The Unwanted Omega: Rise Of The White Wolf

I was the brilliant mind behind the Thorne Pack's defenses, yet as an Omega, I was treated worse than a servant.

My "Chosen Mate," Alpha Marcus, used my blueprints to build his reputation while I scrubbed his floors.

Everything changed the day the elevator cable snapped.

It wasn't an accident; it was a silver-coated trap set by Isabelle, the woman Marcus was parading around as his new favorite.

As I lay in the hospital, silver poison scorching my veins, the doctor begged Marcus for the antidote authorization.

Without it, my wolf would die.

But Marcus didn't even look up from his phone.

"Not now," he dismissed, stroking Isabelle's hand. "Isabelle scraped her knee when the building shook. She's terrified. Eleanor is tough; she'll survive."

He walked away, leaving me to endure surgery without anesthesia.

I screamed until my throat bled, feeling every cut, every stitch.

In that agony, the foolish girl who loved him finally died.

When he returned days later, expecting me to beg for his attention, I didn't bow.

I stood up, my eyes glowing with a power he had never seen.

"I, Eleanor Vance, reject you."

The bond snapped with a thunderous crack.

As Marcus fell to his knees in shock, the door opened.

Julian Croft, the Alpha King, stepped in.

He looked past my ex-mate writhing on the floor, locked his golden eyes on mine, and smiled.

"I believe," he rumbled, "the lady is finished with you."

Chapter 1

Eleanor POV

Morning light filtered through the high, arched windows of the Thorne Pack house, illuminating the dust motes suspended in the stale air.

Charcoal stained my fingertips, my hand cramping from hours of gripping the pencil, but I didn't care. The blueprints before me were perfect. It was a design for a new community center-a sanctuary to keep the pups safe and warm during the brutal winters.

I was an Omega. In the hierarchy of the pack, that meant I was the last to eat and the first to bleed.

But my mind-my architectural designs-was the one thing the pack actually used. It was my only currency in a world that priced me at zero.

The heavy oak doors swung open.

A gust of wind carrying the scent of pine and rain-*his* scent-swept into the room.

Marcus.

My heart gave that traitorous, pathetic flutter it always did.

He was the Alpha. He was power personified, with shoulders broad enough to carry the weight of the world, and eyes like storm clouds.

"Marcus," I breathed, rolling up the parchment. I hurried over to him, the bone-deep fatigue in my limbs forgotten. "You're back early from patrol. Look, I finished the designs for the nursery expansion."

He didn't stop walking. He barely glanced at me, shrugging off his muddy cloak and tossing it onto a nearby velvet armchair-furniture I would inevitably have to scrub later.

"Not now, Ellie," he muttered, running a hand through his dark, wind-swept hair. "We have guests arriving. Important ones. Don't clutter the table with your drawings."

My smile faltered. "But... you said if I finished this by today, we could-"

"I said not now."

His voice dropped an octave. It wasn't quite an Alpha Command, but the sheer weight of his authority pressed against my sternum, making it difficult to inhale.

I stepped back, clutching the blueprints against my chest like a shield. "Yes, Alpha."

We were "Chosen Mates."

It wasn't the lightning-strike, soul-binding connection of Fated Mates determined by the Moon Goddess. We had chosen each other years ago. Or rather, I had worshipped him, and he had found me convenient.

There was no Marking on my neck. Just a promise. A promise that felt thinner than the paper in my hands.

Then, the doors opened again.

"Oh, Marcus, this place is positively rustic!"

The voice was like spun sugar-sweet, airy, and completely artificial.

A woman stepped in. She was petite, with cascading blonde hair and clothes that cost more than my entire existence.

Isabelle Hayes. The daughter of a neighboring Alpha.

Marcus turned to her, and the transformation was instant. The scowl vanished. His eyes softened. He looked at her the way a starving man looks at a feast.

"Isabelle," he said, his voice dripping with a warmth I hadn't heard in years. "Welcome to Thorne Pack."

He offered her his arm. She took it, her ice-blue eyes flickering over me with a mixture of pity and mild disgust.

"Is this the help?" she asked, gesturing vaguely in my direction.

Marcus didn't even look at me. "She's just an Omega. She handles the... housekeeping."

*Housekeeping.*

I was the lead architect of his territory's defenses. I was the woman who warmed his bed when he deigned to visit.

