The interview
-Eloise-
Today, everything was going to change.
Not because I chose it, but because someone else would.
My permanent placement interview would decide my position in the pack, though pretending I had any real say in it didn’t feel very smart. The scent of fruit trees, damp earth, and hay filled my lungs as I stepped away from the farmhouse. Familiar. Steady. Home.
I paused, taking it in, the old barn. I couldn’t imagine being without it. The rows of trees my family had tended for generations. I had plans here, quiet ones, stubborn ones. Improvements I wanted to make. A life I had imagined continuing exactly as it was.
I sighed.
I exhaled and shut the car door. Sunlight spilled through the windshield, too bright, too hopeful. Blue sky. Gold sun. For a moment, I let myself wonder if it meant something. If maybe, just maybe, I’d be allowed to come back.
I stared out at the farm until the ache in my chest grew too heavy to ignore.
Who was I kidding?
Despite my hopes, it would never be within my reach to decide my own destiny.
Not here. Not like this.
I knew the rules well enough to understand the difference between accepting them and surviving them. I could do the latter. I’d been doing it my whole life.
Survival wasn’t the same as surrender.
They could decide where I went. What I did.
But they didn’t get to decide who I was. At least, that was what I told myself.
I didn’t yet know how far they were willing to go to prove me wrong.
I fumbled with the keys before finally finding the ignition. The engine sputtered to life, and I pulled away from my parents’ land, my hands already damp on the steering wheel. The road curled gently away from the farm, narrowing before meeting the paved stretch toward town.
My dusty grey eyes looked back at me in the rear-view mirror.
Pale.
Tired.
But still sharp. Still watching.
They looked older than they should have, not broken, just wary like someone who had learned early that the future wasn’t something you were given. It was something you guarded, inch by inch.
How ignorant, I scolded myself, that I had not prepared better for this interview. But how do you prepare for a decision that you do not have the power to influence?
I didn’t want to go.
I could turn around.
Hide in the barn.
Let the world decide without me.
Instead, I reached for my phone and called Samantha.
“Elli!” her voice rang out, bright and effortless. “What’s up?”
“I’m on my way to my placement interview,” I said, waiting at a light.
“Don’t worry! You just discuss your skills, and they find a fit. My interview was easy. Who are you meeting with?”
“Karen,” I replied. She’d been part of the leadership as long as I could remember.
“Oh, she’s nice. I’m sure she’ll place you on the farm, like your brothers.”
I smiled despite myself. Sam was a Beta. For her, life usually was simple.
“Sam, you do know I’m an Omega, right? I’ll be placed wherever there’s a vacancy.”
“Elli, don’t stress. Karen probably wants the farm improvements to continue. It’s in her interest to keep you there.”
I relaxed a little. Maybe she was right. If I kept my head down, I’d be fine.
“It just hit me I might not be placed on the farm, and I panicked.”
“If you were in town, we could hang out more! It wouldn’t be that bad.”
Except it would be. Omegas weren’t treated well in the city.
If I could decide for myself, I might not have chosen to stay on the farm forever. But choice mattered. And the farm, my family, was the only place where I still had any.
“I’d prefer to stay with my family.”
“Call me after!” she said.
The town rose ahead of me. Gray. Angular. Even under the sun.
People slouched, pale from cubicles. Every visit reminded me I didn’t belong here. Higher-ranked wolves treated Omegas like dirt.
If I got placed in town, it would probably be cleaning. Or gardening.
Work I didn’t mind, only the reason I was assigned it. Everyone worked. Some just had fewer choices about how.
I parked in the farthest lot, naturally, the Omega lot. The pack house loomed like a palace: huge, clean, perfect. It screamed power. If the intention was to make everyone feel small and unworthy, it was expertly designed. Power liked to announce itself this way, clean, polished, unquestionable.
It wasn’t built to serve the pack. It was built to remind everyone who belonged to whom.
The shrubbery was immaculate. Not a single blade of grass out of place.
I tried to calm my nerves as I climbed the steps.
The receptionist pointed me to the interview room. I sat alone, pressing my shaking palms to my thighs. There was no need to get so freaked out, El.
Take the job.
Say thank you.
Leave.
Karen entered with a stranger. A man. My stomach twisted.
I looked up and made a small wave, “Hi!” Karen smiled.
A smile. Alright, that must be a good sign, right? Maybe I had worried for no reason. My shoulders sagged, and I cursed myself for being so tense. I shifted in my chair to face her.
“Hi, Eloise,” Karen smiled. “Finally, your turn. I remember your brothers.”
The man coughed loudly.
His eyes dragged over me once. Slowly.
Then he frowned, as if I were something disappointing he’d ordered by mistake.
He didn’t sit.
He waited.
I swallowed. The silence stretched long enough that standing up suddenly felt like the wrong move.
I bowed. Hands on my knees. Eyes lowered.
Not because I believed in it, but because refusal would cost me more than pride ever could.
