The room fell into stunned silence.
All three women stood frozen in place, wide-eyed, mouths parted in disbelief.
Rhea rolled her eyes at their ridiculous expressions — even that tiny movement sent a sharp pain spiking through her skull like a nail was being driven into her temple.
She winced.
Seriously, what the hell did they even do to this body?
What could they have possibly done to the original Omega to make her die? Because this didn't feel like possession — this felt like takeover. Full-on takeover.
But wait... She narrowed her eyes. The book critics on social media had never mentioned the Omega dying, not once. The girl was supposed to survive all her misery.
So how the hell did I get in her body?
If someone had told me last week I'd be experiencing my own damn reading list firsthand, I'd have called for their psych eval.
Book transmigration, huh? She sucked in a breath and braced herself. I better make damn good use of...
WHACK!
The slap was a savage arc of muscle and malice.
Rhea didn't see it coming.
Her head snapped to the side, and the sharp metallic taste of blood filled her mouth. She staggered, knees nearly buckling beneath her. The body was too weak — it was sheer dumb luck that she wobbled instead of collapsed entirely.
Ouch! What the hell is her hand made of, irons and repressed trauma?!
"HOW DARE YOU!" the witch bellowed. "It seems like the beating you took yesterday wasn't enough to knock some sense into you. Now you've lost what little brain you had!"
Behind her, the two girls smirked with smug delight, clearly enjoying the show.
Rhea groaned, hand cupping her flaming cheek.
"Actually," she muttered, lifting her head to glare at the woman, "that so-called beating you mentioned? Pretty sure it killed the original tenant of this body. And now a wealthy princess — me — who tragically died in her world, took her place."
Dead silence.
The three women exchanged bewildered glances.
Killed?
Wealthy princess?
Took over the body?
The older woman squinted at her like she was trying to make out a math equation mid-seizure. The two girls looked at each other and burst out laughing like they'd just heard the best joke of their lives.
"The moons!" one of them gasped between giggles. "She's faking madness now!"
"Nice one, brat," the other said, wiping tears from her eyes. "That's a new level of pathetic."
The older woman didn't laugh. She just eyed Rhea, one brow raised in a sharp, deliberate arch.
Did she think feigning insane would stop them? The look said.
Rhea started, "I'm definitely—"
"Shut up!" the woman snapped. "No food for a week. And if I come back and you haven't cleaned the Alpha's room, you'll get a punishment worse than what you got yesterday."
She spun on her heel.
"Let's go, girls."
The girls sneered, following her out. One of them paused at the door and smirked.
"Traitor's brat," she mouthed, then vanished behind the closing door.
Rhea stared after them.
"…Is that supposed to be funny?" she muttered, wiping blood off her lip.
She exhaled — slowly, painfully — feeling every inch of her cracked ribs protest like rusted hinges grinding together. Her breath hitched halfway through, and she clutched her side, teeth clenched.
"What the hell am I supposed to do now…" she muttered, glaring at the crooked door the three witches had just vanished through. "How the hell am I supposed to know where the Alpha's room even is?"
As if the universe heard her and decided to kick her while she was down — a sharp, white-hot bolt of pain tore through her skull. She staggered, grabbing her head with both hands as a wave of nausea punched her gut.
"Ghh—what…what's going on?!"
Memories. All at once. Rushing in like a damn tsunami with no warning.
A flood of images slammed into her mind, the Omega's memories, chaotic and fragmented cutting into her consciousness.
The starvation.
The beatings.
The nights she slept shivering on a floor soaked in her own blood and tears.
The humiliation — gods, the endless humiliation.
The name-calling.
"Traitor's spawn," they spat.
"Filthy half-blood mongrel."
"Should've died with your parents."
Her only crime?
Her father, a respected warrior, had fallen in love with a woman from the Ironfang Pack before the war with Grimhowl broke out. They'd mated. Built a life. Had a child. Then came the war, and both parents were killed.
And somehow, she was the one left behind to carry the weight of their so-called betrayal. Marked as the enemy from birth. Branded as Omega trash.
