Chapter 3 - The Omega’s Secret
Midnight draped over the Sterling Palace, casting long, Gothic shadows across the sprawling estate.
In a private study adjacent to the Alpha’s chambers, Kellen sat behind a massive mahogany desk. Piles of financial records, council ledgers, and medical reports were scattered before him. But his mind wasn't on politics.
It was on the girl sitting across from him in a simple armchair.
After Lydia had been politely but firmly escorted out of the royal wing, Kellen had brought Ivy to his private study. He had insisted she eat, and now a bowl of warm soup sat untouched on the table beside her.
“You haven’t touched your food,” Kellen said, breaking the silence.
Ivy kept her eyes on her lap. “I’m not very hungry, Alpha.”
“Kellen,” he corrected softly. “When we are alone, drop the title.”
Ivy looked up, her large, expressive brown eyes catching the warm glow of the desk lamp. “I can’t do that. You’re the Alpha King. I’m just... an Omega without a pack bond.”
“Every wolf has a pack bond,” Kellen noted, leaning forward, resting his elbows on the desk. “When did you manifest, Ivy? Usually, wolves shift or awaken their inner spirit by eighteen. How old are you?”
“Twenty-two,” she whispered.
Kellen frowned. “And you’ve never shifted? Never felt the pull of the moon?”
Ivy shook her head, a bitter smile touching her lips. “My mother died when I was ten. She told me before she passed that our blood was cursed—or blessed, depending on who you asked. She said we carry a spark of the old magic, the kind the modern packs forgot. She made me swear never to let anyone see it. If the packs find out an Omega holds healing magic that rivals ancient shamans, they don't revere you, Kellen. They cage you. They use you.”
Kellen felt a surge of cold fury. He thought of the way the pack treated Omegas—treating them like furniture, ignoring their existence, working them to the bone.
“You saved my son using that magic,” Kellen said.
“The black smoke,” Ivy shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself. “It wasn't a natural illness. It was dark sorcery. Someone poured it into Toby’s spirit. When I touched him, it tried to latch onto me, too. But... something inside me fought back.”
Kellen stood up, walking slowly around the desk until he was standing right beside her chair. The air between them grew thick, charged with an invisible static electricity.
Kellen’s wolf was no longer scratching at his mind; it was clawing at the doors of his consciousness, roaring a single word: Mate.
It was impossible. An Alpha King cannot be mated to an unclaimed Omega cleaning girl. The council would tear the pack apart. Lydia would start a civil war.
And yet, as Kellen reached out and gently brushed a stray lock of dark hair behind Ivy’s ear, his hand lingered against her cheek.
Ivy gasped softly, her eyes fluttering closed at the contact. A jolt of pure, crackling heat shot through her veins, a sensation she had never felt in her entire twenty-two years of invisibility.
May you like
“Ivy,” Kellen murmured, his voice husky, thick with emotion. “What are you doing to me?”
Before she could answer, a violent explosion rocked the palace.