I watched them walk away, Isabelle giggling at something he whispered. I felt a hairline fracture form in the center of my chest.

The days that followed were a blur of humiliation. Marcus paraded Isabelle around as if she were already his Luna. He called it "diplomacy." He called it "strengthening alliances."

I called it what it was: erasure.

Then came the full moon.

The Heat hit me like a physical blow. It wasn't just a fever; it was a biological imperative, a fire igniting in my marrow that demanded to be quenched by my mate.

My skin felt too tight for my body. My inner wolf whined, scratching at the back of my mind, desperate for comfort.

I curled up on the cold stone floor of my small room, sweat drenching my shirt. The pain was blinding, a cramping agony that twisted my insides.

*Marcus,* I reached out through the Mind-Link. *Please. It's the Heat. It hurts. I need you.*

The link was silent for a long moment. Usually, an Alpha can sense the distress of his pack members, especially his mate.

*Marcus?* I pleaded again.

Finally, his voice echoed in my head, cold and distant. *Not tonight, Eleanor. Isabelle is having a panic attack. The adjustment to the new environment is hard on her.*

I gasped, clutching my stomach. *A panic attack? Marcus, I'm in Heat. My body is burning. You are my Chosen Mate.*

*You're an Omega,* he snapped. *You're used to pain. Deal with it. Don't contact me again tonight.*

The connection snapped shut. It was like a steel door slamming in my face.

I lay there, shivering violently despite the heat consuming me. The rejection wasn't just emotional; it was physical. My wolf howled in agony, a sound of pure, unadulterated heartbreak.

He chose to hold her hand while I writhed in agony on the floor.

Hours later, the fever broke, leaving me hollowed out.

I dragged myself up. My legs were shaking. I walked to the small fireplace in the corner of my room. On the mantelpiece sat a small box containing a silver wolf-tooth necklace-the first gift he ever gave me.

He had told me it symbolized eternity.

I took it out. The metal was cold against my feverish skin.

The door opened. Marcus stood there. He looked disheveled, tired, but there was a satisfied smirk playing on his lips that he quickly tried to suppress.

"You survived," he said, indifferent. "I told you it wasn't a big deal."

He didn't ask how I was. He didn't smell the distress pheromones that must have been choking the room.

"Yes," I whispered. "I survived."

I looked at him-really looked at him. I didn't see my Alpha anymore. I saw a stranger wearing his face.

I turned back to the fire.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

I didn't answer. I dropped the necklace into the flames.

"Ellie!" he barked.

I watched the metal darken, the chain twisting as if in pain.

"It's Eleanor," I said, my voice devoid of emotion. "And I'm just cleaning up the clutter."

I turned my back on him.

The roots that had held me here for so long hadn't just been pulled up; they had been torn apart.

Eleanor POV

The next morning, I walked straight into the Alpha's office.

I didn't knock.

Marcus sat behind his mahogany desk, while Isabelle perched on the edge of it, swinging her legs like a schoolgirl. They stopped talking the moment I crossed the threshold.

"I am resigning as the lead architect for the Pack's public works," I stated. My voice was steady, a flat line that surprised even me.

Marcus scoffed, leaning back in his chair. "Don't be dramatic, Eleanor. Just because you had a bad night-"

"I will finish my current private projects," I interrupted, cutting through his condescension, "and then I am done. You can find someone else to design your 'diplomatic' expansions."

I turned to leave, my hand already on the brass knob, but not before I caught Isabelle's reflection in the glass cabinet. She leaned in, whispering something into his ear.

Marcus laughed.

The sound followed me out the door, a jagged edge against my spine.

The pack noticed the shift immediately. The Betas and Gammas, who knew the value of my blueprints and the hours I'd poured into their homes, gave me sympathetic glances in the mess hall. They whispered about how the Alpha was blinded by the "shiny new toy," ignoring the foundation that had held him up for years. But no one spoke up.

In the pack, the Alpha's word is law. To challenge him is treason.

A week later, the pack held a celebratory banquet for the alliance with Isabelle's father.

I tried to stay in the shadows, clinging to the periphery of the grand hall, but Isabelle found me. She always did. She was wearing a silver bracelet-a delicate, intricate design of interwoven vines that seemed to move with the light.

My breath hitched in my throat. I had designed that.

