Chapter 2 The rejected omega

The first time Liora felt her heart crack that day, it was beneath her fingertips literally. The warrior beneath her hands gasped as she pushed her palm against the bleeding wound near his ribcage. The gash was deep and ugly, torn by rogue claws. His flesh peeled apart in a jagged line, like meat split open by careless teeth. Silver blood seeped out-an indication the attacker had been coated in silver dust.

"He's crashing," barked someone nearby.

"I know," Liora snapped back, tone clipped but calm. "Hand me the balm. The black jar."

A trembling junior healer passed it to her. Liora dug her fingers in, smearing the thick, bitter paste over the wound. The warrior screamed as the silver-neutralizing agent took effect, but she didn't flinch.

"Keep him still," she ordered. "I'm stitching him now."

Sweat soaked through her collar as she sewed flesh and skin together with the speed and precision of someone used to fixing the broken. The tent reeked of blood, sweat, and fear. The rogue attack had taken everyone by surprise, three dead, six wounded. This warrior had been mauled trying to protect pups.

She pressed the final suture closed, then layered it with a thin coat of salve and a clean dressing.

"He'll live," she muttered. "Keep him warm, monitor his vitals. Don't let him shift."

The other medics nodded, hurrying to stabilize the patient as Liora stepped back, her knees nearly buckling beneath her. Her brown healer robes were soaked in blood and sweat, her hands trembling slightly, but she didn't let herself sit. Not yet. There were others.

She moved to the next cot, where a she-wolf whimpered in pain. Her ankle was twisted, and her shoulder dislocated. Liora helped with the shoulder first, her hands working gently, murmuring soft reassurance. She wrapped the ankle, gave her a mild sedative, and kissed the top of her head like a mother would a frightened child. And still, no one looked at her like she belonged.

By the time the sun rose, the battle had ended, the dead were wrapped, and the wounded were healing. Liora stood just outside the medical tent, letting the cold morning wind cool her flushed skin. Her face was smeared with dried blood, her arms stained up to her elbows, her dark curls damp and sticking to her forehead.

She should have gone to rest. Instead, she sat on the low stone wall behind the infirmary and drank from a water flask. Her hands still smelled like silver and burnt herbs.

The pack warriors walked past her, nodding at the other healers, clapping shoulders, praising one another. No one stopped for her. No one said thank you. They never did.

She was the omega. The unwanted. The invisible.

Even though she was the one who kept them breathing.

Even though she was the one who had saved lives.

She rubbed her temples and tilted her face toward the sky. The morning light was pale, as if the sun, like her, had grown tired of shining for people who refused to see it.

*****

It had been eight months since her rejection. She had always known she was different. From a young age, she'd felt the way others looked at her with pity, with suspicion. No wolf surfaced when she turned sixteen. No howling in her head. No fierce hunger. Just silence. Some said it meant she had no wolf at all. Others whispered that it meant she was cursed.

Yet she had endured. Studied. Memorized the names of every herb and the side effects of every toxin. While others learned to fight, she learned to mend. While girls her age dreamed of finding their mates, she had dreamed of finding a cure for wolfsbane poisoning.

Until Rek.

She had felt the bond ignite like a spark when she bumped into him outside the training grounds. He had stilled, eyes darkening. She had inhaled sharply, recognizing the pull. That golden thread the Moon Goddess spun between fated hearts. But instead of joy, he had recoiled.

"You?" he had scoffed.

Liora remembered every word. Every. Single. Word.

"There's no way the Moon Goddess would mate me with you. You're nothing. Less than nothing."

She remembered the way people laughed. The way no one stepped in. The way he'd shoved her to the ground and walked away without looking back.

She had stood up that day with bloody palms and a broken bond. And not a single person had asked if she was okay.

Not one.

****

Now, eight months later, Rek was mated to another. A pretty, high-ranked she-wolf with glossy hair and a perfect snarl. Liora saw them sometimes holding hands, sharing meat at the dining hall, nuzzling each other at the edge of the training field.

And yet somehow, she still had to tend to him.

Once, he came into the infirmary with a dislocated shoulder. She'd straightened it in silence, her hands steady even though his scent still made her stomach knot. When she was done, he smirked.

"You're good for something, at least."

That night, she had cried not because she still loved him, but because she hated that she ever had.

Liora threw herself into work after that. It became her sanctuary. Her punishment. Her lifeline.

When warriors returned from battle, bleeding and broken, she was the one who healed them.

When children fell ill from fever, she sat by their bedsides all night, pressing cool cloths to their foreheads and whispering lullabies.

When a beta female went into labor and her wolf wouldn't come forward, Liora used her hands, her instincts, and sheer determination to deliver the twins safely.

No one thanked her. But she didn't do it for gratitude.

She did it to stay sane.

To feel needed.

To bury the ache of being unwanted.

One day, a warrior she'd never spoken to before stumbled into the infirmary, bleeding from a neck wound. He looked startled to see her there.

"You? Aren't you just the assistant?"

She didn't correct him. She just saved his life.

Another time, a young trainee came in with a broken arm, crying more from shame than pain. She wrapped his arm gently, made him laugh with a joke, and gave him a courage charm carved from mountain ash.

He gave her a smile so full of light, it made her eyes sting.

But later, when his father came to pick him up, he took the charm away and said, "Don't accept gifts from her. She's not like us."

Liora said nothing. She went to the storeroom and worked until her fingers bled, sorting herbs and mixing salves.

Work, she'd learned, didn't judge. It didn't ask questions. It didn't care who you were or who had rejected you. It simply needed doing. So she did it.Over and over.

She worked while others danced under moonlight.

She worked through mating ceremonies, through festivals, through the howling rites and winter hunts.

She missed meals. She missed sleep. She missed feeling alive... Because work was the only thing that didn't leave her.

Sometimes she wondered if the Moon Goddess watched her. If she felt guilt. If she ever regretted tying Liora's soul to someone who would hate her on sight.

Sometimes, Liora looked up at the stars and whispered, "Why me?"

The stars never answered. Only the silence did... And it sounded an awful lot like fate laughing.