I didn't move.
Not at first. Not even when the footsteps faded into the hush of pine needles and secrets. I stayed curled behind the barrel, tucked beneath the rotting lean-to beside the old smokehouse—like a weed no one bothered to pull. Useless. Quiet. Half-buried in rot and fear.
My knees were crushed against my chest. Splinters gnawed into my palms where the wood had split beneath me. One hand slick with blood. The other shaking so hard I had to press it to my ribs to keep it still. My breath came in short, sharp gasps—gutted things that scraped the silence raw.
The forest around me held its breath.
But my mind didn't. My mind screamed.
Mera.
Poison.
Two nights.
Alpha Duskthorn.
I pressed both hands over my mouth this time, smothering the noise, smothering myself. Like I could choke the truth down before it clawed its way out and tore everything apart. My teeth clacked together, not from cold, but from a terror so sharp it sank through skin and marrow, curling into the hollows of my bones.
This wasn't just fear.
This was prey-sense.
The kind of terror every omega learns young—the kind that tells you when you've just seen something you weren't supposed to. When the shadows know your name. When you're marked, not by scent, but by silence.
Because I'd seen her.
Mera.
Beta's mate. The golden girl of Duskthorn. All soft lips and sharp eyes and perfume that smelled like pressed roses and poison. She wore her power like silk. She walked like nothing in this world could touch her.
And me?
I was the thing that cleaned muddy boots and wiped snot from a pup's nose. I scrubbed blood from nursery mats before it set and sang lullabies to babies no one would ever remember I held. I was the shadow in the corner. The silence after everyone left.
I was an omega.
No one. Nothing.
No one would believe me.
Especially not over her.
She was beauty, strength, the Beta's pride.
And I was a stain on this pack's golden floor. The wrong girl with the wrong skin and the wrong scent. The one who once got too close to the wrong male and paid for it every single day.
And I was a mother.
Oh Moon, my son.
My legs gave. My whole body folded in on itself and dropped to the pine-carpeted earth like wet parchment. My stomach heaved, lungs seized, and I turned my head just in time to vomit into the moss and ferns. Silent sobs wracked me even as bile burned the back of my throat.
The scent of it—the memory of it—hit me like a blow.
Wine-soaked dirt.
Fire-smoke.
And that sickly sweet perfume.
I wiped my mouth with a shaking sleeve, eyes wide as the weight of what I'd heard, what I'd seen, pressed down harder.
He won't see it coming.
That's what she said.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
She was going to kill him.
The Alpha.
And no one knew.
No one but me.
If I stayed silent, she'd win. She'd destroy him. Duskthorn would fall under her hand, and every pup, every omega, every soul under his banner would pay the price.
But if I opened my mouth—if I so much as whispered what I knew—she would come for me.
And she wouldn't miss.
Mera didn't strike loud. She didn't rage or roar or claw. She struck smart. Quiet. Precisely. And always in the dark.
And somehow, she would know.
She would know I'd seen her. Heard her. Tracked her scent through the woods like a stupid, reckless thing. Like I thought I could still matter.
I wrapped my arms around myself so tightly I thought I might splinter. Rocked in the dirt like I was trying to keep myself from falling apart.
I wasn't brave.
I wasn't strong.
I was an omega.
My hands were made for wiping tears, not spilling secrets. For folding laundry, not clutching knives. My world was milk-warmed bottles and threadbare blankets. Soot-stained lullabies in the dark.
But if I did nothing, I wouldn't just be powerless.
I'd be complicit.
A coward.
The kind of coward who lets good men die just to survive another day.
I tilted my head back, searching for the sliver of moonlight slicing through the canopy. My voice came out as a thread of breath, so soft even the wind might not catch it.
"Tell me what to do. Please."
No answer.
No sign.
The trees stood silent, sentinel and still. The Moon didn't flicker. The stars didn't weep.
But something in me cracked.
I thought of my son. Sleeping in the nursery. His tiny chest rising and falling beneath the patchwork quilt I'd stitched from scraps. His little fingers wrapping around mine like they belonged there. His first steps. That sweet gurgle of laughter when I sang.
The lullaby my mother used to hum—before she was gone too.
I thought of the world he would inherit if I stayed quiet.
If monsters like Mera won.
And slowly, slowly, I moved.
Shaky legs. Numb limbs. No plan.
Only a pulse and a secret too heavy for one spine to carry.
I staggered upright, pressing one hand to the bark of a tree to steady myself. Then another step. And another. Weaving through the underbrush like maybe the darkness could protect me.
I had to find someone.
Someone who wasn't wrapped in Mera's charm.
Someone smart. Someone safe.
But who?
Omegas didn't have friends.
We had chores. We had silence. We had the corner of the room and the wrong side of the doorway. We had each other in fragments—snatches of whispered comfort when the pups were asleep—but we didn't have allies.
Still.
I had to try.
Because this wasn't about me anymore.
It was about the Alpha.
The pack.
My child.
And if I misstepped—if I chose the wrong person, said the wrong thing, moved too soon—
I was already dead.
I swiped at my face, smearing tears and dirt into one streaked blur. My chest was tight. My steps small. But they were real.
I stepped into the dark.
Not running.
Not brave.
But moving anyway.
Because the Moon was watching.
The forest was listening.
And somewhere in the heart of Duskthorn, beneath smiles—
A monster was waiting.
And the clock was already ticking.