It was a prototype I had left on the drafting table in Marcus's office, a piece meant to be a ceremonial gift for the pack elders. I had spent weeks refining the curvature of those vines.

"Do you like it?" Isabelle asked, holding out her wrist and twisting it so the silver caught the chandelier's glow. Her voice was pitched loud enough to draw eyes. "Marcus gave it to me. He said it was just a trinket lying around, but I think it suits me, don't you? Though, it's a bit... quaint."

She was wearing my work. She was wearing my stolen soul.

"It's a prototype," I said, my jaw tight enough to ache. "It wasn't finished."

"Oh, well," she laughed, bringing her champagne flute to her lips. "It's better this way. Broken things have a certain charm, don't they? Like you."

Rage, hot and white, flared in my chest, burning away my restraint. "You are a thief, Isabelle. You take things that don't belong to you because you have no substance of your own."

The music stopped. The chatter died. The hall went silent.

Isabelle's eyes went wide. Then, with the calculated grace of a viper, she stumbled back. She let out a high-pitched scream and collapsed onto the floor, knocking over a table of drinks with a spectacular crash of glass.

"Ow! She pushed me! Marcus!" she wailed, clutching her ankle.

It was pathetic acting. The delay between my words and her fall was obvious; anyone with eyes could see I hadn't come within a foot of her.

But Marcus didn't care about the truth.

He blurred across the room, his Alpha speed creating a gust of wind that whipped my hair across my face. He was beside her in an instant, helping her up with a tenderness that made my stomach turn.

Then he turned to me.

His eyes were glowing a deep, furious red-his wolf was near the surface, clawing for control.

"You dare?" he growled, the sound vibrating in the floorboards.

"I didn't touch her," I said, standing my ground, though my instincts screamed at me to bare my throat.

"She is a guest! She is my future!" Marcus roared. The air in the room grew heavy, the barometric pressure dropping as he exerted his dominance. It was a physical weight, pressing down on every lung in the room.

Then, he used it. The Voice.

"Kneel!"

The command slammed into me like a wrecking ball. It wasn't a choice; it was a biological imperative.

My knees slammed against the hard stone floor with a sickening crack. The impact jarred my spine, pain shooting up my legs like lightning. I gasped, tears springing to my eyes-not from sorrow, but from the sheer, burning humiliation of my body betraying me.

I was forced into submission, head bowed, while the entire pack watched.

"Apologize," Marcus hissed, towering over me.

I bit my tongue until I tasted copper. My wolf was snarling, thrashing against the mental chains, but the Alpha Command was absolute for a pack member. It was a vise around my throat, squeezing until I complied.

"I..." I choked out, the words tasting like ash. "I apologize... for the confusion."

"Get out of my sight," Marcus spat. "You are stripped of your rank. You are no longer the Pack Architect. You are nothing but an Omega cleaner until I say otherwise."

He turned his back on me, cooing over Isabelle's perfectly uninjured ankle.

I scrambled up, my knees throbbing with bruises, and ran. I ran out of the hall, past the staring faces, and into the biting cold of the night air.

Back in my room-my prison-I started tearing things down.

The sketches on the walls, the balsa wood models of the bridges, the detailed plans for the new hospital-I ripped them to shreds. I smashed the clay models until my hands were coated in gray dust.

If I was nothing, then my work was nothing.

My phone buzzed on the desk. A Mind-Link message, but sent as a text-a final, digital insult meant to bypass any mental blocks.

It was from Isabelle.

*He's with me now. He says your skin is too rough, your scent too dull. He's finally happy. Do us both a favor and disappear.*

I stared at the screen, the blue light illuminating the destruction around me.

The tears stopped.

The anger stopped.

Everything just... stopped.

I felt a vast, empty void open up inside me. It wasn't peace. It was the absence of hope. It was the numbness of a limb that had been severed.

I reached into my mind, found the golden thread that connected me to the Pack Mind-Link, and I built a wall around it. Brick by mental brick, I sealed it off. I couldn't break the bond completely without becoming a Rogue, but I could mute it.

I shut them out.

I shut him out.

Eleanor POV

The numbness was my armor.

After the banquet, I didn't just withdraw; I ceased to exist. I became a ghost haunting the halls of my own home.

