to clear your debts—brilliant, really. The money from that transaction bought your way into my pack. Into my bed."

Christian grinned. "She probably still thinks I'm some kind of hero. Dying to save her from Rogues." He laughed, sharp and cruel. "As if I'd ever risk my life for someone so weak. She didn't even have a wolf. What kind of mate is that?"

"A burden," Estelle said simply.

"Exactly. A burden I'm glad to be rid of."

The world tilted. My vision blurred at the edges, darkness creeping in. Three years. Three years of guilt, of believing I owed him everything, of giving my body to another man because I thought I was honoring Christian's sacrifice.

And it was all a lie.

He sold me. He sold me like I was nothing.

I stumbled into the nearest restroom, my hands gripping the marble sink so hard my knuckles went white. The face staring back at me in the mirror looked like a stranger—pale, hollow-eyed, broken.

Three years. Three years of guilt. Three years of believing I owed him everything.

My breath came in short, sharp gasps. The room spun. I pressed my forehead against the cool mirror, trying to ground myself, but all I could hear was Christian's voice echoing in my head.

*She was so pathetic.*

*A burden I'm glad to be rid of.*

The amber bottle was in my pocket. I pulled it out with shaking hands, staring at the two capsules I was supposed to take this morning. Vitamins. Beta Morris had given them to me the day I'd signed the blood oath, his expression so solemn, so concerned.

"To keep you healthy for the Alpha's heir."

But Christian had been there too. Standing in the shadows. Watching.

My stomach twisted. The mental fog I'd lived in for three years—the exhaustion, the weakness, the constant feeling that I was barely holding myself together—it wasn't just grief. It wasn't just the weight of my sacrifice.

It was poison.

I threw the bottle into the trash with enough force that it cracked against the metal bin. The sound echoed in the empty restroom, final and absolute.

No more.

The sickness hit almost immediately. My hands started trembling, sweat breaking out across my forehead. My body knew what I'd just done, knew I'd broken the routine it had come to depend on. But underneath the nausea, underneath the shaking, something else stirred.

Anger.

It burned in my chest, small but fierce, like a ember that had been smothered for too long finally catching flame.

I splashed cold water on my face and forced myself to stand upright. I had to get back. Had to serve. Had to pretend everything was fine.

But nothing was fine.

I made it halfway down the service corridor before my legs gave out. The world tilted sideways, and I hit the floor hard, my vision going dark at the edges. The nausea was different now—deeper, more insistent. Not just withdrawal.

Something else.

"Naomi!" Footsteps rushed toward me. Hands—gentle, professional—turned me onto my side. "Don't move. Just breathe."

Dr. Elena Hartwell. I recognized her voice even through the haze. She was Wylder's pack healer, one of the few people who'd ever looked at me with something other than contempt or pity.

"I'm fine," I managed, but even I didn't believe it.

"You're not." Her fingers pressed against my wrist, checking my pulse. "When did you last eat?"

"This morning."

"Your vitamins?"

I hesitated. "I... I stopped taking them."

Her hand stilled. When I forced my eyes open, she was staring at me with an expression I couldn't read. "How long ago?"

"An hour. Maybe two."

She muttered something under her breath and helped me sit up, supporting my weight. "We need to get you somewhere private. Can you walk?"

I nodded, though I wasn't sure it was true. She half-carried me to a small storage room off the main corridor and locked the door behind us. The space was cramped, filled with linens and cleaning supplies, but it was quiet. Private.

Elena pulled a small medical kit from her bag and began examining me with quick, efficient movements. She checked my eyes, my pulse, pressed her fingers against my abdomen.

Then she went very still.

"Naomi," she said slowly. "When was your last cycle?"

The question didn't make sense. "I... I don't know. Six weeks? Seven?"

"And you didn't think that was unusual?"

"My cycles have never been regular. The stress, the—" I stopped. Looked at her face. "Why?"

She sat back on her heels, her expression carefully neutral. "You're pregnant."

The words didn't land at first. They just hung in the air between us, impossible and surreal.

"That's not—I can't be—"

"You are." Her voice was gentle but firm. "I'd estimate about six weeks along. Maybe seven."

Wylder's child. I was carrying Wylder's child.

The room spun again, but this time it wasn't from the withdrawal. This time it was from the weight of what that meant. A child. A pup. Growing inside me.

A pup that would be raised in the Obsidian Pack. Under Wylder's control. In a world where Christian existed, where Beta Morris could manipulate and lie, where I was nothing but a transaction.

No.

The word formed in my mind with absolute clarity.

No.

"I need to leave," I whispered.

Elena's eyes widened. "Naomi—"

"I can't stay here. I can't—" My voice cracked. "I can't let my child grow up like this."

She was quiet for a long moment. Then she reached into her bag and pulled out a small vial. "Scent-masking oil. It's stronger than what you're wearing now. If you're serious about this, you'll need it."

I stared at her. "Why are you helping me?"

"Because I've watched you suffer for three years, and I'm tired of pretending I don't see it." She pressed the vial into my hand. "The pack run is tomorrow night. Every Alpha will shift and run the perimeter. It's tradition. If you're going to move, that's your window."

Tomorrow night. Less than twenty-four hours.

I could do this. I had to do this.

I spent the rest of the day moving through the Summit like a ghost, my mind racing. The hotel kitchen was massive, industrial, and understaffed during the evening events. I slipped in during a shift change and found what I needed—wolfsbane root, carefully stored in a locked cabinet. Dried mugwort. Sage. Ingredients that would amplify Elena's scent-masking oil into something powerful enough to hide me from even an Alpha's nose.

I worked in the shadows of my assigned quarters, grinding herbs with a mortar I'd stolen from the kitchen, mixing them with the oil Elena had given me. My hands were steady now. Purposeful.

Through the window, I could see the Alphas gathering on the lawn below, their voices carrying on the night air. Wylder stood among them, his posture rigid, his expression unreadable. He was deep in conversation with two other Alphas, their body language tense.

A high-stakes negotiation. Marcus had mentioned it earlier. Something about territory disputes that could take hours to resolve.

Perfect.

I finished the poultice and sealed it in a small jar, then packed my duffel bag with the few things I owned. The silver locket went into my pocket. Everything else—the gray uniforms, the cycle tracking app, the life I'd lived for three years—I left behind.

Tomorrow night, during the pack run, I would disappear.

And I would never look back.