I can feel the weight of the tray cutting into my palms before I even enter the banquet hall. The ceremonial glassware—crystal goblets etched with the pack's crescent moon sigil—clinks softly with each step, a delicate sound that feels obscene against the low hum of anticipation threading through the Moonveil Pack house. My Omega uniform, rough-spun linen that itches against my collarbone, marks me as clearly as a brand. I'm Briana Gilbert, wolfless Omega, and tonight I'm invisible labor in a room full of wolves waiting to bare their throats to someone new.

The hall is already half-full when I push through the service entrance. Strings of white lights crisscross the vaulted ceiling, casting everything in a soft, deceitful glow that makes the room look warmer than it is. The air smells like pine boughs and roasted meat, undercut by the sharp, electric scent of too many wolves packed into one space. I keep my head down and my movements efficient, setting goblets at each place setting with the mechanical precision I've perfected over the past year. Don't be seen. Don't be noticed. Finish the work and get out.

But the whispers find me anyway.

"I heard he trained with the Northern packs—came back stronger than his father ever was."

"And the chosen mate? Someone said she's from the Herrera line. High-ranking. Beautiful."

"Poor thing, being chosen instead of fated. But I suppose when you're Alpha, you can afford to pick and choose."

My hands don't shake. I've had a year to build walls thick enough that pack gossip slides off like rain on stone. I move to the head table, the one elevated on a dais that makes it impossible to miss, and begin arranging the settings there with the same blank focus. The tray is almost empty when the hall's double doors swing open, and the temperature in the room drops.

Not literally. But every wolf in the space goes still in the same instant, a unified held breath that makes my skin prickle. I don't need to look up to know who's entered. The Alpha aura hits like a wall of pressure, thick and suffocating, rolling over the crowd in waves. It's not a request. It's a command written into the air itself: submit.

Around me, necks tilt. Shoulders curve. Even the higher-ranked wolves dip their chins in instinctive deference. I stay exactly where I am, hands still on the last goblet, eyes fixed on the table's polished surface. My wolf would know how to navigate this. My wolf would feel the pull, the primal need to acknowledge the Alpha's dominance. But I don't have a wolf. I just have a heartbeat that's started to hammer against my ribs in a rhythm I don't like.

I chance a glance up. Just one.

Zayd Gilbert stands in the doorway like he was carved there, all broad shoulders and controlled power wrapped in a charcoal suit that probably cost more than I've earned in six months. His dark hair is shorter than I remember, sharper, and his hazel eyes sweep the room with the lazy confidence of someone who knows every person in it will bend before he asks them to. The Alpha aura radiating off him is heavier than his father's ever was—deliberate, oppressive, designed to remind everyone exactly where they stand.

And on his arm, draped like a living accessory, is Amanda Herrera.

She's stunning in the way that high-ranking she-wolves always are—glossy dark hair, a dress that fits like it was sewn onto her body, and a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. She tilts her head just enough to let Zayd's hand rest possessively at the small of her back, and the message is as clear as if he'd announced it through a megaphone: this is mine.

My chest tightens. Not because I want him. I stopped wanting Zayd Gilbert the day I finally walked away from the suffocating wreckage of what he called a mate bond. But watching him parade her in front of the pack, in front of me, is a calculated cruelty I should have expected and somehow still didn't brace for.

He's not done.

Zayd's gaze finds me across the hall, locks on with the precision of a predator sighting prey, and I watch his mouth curve into something that might look like a smile if you didn't know him. I do. That's not a smile. That's a warning.

He starts walking toward the head table, Amanda gliding beside him, and the crowd parts like water. My pulse kicks up. I force my hands to steady, setting down the last goblet with a control that costs me. Don't react. Don't give him anything.

He stops at the base of the dais, barely three feet from where I stand, and his Alpha tone rolls out—low, vibrating, unmistakable.

"Omega."

The word cracks through the hall like a whip. Every head swivels toward me. I feel the weight of a hundred pairs of eyes, the collective judgment of a pack that's always measured my worth by what I lack.

Zayd's hazel eyes are burning now, molten with something ugly. "Kneel," he says, voice soft and deadly. "Serve your Alpha and his mate."

The tray is still in my hands. The ceremonial drinks—wine the color of old blood—wait on the table behind me. Every instinct honed by a year of surviving as the lowest-ranked wolf in this pack screams at me to comply. To kneel. To bow my head and play the part and get out of this room alive.

I meet his eyes instead.

