AYLA
An Omega is good for one thing and one thing only… to breed.
To carry the next Alpha or if fate was especially cruel…another girl, another breeder.
That is what they tell us.
It is the first lesson carved into our minds from when we can shift. Brutally and repeatedly until we recited it like scripture.
We were vessels…wombs dressed in skin. If your mate was kind, they called you lucky and if he was powerful, they said you were blessed.
My mother was the mistress of the pack's Beta… an unkind man who acted like I did not exist.
He had refused to claim me from the minute I popped out of her womb.
In his words, I was a girl… a lowly omega and he wanted nothing to do with either of us.
"If you keep glaring at that stain, you are going to bore a hole into the floorboards."
I snapped to attention so fast my knees hit the wood beneath me. The bucket sloshed beside me, nearly tipping.
Kieran stood in the doorway, his arms folded across his chest.
I dipped my head and rose from my crouch, voice stiff. "Sorry, Alpha."
He let out a tired breath. "You do not have to call me that yet."
But you will be, I thought. You all will be.
Kieran was the second-born and out of the triplets, he was the only one who spoke to Omegas without sneering or spitting.
It was my duty to clean his room before tonight's ceremony. They had said to make it spotless. I had been on my knees for over an hour, scrubbing the oak floor until the boards gleamed like polished bone.
"You missed a spot," came a new voice from the doorway.
I froze.
Tiernan…Of course.
He sauntered in like he had been born in the center of the world which, to be fair, he might as well have been.
"Looks like you have been bathing in the mop water, little Omega," he said. "Did no one teach you how to clean?"
I did not speak. Speaking only fed him and I had heard enough to know it was much better to say nothing when Tiernan spoke.
He circled me once, eyes skimming over my patched-up dress, my bare feet, the braid down my back coming undone.
"Is that what you are wearing to the ceremony? Gods, what a gift to the eyes."
Kieran sighed. "Tiernan…"
"I mean, at least brush your hair if you are going to be seen in public. Or toss a sheet over yourself. That might be kinder to the eyes."
"She has done her job. You do not need to humiliate her."
"Oh come on, I am helping. Maybe if she took more pride in her looks, someone would actually notice her tonight. Not that it matters. Omegas do not get matched at ceremonies like these."
"Enough," Kieran snapped.
The rare heat in his voice made even Tiernan pause.
I did not wait around for more.
I bowed as low as expected and backed out of the room as quickly as I could without stumbling. My cheeks were on fire. My hands trembled as I clutched the bucket, my chest hurting.
Outside the Alpha's quarters, the wind bit at my skin as I walked toward the servants' compound. The sun was dipping low, painting the treetops with orange. The Moon Ceremony would begin soon. The whole pack would gather at the stone altar behind the lodge.
It was supposed to be beautiful. A night of blessings. A night where bloodlines were announced. Pairs would chosen and Mates revealed.
But for Omegas, it was another reminder that we were never picked. Just… assigned. If at all.
I stopped behind the kitchen huts, hidden from view, and sank down onto the moss-covered log I always came to when I couldn't breathe.
I pressed my forehead to my knees.
Happy birthday to me, I muttered
Eighteen years old today not that anyone knew. Or cared.
Birthdays weren't for people like me. An Omegas birthday was neither celebrated nor acknowledged.
The moment I had shifted, the Elders had marked my file as useful and breedable.
The firelight cast flickering shadows across the sacred grounds by the time I arrived.
The Ceremony was already underway and everyone stood in a wide crescent around the stone platform while we stood far off behind them.
The Alpha and his sons dressed in their ceremonial black, the Elders in deep crimson robes. Omegas wore pale gray.
I kept my head bowed, fingers twisted in the fraying fabric of my dress.
The Elders were chanting as names were being called and bonds acknowledged with applause following each pairing.
None of them were Omegas.
I stood in the back, hidden among other low-ranking wolves, trying to fold myself into shadow and disappear before the elder's voice rose over the crowd.
"Ayla, daughter of Brenna, step forward."
My breath stopped.
What?
I turned, stunned. My mother was already staring at me from across the fire, wide-eyed, her mouth parted in confusion.
She had no idea what was going on.
"Ayla," the Elder repeated.
I walked forward as dead silence followed me.
I reached the center of the circle, my body trembling. I expected a public punishment. Or a test. A joke, maybe.
"By the will of the Moon, witnessed under the Blood Moon's glow, the Omega Ayla has been chosen."
Chosen?
No. No, this couldn't…
Every breath around me vanished.
"Not for one but three"
The crowd gasped. My mother made a choked sound, her hands flying to her mouth.
"The Moon has marked her. And the sons of the Alpha…Kieran, Tiernan, and Cieran are bound by the sacred threads of fate."
No.
No, this wasn't…
I stumbled back a step, heart hammering so loud that I could not hear anything else.
The crowd erupted with shouts and cries of outrage and disbelief.
"She is an Omega!"
"Three Alphas? That is impossible!"
"What madness is this?!"
I turned toward the Alpha's sons.
Kieran's face had drained of color. Tiernan looked like he had been slapped. Ciernan, the firstborn stood completely still, green eyes fixed on mine like he was trying to understand what had just happened.
None of them moved.
"A mistake," Tiernan finally found his voice. "There has to be a mistake!"
"There is no mistake," the Elder snapped. "The Moonstone turned black, then gold. Three bonds, one mate. This has not happened in two centuries and it must be honored"
"It's not possible…" Tiernan started, but Ciernan cut him off with a sharp gesture.
"She is ours," he said, cold eyes boring into me. "How interesting. We accept her"