The Boy They Called Omega
The Midnight Prince
Future Ashen.
“All right, little wolves,” I said, standing in the doorway. “Bed.”
My daughter dropped onto the rug as if sleep itself had attacked her. “But I am not tired.”
Her brother nodded solemnly. “She is not tired, Papa. I checked.”
“You checked?”
He pressed two fingers to her forehead. “Medically.”
I crossed my arms. “All children must sleep at a certain hour.”
“Whose law?” my daughter asked.
“Mine.”
“That is not real.”
“It is in this castle.”
She sat up, eyes bright. “Then tell us a bedtime story. That will help.”
“No story tonight.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“Please, Papa?”
I lasted four seconds.
“What kind of story?”
“A fairy tale,” she said instantly.
“A fairy tale?” I lifted a brow. “I do not know if I know any.”
My son gave me a deeply unimpressed look. “You married a princess.”
“That does sound suspicious.”
“And you live in a castle.”
“Unfortunately.”
“And Mama says you were very dramatic when you were young.”
“That is slander.”
My daughter crawled into my lap. “Tell us a real one.”
I looked toward the fire.
For a moment, I did not see this room. I saw another hearth. Another floor. Another boy curled beside ashes with blood on his back and frost hiding beneath his skin.
“All right,” I said softly. “I will tell you about a little cinder boy.”
“A cinder boy?” my daughter whispered.
“A boy they made sleep near the ashes. A boy they called useless. A boy everyone believed was nothing because no one had bothered to ask what had been hidden inside him.”
“Was he really nothing?” my son asked.
“No.” My fingers brushed the old ring on my hand. “But he did not know that yet.”
“Does he meet a princess?”
“Eventually.”
“Is she pretty?”
“Dangerously.”
“Does he become a prince?”
I looked back into the fire.
“Not at first,” I said. “First, he had to survive a normal day.”
Ashen.
“One.”
The silver lash split open my back.
Pain burned white-hot through my skin, and my fingers clenched around the wooden post in front of me until splinters bit into my palms.
Behind me, Lady Seraphine’s voice remained calm.
“That is for slacking on your chores.”
I did not scream.
Nara did.
A small broken sound left my sister’s mouth from somewhere near the doorway.
“Quiet,” Alpha Torren snapped.
She went silent at once.
But I could still hear her crying.
That was worse.
I kept my eyes on the floor.
Not on Nara.
Not on the guards.
Not on the pack members watching because punishment was always a lesson, and omegas were always the easiest lesson to teach.
And not on my father.
Especially not him.
Torren Drakewood sat in his chair beneath the covered balcony, broad shoulders stiff, golden hair untouched by the wind. The Alpha of SilvaFrost. My father. The man who had given me his name and nothing else.
I wanted him to stop it.
I hated that I still wanted that.
“Two,” Seraphine said.
The guard struck again.
Silver scraped through flesh. My body jerked before I could stop it.
“That is for using magic you had no right to use.”
Whispers rose around the yard.
Magic.
The word followed me like rot.
A useless omega with magic.
A jinx.
Bad luck.
A mistake that should not exist.
“Three.”
The lash fell.
“That is for forgetting what you are.” Seraphine stepped closer, her pale blue skirts whispering over the frozen ground. “No wolf. No rank. No worth.”
No wolf.
The words landed deeper than the lash.
Everyone in SilvaFrost knew I had no wolf. No beast inside my bones. No voice beneath my skin. No second heartbeat to make me whole.
At least, that was what they said.
But sometimes, when danger came too close, I felt something.
Not a wolf.
Not really.
Just a presence in the dark.
Quiet.
Cold.
Watching.
The guard lifted the lash again.
After the third strike, Seraphine stopped naming them.
The rest came one after another.
Four.
Five.
Six.
The silver kept the wounds open longer than normal. Most wolves healed quickly, but I was not most wolves. I did not have a wolf to pull my skin back together. I healed slowly. Wrongly. Like my body had forgotten the spell every other wolf was born knowing.
By the seventh lash, my knees weakened.
By the eighth, the yard blurred.
By the ninth, I tasted blood from biting my own tongue.
Nara made another sound.
Torren’s chair scraped.
For one foolish second, hope rose in me.
Then his voice cut through the yard.
“I should have gotten rid of you that day.”
The world went still.
He did not have to say which day.
I knew.
The day Nara was born.
The day my mother died.
The day he looked at his newborn daughter, saw another omega child, and decided something had gone wrong with his bloodline.
The day I became old enough to understand that love could die before the body did.
Nara’s sob turned soundless.
I wanted to look at her.
I did not.
If I saw her face, I might fall.
And if I fell, Seraphine would give the rest to her.
She had already promised.
“If you pass out,” she had whispered before they tied me to the post, “your sister takes what remains.”
So I stayed awake.
For Nara.
For my promise.
For the little boy I had pulled from the river that morning.
Because that was where this normal day had truly begun.
The SilvaFrost river was not meant for pups.
Everyone knew it.
In winter, it looked beautiful from far away, a silver ribbon beneath the mist. But beneath the ice, the current ran fast and hungry. It swallowed branches whole. It dragged grown wolves under.
I had been carrying water for the twins’ bath when the screaming started.
“Pup in the river!”
I should have kept walking.
That was what a smart omega did.
A smart omega finished chores. Lowered his head. Stayed invisible.
But the boy’s head vanished under the black water.
So I dropped the pail and ran.
Guards shouted for the Alpha. Servants screamed. The boy’s mother sobbed from the bank, held back by wolves who looked more afraid of the river than of losing him.