I scrubbed floors until my knuckles cracked. I washed dishes until the water ran cold. I avoided eye contact, shrinking into the shadows whenever a pack member walked by.

They whispered when I passed-some with pity, most with the scorn reserved for the fallen.

I was still recovering, slowly, from a Rogue attack at the Montauk border a few days prior. I had been sent there on a "scouting mission"-a suicide run orchestrated by Isabelle, I was sure of it.

I had survived, barely, dragging my bleeding body back to the territory line.

Marcus hadn't visited the infirmary once.

Today, my task was to clean the upper floors of the administrative wing. I stepped into the elevator, clutching my bucket and mop like a lifeline.

The doors slid shut. The car began to ascend.

Then, a shriek of metal on metal tore through the air.

The cable snapped.

For a heartbeat, I was weightless. Suspended in a terrifying void.

Then, gravity reclaimed me.

The elevator plummeted three stories.

I didn't scream. I just thought, *So this is it.*

The impact was a thunderclap that rattled my teeth. The floor buckled beneath me. I was thrown against the wall, my head cracking against the metal railing.

Pain exploded in my side as a jagged piece of the elevator shaft pierced the car and tore into my abdomen.

Darkness swarmed my vision.

When I woke up, the pain was different. It wasn't just an ache; it was a burning, searing fire in my blood.

*Silver.*

The metal that had pierced me was coated in it. It wasn't an accident. It was a trap.

It was poison to us. It stopped our healing. It killed our wolves.

I was in the pack hospital. I could hear the rhythmic beeping of machines. I tried to move, but my body felt like it was filled with lead.

Through the haze, I heard voices outside the door.

"She needs surgery immediately, Alpha," the doctor said. His voice was urgent, tight with panic. "The silver is in her bloodstream. If we don't extract the shrapnel and flush her system, her wolf will die. She might die."

"Is it that serious?" Marcus's voice drifted in. He sounded annoyed, distracted. "Isabelle scraped her knee when the elevator shook the building. She's terrified. I need to be with her."

"Alpha, Eleanor is dying," the doctor insisted, his tone bordering on insubordination. "I need your authorization for the silver extraction procedure. It requires access to the Pack's reserve of Wolfsbane antidote."

A pause. A long, cruel pause.

"Isabelle is calling for me," Marcus said finally. "Stabilize Eleanor. I'll sign the papers later. She's tough. She always survives."

Footsteps walked away.

He walked away.

He left me to burn.

Inside me, my wolf, usually so vibrant, let out a weak, gurgling whimper. She was fading. The silver was eating her alive.

*He left us,* my wolf whispered, her voice barely a ghost in my mind. *He doesn't want us.*

*I know,* I answered her.

A shadow fell over my bed. It was Dr. Aris, a kind Healer who had always liked my designs. He looked pale, his eyes wide with fear.

"He's not coming back, is he?" I rasped, blood bubbling on my lips.

Dr. Aris clenched his jaw, a muscle ticking in his cheek. "No. But I took an oath to heal."

He moved quickly, bypassing the authorization protocols on the keypad. "This is going to hurt, Ellie. I can't give you anesthesia because it interacts poorly with the silver poisoning. You have to feel it all."

"Do it," I whispered.

The surgery was agony beyond comprehension. It felt like he was digging into my flesh with hot coals. I screamed until my voice gave out, until my throat was raw.

I felt the metal leave my body, but the fire remained.

But amidst the pain, something solidified in my mind.

I was done waiting. I was done hoping.

I closed my eyes and visualized the bond-the cord of light that connected me to Marcus. It was frayed, stained with neglect and betrayal.

*I don't need him to protect me,* I thought. *I don't need him to validate me.*

My heart rate monitor beeped steadily, a rhythm of survival.

I lay there in the dark hospital room, shivering from the aftereffects of the silver. My wolf was silent, comatose. But I was awake.

I was awake, and I was absolutely, terrifyingly calm.

The door opened hours later. Marcus didn't come in. He just stood in the doorway, looking at his phone, the blue light illuminating his indifferent face.

"Is she alive?" he asked a nurse, without looking up.

"Yes, Alpha."

"Good. Tell her to stop causing scenes."

He turned and left.

I stared at the empty doorway. My eyes were dry.

*Goodbye, Marcus,* I thought.

*You didn't just kill my love for you. You killed the girl who was foolish enough to tolerate you.*