My fingers tighten around the tray's edges until I feel the metal bite into my skin. I don't kneel. I don't lower my gaze. I stand exactly where I am, spine straight, and let the silence stretch until it's unbearable.

Zayd's expression darkens. The Alpha aura intensifies, pressing down so hard I can barely breathe.

I still don't move.

Amanda's smile falters. Somewhere in the crowd, someone inhales sharply. And Zayd's eyes promise that this defiance is going to cost me everything.

The summons comes before sunrise.

I'm still in my quarters—a narrow room in the Omega wing with a cot, a chair, and a window that doesn't lock—when someone pounds on the door hard enough to rattle the frame. I know before I open it that it's going to be bad. No one knocks like that unless they're delivering orders they know you won't want to hear.

Donna Reyes stands in the hallway, her weathered face pulled into the carefully neutral expression she wears whenever she's been told to do something she doesn't agree with but won't refuse. She's the senior Omega overseer, which means she assigns our duties and makes sure we complete them without causing problems for the higher-ranked wolves. She's not cruel. But she's not kind either. She's practical, and practicality in this pack means doing what you're told.

"Briana," she says, her voice flat. "You've been reassigned. Alpha's orders."

My stomach drops. I don't ask what the assignment is. I already know it's going to be designed to break me.

"Stone floors," Donna continues, not meeting my eyes. "Outside the Alpha's office. On your knees. By hand."

There it is. The pettiest, most humiliating task Zayd could dream up without officially violating pack protocol. Scrubbing floors is Omega work. Doing it on your knees, within sight and earshot of the Alpha himself, is theater. It's a message written in lye soap and bruised skin: you defied me, and this is what defiance costs.

I don't argue. Arguing with Donna won't change anything. She's not the one who gave the order.

But I'm also not going to do it.

I spend the next two hours in the pack's records hall, a dusty room in the east wing that smells like old paper and neglect. Most wolves avoid it—too boring, too tedious—which makes it the perfect place to dig through the bylaws no one's bothered to update in decades. I find what I'm looking for buried in a subsection about Omega labor rights, a phrase so dry and bureaucratic I almost miss it: *Omegas may petition for reassignment to essential pack services if current duties conflict with health or safety standards.*

It's a technicality. A loophole designed for situations that probably don't exist anymore. But it's there, written in ink that's older than Zayd's authority, and that makes it law.

I draft the petition on a scrap of paper, my handwriting cramped and hurried, and take it directly to Elder Rowan's residence before I can second-guess myself.

Rowan answers the door himself, a stooped man with silver hair and eyes that have seen too many pack disputes to be surprised by anything. He reads my petition in silence, his expression unreadable, then looks at me over the top of the page.

"The Healer's den," he says slowly. "You're asking to be reassigned there."

"Yes, Elder."

"Under Shane Crawford's supervision."

"Yes."

He studies me for a long moment, and I force myself to hold his gaze without flinching. Finally, he nods once, sharp and final.

"Approved. Effective immediately."

I don't wait for him to change his mind. I walk straight to the Healer's den, my hands still aching from the morning's scrubbing I'd started before abandoning it, and push open the door.

Shane is at the worktable, organizing dried herbs into labeled jars, and he looks up when I enter. His expression doesn't change—he's too controlled for that—but something shifts in his eyes. Recognition. Concern.

"Briana," he says quietly, setting down the jar. His gaze drops to my hands, and I realize for the first time that they're bleeding. The skin across my knuckles is raw and split, the lye soap having eaten through the old calluses I thought would protect me.

I don't say anything. I don't know what to say. I just stand there, holding my ruined hands out like an offering I didn't mean to make.

Shane crosses the room in three strides and takes my hands in his, so gently I barely feel the touch. His fingers are warm, steady, and he doesn't ask questions. He just guides me to the chair near the window and kneels in front of me, reaching for a clean cloth and a basin of water that smells faintly of lavender.

He works in silence, cleaning the blood and dirt with careful, deliberate movements. The water stings, but I don't pull away. There's something almost hypnotic about the way he moves—methodical, patient, like he has all the time in the world and I'm the only thing that matters in it.

When the wounds are clean, he reaches for a tin of salve, something pale green that smells like mint and something else I can't name. He smooths it over the broken skin with his fingertips, and the pain dulls almost instantly.

"This will help," he murmurs, his voice low and soothing. "You'll need to keep them wrapped for a few days."

He binds my hands with soft linen strips, his touch so careful it makes my chest ache in a way that has nothing to do with the injuries. When he's finished, he doesn't let go right away. He just holds my wrapped hands in his, his thumb brushing lightly over the fabric.