There was no time.
I stepped onto the water.
Ice formed beneath my boot.
Gasps rose behind me.
I took another step.
The river froze again.
Cold climbed through my bones, familiar as breath. Frost threaded across my sleeves. The current snarled beneath me, cracking and shifting, but I kept moving.
The pup surfaced ahead, choking, little hands clawing at nothing.
Too far.
I lifted my hand.
The air tightened.
It always felt like pulling thread through a needle too small. I could not reach far, not like royal wolves in old stories, but close enough, I could move things.
The pup jerked toward me.
Not enough.
I stepped again.
My fingers curled harder.
The pup slid across the water until I caught the back of his coat and hauled him against my chest.
“I have you,” I whispered.
The ice broke behind us.
I ran for the bank, each step freezing a breath before my foot landed.
The moment I reached land, the river shattered.
The boy’s mother tore him from my arms and collapsed into the snow, sobbing.
For one foolish second, I thought someone might say thank you.
Then the whispers began.
“I heard he is a jinx.”
“Did he steal that magic?”
“How could he? He does not even have a wolf.”
“I heard only royals are born with magic like that.”
“Royal?” someone scoffed. “He was born a useless omega.”
“Bad luck follows that boy.”
“How unfortunate for the pup, to be saved by such a thing.”
“He should have let a warrior handle it.”
“Walking on water… maybe he is a demon.”
“Isn’t he the Alpha’s bastard omega son? From the first Luna?”
“Shh. We are not allowed to speak of her.”
Then they went back to their morning.
As if a child had not nearly died.
As if I had not walked across a river.
As if I was still nothing.
I picked up my pail and ran back to the packhouse.
Late.
That was all Seraphine cared about.
The twins’ bath was not ready. Breakfast had not been set. The halls had not been cleaned.
And then Nara dropped the tray.
No.
Callan tripped her.
But in SilvaFrost, truth mattered less than who had power.
Nara fell. Plates shattered. Hot tea spread across the floor. Callan laughed and called her stupid.
When Seraphine ordered lashes for her, I stepped forward.
“I will take them.”
Nara begged me not to.
I took them anyway.
Now silver tore through my back for both of us.
Callan appeared near the edge of the yard, dressed in clean training clothes, his golden hair combed back, his mouth curved in a smirk.
Beside him stood Cael.
Same face.
Same alpha-born height.
But Cael’s expression was different.
Pity flickered in his eyes.
He hid it the moment Callan glanced his way.
Another lash fell.
My vision went black at the edges.
Then she appeared.
Veyra Moonwick stood beside the punishment post, eating an apple.
No one else saw her.
Of course they did not.
Fae magic made people notice what they expected to notice, then forget what they had seen.
Her face was sharper than usual.
No smile.
No joke.
Only old, furious eyes.
“Hold on, little wolf,” she said softly.
I almost laughed.
Little wolf.
I did not have one.
The lash came again.
My knees buckled.
Veyra’s hand twitched like she wanted to reach for me.
She did not.
Could not.
Rules.
There were always rules for people powerful enough to help and not allowed to.
“Last one,” Seraphine said.
The final strike landed across all the others.
This time, I did make a sound.
Not a scream.
Worse.
A broken breath.
The guard untied me, and I fell.
Nara reached me before I hit the ground fully.
“Ashen,” she whispered, hands trembling as she helped me up. “Ashen, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Do not apologize,” I said.
My voice barely worked.
She helped me inside through the servants’ entrance and down to the little space near the ash hearth where I slept. Not a room. Not even a proper bed. Just a thin blanket, a crate for my clothes, and enough warmth from the kitchen fires to keep me from freezing.
She knelt behind me and opened the jar of healing gel she had stolen from the laundry shelves.
“This will hurt.”
“It already hurts.”
Her laugh broke into a sob.
She spread the gel across my back with shaking fingers. I pressed my forehead against my folded arms and tried not to pass out.
When Nara left to return the jar before anyone noticed it missing, Veyra stepped from the shadows.
“I can heal it,” she said.
“No.”
“Ashen.”
“I will be fine.”
“You are bleeding into the floor.”
“I said no.”
Her mouth tightened.
“Stubborn little wolf.”
I opened my eyes and looked at her through the pain.
“Why didn’t you stop them?”
The question came out harsher than I meant it to.
Veyra did not flinch.
For once, she did not hide behind a smile.
“You know why.”
“Say it anyway.”
“I am fae,” she said quietly. “Not a goddess. Not fate. There are rules. Lines I cannot cross. I can hide. Guide. Protect when death comes close enough to touch you. But I cannot interfere every time wolves choose cruelty.”
My fingers curled against the floor.
“So they can do anything?”
“No.” Her eyes darkened. “But I cannot save you from every wound that shapes the path.”
I hated that.
I hated paths.
I hated rules.
I hated that my back was burning, my sister was crying in silence somewhere above me, and the whole pack would go on pretending this was a normal day.
Then Veyra turned her head.
Listening.
“What?” I whispered.
Before she could answer, the front horns sounded.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
The packhouse went silent.
Veyra’s expression changed.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
“Royal horns,” she said.
I pushed myself up on shaking arms.
Pain tore through my back.
“Who is here?”
Veyra looked down at me, and for the first time that day, something like destiny moved behind her eyes.
“A messenger from House PentNova.”
The name struck through the room like moonlight.
And beneath my shirt, my mother’s ring turned ice-cold against my chest.
