It was doubt.
I should have pushed back. I didn’t want the ceremony. It was an old tradition that didn’t fit with modern life. It felt morelike buying an omega that a happy bond. Bonding should be done during heats, during consenting moments. Not through the handing over of a human being to another.
I should have pushed back.
And yet, I could still remember approaching that altar like it was yesterday. The blind way I’d followed direction even though it wasn’t what I’d wanted. Looking up and seeing Nathan staring back at me with that puzzled look on his face.
I remembered everything about that moment with the kind of crystal clarity that trauma provided. The way the afternoon light came through the chapel windows. The scent of roses and cedar from the decorations his mother had insisted on. The weight of the dress and the way the high collar felt like it was choking me. The two hundred guests sitting in neat rows, waiting for the ceremony to begin.
The moment Nathan opened his mouth and I knew, somehow knew, that everything was about to fall apart.
“I can’t do this,” he’d said, his voice carrying in the awful silence of two hundred guests waiting for the ceremony to begin. “You’re not... Sable, you’re not enough.”
Not enough.
The words had hit like physical blows, each one landing precisely where it would do the most damage.
“You’re not submissive enough,” he’d continued, and I’d heard his mother make a sound of agreement from the front row. “You’re not soft enough. You question everything. You won’t let me lead. You won’t let me make decisions without arguing every single point.”
I’d stood there in that white dress, feeling two hundred pairs of eyes on me, unable to move or speak or do anything but listen as my alpha, the alpha I’d thought loved me, listed all the ways I’d failed to be what he needed.
“You’re more alpha than omega,” he’d said, and that was the one that broke something fundamental inside me. “I need a partner who understands pack dynamics. Who wants to build a home, not a career. Who’ll trust me to lead without fighting me every step of the way.”
He’d looked at me with something like pity. “I’m sorry. I can’t bond someone who’s this difficult. You deserve someone who can handle you, and I’m not that alpha.”
Then he’d walked away. Just turned and walked out of the chapel, leaving me standing at the altar in a white dress that suddenly felt like a costume. Like I’d been playing at being something I wasn’t, and everyone could finally see the truth.
His family had followed him. His mother pausing only to say, “We tried, dear. But you have to understand, Nathan needs a real omega. Someone who’ll put him and his pack first.”
Two hundred guests had watched me stand there alone. Some looked uncomfortable. Some looked sympathetic. A few looked vindicated, like they’d known all along that I wasn’t good enough.
I’d walked out of that chapel with my head high and my pride in tatters, and I’d never looked back.
Until tonight, apparently, when I was weak enough to torture myself with photographic evidence of my biggest failure.
I deleted the photo the way I deleted it every few months when I was weak enough to look at it again. Pressed the delete button with more force than necessary, like I could erase the memory along with the image.
But then I pulled up my contacts and stared at the number I’d added earlier today.
Silas Vance. The paramedic with the dimples and the quick smile and the scent of vanilla and cardamom that had been almost as distracting as Beau’s cedar smoke.
And then there was Dane Hollow. Leather and gunpowder and something wild that made my omega sit up and pay attention even through the suppressants.
Three alphas. Three competent, professional alphas who’d all shown interest in varying degrees of subtlety over the past week.
Beau Calder, with his quiet steadiness and the way he’d insisted I call him Beau like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like I belonged in his space, belonged in his life.
Silas Vance, with his quick smile and the card he’d given me, the invitation to coffee that felt like more than professional courtesy.
Dane Hollow, with his military precision and the way he’d stepped between me and that trainee like protecting me was instinct instead of choice.
Three alphas I absolutely could not afford to be interested in back.
Because I’d done this before. I’d believed that an alpha could want me for who I was instead of who he wanted me to be. I’d stood at an altar ready to promise forever, only to have forever last exactly as long as it took Nathan to realize I wasn’t going to change into whatever fantasy omega he’d built in his head.
And when he’d realized that, he’d rejected me publicly. Humiliated me in front of everyone who mattered. Made sure that everyone knew the failure was mine, not his.
I wasn’t going to survive that humiliation twice.