"You're safe here," Shane says, and the words land with a weight I wasn't expecting. "He can't touch you in this den."

I want to believe him. I want to believe there's anywhere in this pack where Zayd's reach doesn't extend. But I've learned better than to trust safety when it's offered.

Still, for the first time in days, I let myself breathe.

The corridor is crowded when Amanda finds me.

I'm carrying a basket of fresh linens from the Healer's den back to the storage room—one of the endless small tasks Shane assigns me that keep my hands busy and my mind mercifully occupied. The hallway smells like pine soap and the faint musk of wolves passing through between shifts. I keep my head down, navigating the foot traffic with the practiced invisibility I've honed over the past year.

Then she steps directly into my path.

Amanda Herrera stands there like she's been waiting, her designer boots planted on the stone floor, arms crossed beneath breasts that are definitely enhanced by whatever expensive bra high-ranking she-wolves wear. Her dress is cashmere, dove gray, and probably costs more than I've earned in six months. Zayd's scent clings to her—cedarwood and dominance—so fresh it's obvious they've been together recently. She wants me to notice. I do.

"Briana." Her voice is bright, performative, pitched just loud enough that the wolves passing behind her slow down to listen. "I've been meaning to talk to you."

I shift the basket to my hip, keeping my expression neutral. "Amanda."

Her smile sharpens. "I wanted to thank you, actually. For making things so easy."

I don't take the bait. I just wait.

"I mean, stepping aside like you did." She tilts her head, the motion calculated to show off the perfect curve of her neck—unmarked, I notice, which means Zayd hasn't sealed their bond yet. "It must have been hard, realizing you weren't enough for an Alpha. But honestly, you did him a favor. He needed someone who could actually stand beside him, not some wolfless—" She pauses, letting the word hang. "—freak who can't even shift."

The wolves behind her go still. I can feel their attention like a physical weight.

I meet Amanda's eyes and let the silence stretch just long enough that her smile starts to falter. Then I speak, my voice dry and unbothered.

"You know what's interesting, Amanda? You're wearing a thousand-dollar dress and his scent like a badge, but you're still out here in a public hallway, picking a fight with the Omega he supposedly doesn't care about." I shift the basket again, casual. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were worried."

Her face flushes. "I'm not—"

"Because here's the thing." I take a small step forward, close enough that she has to tilt her chin up to hold my gaze. "If you actually had him, you wouldn't need to prove it to me. You'd just have him. But instead, you're standing here, in my way, wearing his scent like a costume and throwing around insults a middle schooler would be embarrassed by." I pause, letting the words settle. "So who's this performance really for, Amanda? Me? Or you?"

She opens her mouth. Closes it. Her hands have curled into fists at her sides, and the flush has spread down her neck.

I don't wait for her to recover. I step around her, the basket still balanced on my hip, and walk away without looking back. The crowd parts to let me through, and I can feel their eyes tracking me—some amused, some shocked, most just hungry for the drama.

I don't care. I'm already thinking about the next thing I need to do.

---

The pack courtyard is busiest in the late afternoon, when the day's work is winding down and wolves gather to socialize before the evening meal. It's a sprawling stone space ringed by benches and planters, with the Alpha's balcony overlooking it from the second floor. I know Zayd uses that balcony. I've seen him up there, watching the pack like a king surveying his kingdom.

That's why I choose this moment.

Shane is already at one of the benches when I arrive, reviewing notes in a leather-bound journal. He looks up when I approach, and something in his expression shifts—surprise, maybe, or concern.

"Briana," he says quietly. "Everything all right?"

I sit down beside him, closer than I normally would, close enough that our shoulders almost touch. "Fine," I say, keeping my voice light. "Just needed some air."

He studies me for a beat, then nods slowly. He doesn't push. He never does.

I lean in slightly, pretending to look at the notes in his journal, and let my arm brush against his. "What are you working on?"

"Inventory," Shane says, his tone steady but quieter now. "Checking stock before the next supply run."

I make a soft sound of acknowledgment, then let myself laugh—quiet, genuine—at something he's written in the margin, a small joke about one of the herbs. The sound feels strange in my throat, unfamiliar, but Shane's mouth curves into a faint smile in response.

I can feel Zayd's gaze from the balcony like a brand on my skin.

I don't look up. I just touch Shane's arm lightly, my fingers resting there for a heartbeat longer than necessary, and let the afternoon sun warm the space between us.