I knew exactly what this was: a test. A reminder. A performance meant to reinforce his power, not my worth. Every instinct in me rebelled against the posture, against the quiet humiliation of it. But I held still anyway. Submission, when chosen, could be armor. And armor, I reminded myself, could be taken off.
I felt his eyes on my body, measuring, appraising.
Anger flared, hot and sharp. I crushed it down before it could show. He didn’t deserve that reaction. He didn’t deserve anything from me.
From this angle, he could look straight into my top. I could feel his eyes creeping over my exposed skin.
“Camron,” he said. Then, after a beat, “Gamma. Soon.”
My stomach sank.
If Justin became Alpha and this man stood at his side, the rumors suddenly felt less like exaggeration and more like a warning.
Karen and Camron moved behind the table. I stayed bowed, frozen.
“You may address me as Gamma,” he said.
A pause.
“Unmated?”
I nodded.
His mouth curved slightly. “Good.”
I squeezed my hands on my thighs to steady myself against his inquisitive way of asking the question. I wanted to blend into the walls and be out of this misery.
“Why hasn’t she been permanently placed?” he asked Karen, dismissing me.
“She’s been working on the Eames farm,” Karen replied coolly.
“A young female? On a farm?” he scoffed.
I could hear Karen sigh; she did not sound impressed with his need for power, but I might have imagined it, because I longed for some backup.
“There’s no reason she shouldn’t contribute to production on her parents’ farm,” Karen shot back.
I smiled slightly. That served him right. I made a mental note to thank Karen for standing up for me – it was definitely more than I would have ever expected. I shifted my weight to the other foot. Holding this position was getting uncomfortable, but I was not about the add fuel to the fire by challenging his orders, no matter how degraded I felt.
“The farm belongs to the pack,” he said flatly.
“And it doesn’t need you.”
He came closer.
His fingers brushed down my spine, slow enough to make it unmistakable.
Claiming, not accidental.
“We’re remodeling the conference center,” he said. “We’ll need omegas for cleaning.”
A pause.
“And entertainment.”
I tightened the grip on my knees, ignoring his proximity to me. Bile rose in my throat as his long fingers rested on my lower back.
I clenched my teeth together.
I stayed still. Not because I wanted to, but because reacting was exactly what he wanted. I wouldn’t give him that. I had to quell the urge to slap his hand away and tell him to go to hell.
“You’ll join the pack house service team,” he said.
His gaze flicked over me once more.
“We’ll see where you’re most useful.”
I couldn’t breathe.
I nodded because I had to.
“Yes, Gamma,” I said quietly, steady enough that he didn’t get the satisfaction of hearing my voice shake.
Something inside me went very still.
This wasn’t the end of me.
It was the moment they mistook my silence for defeat.
“Good girl.”
Tears pricked my eyes. Finally, he dismissed me. I backed out, breath held. Once outside, I sobbed.
Through the door, I heard Karen snap, “That was unnecessary and a misuse of power!”
“Watch it, pup!” she added. “You’re not Gamma yet!”
I did not linger to hear the rest. I scurried through the pack house, out of the front doors, and fled to my car. My wolf shook my senses, urging me on to get out of there as fast as possible. Away from the danger, or what felt like a dangerous situation. When I was finally safe inside, the tears flowed freely.
This was never supposed to be my life.
I called Samantha.
“How did it go?”
“It went to shit,” I choked.
“What?”
“Camron’s taking over. He said I’m being placed in the pack house. For entertaining guests. I think… I think they’re turning omegas into house slaves.”
She was silent.
“What kind of entertainment?” she finally asked.
“He didn’t say. But it sounded… bad.”
“Oh my goddess,” Sam whispered. “I thought they were joking. But I’ve heard them talk about this. They want to reintroduce house omegas.”
“What does that mean, exactly?” I asked, though I already knew.
“It’s slavery, Elli,” she said. “Assigned omegas. Cooking, cleaning…and worse.”
I stared at the phone in my hand. I waited for Sam to continue her explanation. But nothing happened. I had had a tiny hope that somehow I had been wrong in my initial reaction and that it was just my mind running wild. Clearly, it wasn’t.
My stomach turned.
“Is it even legal?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I’ll talk to my parents.”
Just thinking about it made me gag. It wasn’t like I could refuse; I had no say in this decision.
“I have to tell my parents,” I whispered. “They’ll be so ashamed.”
“We’ll find a way out, Elli. I swear.”
I hung up and sat in silence. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the headrest. My body was so heavy, I couldn’t find the will to sit up straight. I had the urge to fix my hair, to somehow take control of myself or the situation, and my hair was a mess, but I didn’t think it mattered anymore; there would no longer be a reason to fix my hair.
I sat in the car for an hour, just staring out the window. I tried to pull myself together. Mechanically, I started my car to drive home to our farm. The tears had momentarily seized, and I needed to take this moment of apathy and be practical, before I fell apart again.
There was nothing I could do to change this. So the least I could do was try to soften the blow for my family.
“Hi, Dad,” I muttered aloud. “My permanent placement is pack slut.”
The words tasted just as vile as I’d expected.
I shook my head. There was no preparing for this.
