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Chapter 1 - Mylah

A single winter rose wilts in a vase on my bedside table.

For a second, I stop and stare at it, remembering the way it had bloomed just outside my house. Resilient. Capable, even in this frozen tundra. And now, locked in this house with me, it wilts.

No wonder.

But I don’t have time to linger on the death of a rose. I need to keep moving quietly. I barely dare to breathe. Air comes in and out shallowly through my nose, allowing me to just scent the alpha that might be prowling outside my house.

I say might because he could be there now, lurking, trying to find a way inside. He could be in a rut, driven wild by the smell of some other omega, or the lingering scent of my heat from last week, no matter how thoroughly I scrubbed the sheets and my own body to be rid of it. It could even be a figment of my imagination, the tendency to make a pile of clothes into a monster, to see terror where there’s nothing malicious in sight.

My slick scent has a staying power so potent that it brings tears to my eyes, rage sloshing around inside me. Every month it returns, and then I’m scrubbing at my skin, knuckles cracking as I wash them for the hundredth time under scalding water. I soak myself in vinegar, in milk, and nothing works.

Shaking my head, I clear away those thoughts now and focus on what’s important.

If there’s an alpha outside my house right now, caught in a rut or even just one of the more vicious ones looking for a good time, I need to make sure all my windows and doors are thoroughly locked.

Of course, nothing will stop a very determined alpha. Or, rather, the only thing that will stop a very determined alpha is another alpha, baring his teeth and protecting what’s his.

And I don’t happen to have one of those on me tonight.

So, I creep through my own home, slippers barely making a noise against the wooden floor under my feet. My father left this creaky farmhouse to me when he passed.

We never talked about what happened that he was a fringe shifter. Our land was far from any official pack territory. Kault is the closest divided into North, East, South, and West, so I’d always assumed my father was an outcast from one of those.

But he and I didn’t have discussions. Sometimes he would lecture me, and from those lectures I picked up important information. For example, the fact that he was appalled at the idea of having an omega daughter.

An omega daughter, and not even an alpha son to balance the whole thing out.

No. He was just stuck with me.

But he was not as cruel as the other fathers I’d seen, on our rare ventures into town. Not nearly as cruel as some of the fathers I read about in the library books he’d bring home for me.

My father never tried to sell me off to an omega workhouse, never dragged me through town in the darkest parts of my heat, baring me for everyone to see. Humiliating me at my lowest point with my biological shame.

He wasn’t cruel, but he did make it clear that he was frustrated with our situation. That all my natural biology couldn’t even lure me an alpha willing to take me amongst his other omega sluts. That I couldn’t even find a “fated mate” who would be forced to take me.

Yes, my father complained about my scent. And yes, he called me disgusting to my face.

But he allowed me to live here.

And he did the unthinkable by leaving this house to me, simply my name listed in his will. Maybe it was a mistake—to this day, I think it was a mistake. But that mistake is the reason I didn’t go out on the street after his death.

The reason I’m able to live here and work my remote job that barely pays the bills, without being tethered to another shifter.

If it wasn’t my father, it would have to be an alpha. Because other than the rare exception of family, it’s incredibly rare for a beta to take responsibility for an omega. Betas aren’t usually equipped to fight off alphas when they come looking, and many consider it an unnecessary risk.

On more than one occasion, my father would mutter, “Suppose we’re lucky nobody wants you then, huh?”

Maybe it was meant to be hurtful.

Rather, it was a blessing.

Much better to hear him say that than to be in this situation, shuffling around on my own and praying to every god that never did a damn thing for me that there’s no alpha prowling outside my house right now.

My fingers shake as I grab the tiny nub of a sliding lock, pushing it hard to make sure it’s still notched in the divot on the other side of the window. I do it again and again, wishing that my house had no windows. It would be unpleasant, but far more practical for protection against this sort of thing.

Maybe it would just be better if I lived in a concrete box.