And that old sadistic hag from earlier? The alpha bitch in boots? She was the mother of those two demon-spawn daughters. The same three who'd turned tormenting the Omega into a daily ritual.
The rush ended. Just like that.
Rhea let out a ragged breath and dropped to her knees, one hand braced on the floor, the other trembling at her side.
"That was intense," she whispered, blinking back the dizziness. "Like... shove-my-brain-in-a-blender intense."
She sat there for a second, trying to find herself through the exhaustion, her body screaming, her skin buzzing with phantom pain.
"So that's why she was being bullied…" Rhea muttered, finally piecing the truth together. "I hadn't even gotten to that part of the book before I dropped it."
She leaned her head back, stared at the cracked ceiling.
"Great. Amazingly great."
Then a flicker of clarity sparked in her mind, an image. A hallway. Third floor. Far left wing. Heavy black door. "At least…" she mumbled, slowly dragging herself upright, "I know where the Alpha's room is."
*******
Rhea stood in front of the towering black door, a battered mop in one hand and a rusted bucket in the other. A dingy rag hung from her shoulder .
"Finally made it," she breathed out, wincing as even her lungs protested. Dragging her bruised, barely-held-together body up all those stairs had been a slow crawl through hell. Every step had felt like gravity doubled, triple-charged, then kicked her in the ribs for good measure.
She pushed the door open with her shoulder and stepped inside.
Her breath caught.
The Alpha's room was a cavernous expanse dressed in decadence. Every inch of it screamed power, precision, and the kind of wealth that made people kneel without being asked. Everything was black — from the towering bookshelves to the thick velvet drapes, the obsidian tile floors, the gleaming onyx desk, even the sleek leather couches.
"Now that's my kind of place," Rhea whistled, eyebrows rising as she scanned the surroundings. "Someone's living in luxury."
Her eyes roamed over the room with a mixture of envy and awe. "Though…I would've liked a touch of red," she added, dragging her sorry limbs and cleaning utilities inside before kicking the door shut behind her.
She looked around again, eyes narrowing.
"This is a suite, not a room. The way that witch barked 'clean the Alpha's room' like it was some broom closet — not this oversized, brooding, power-flex of a palace."
She sighed, slumping forward slightly.
"Where do I even begin with this?" She muttered, setting the bucket down with a dull clunk. "I haven't even figured out how to clean a normal room yet. Sure, I have her memories, but that doesn't mean I've got her muscle memory. It's like watching a YouTube tutorial with no arms."
She took a few more dragging steps, then halted — something caught her eye.
A tall, floor-length mirror in the corner.
She turned toward it… and froze. Her reflection stared back at her. It wasn't her face. Obviously.
The girl in the mirror was someone else, broken in ways that made Rhea's stomach twist. Hollow cheeks, a split lip crusted with dried blood, purpling bruises on her neck, dark circles under her tired, sunken eyes. Her dark brown hair hung like limp seaweed, oily and uneven. Her collarbone jutted out like blades, her arms rail-thin and trembling.
She wore torn jeans that looked like they had fought, and lost — against a washing machine twenty too many times. On top, she wore a stretched-out, threadbare grey hoodie with holes near the elbow and stains that had long since given up their origin story.
Rhea leaned closer.
She looked like a corpse trying to remember how to be alive.
"Well… a beautiful corpse," she muttered bitterly.
The Omega would've been a stunner — was a stunner, underneath the starvation and the bruises. It made her even angrier somehow. That someone had let her get to this point. That no one had cared.
Just then, something in the mirror caught her attention.
Behind her — reflected on a sleek black table, sat a plate with three perfect apples. Bright. Shiny. Red like sin. My favorite color.
Her stomach let out a monstrous growl.
She turned slowly. "Well, well… look who's about to help herself to some forbidden fruit."
She limped over, body lurching with every step, and grabbed one of the apples. It was cold and heavy in her hand. Without a second thought, she bit into it.
A low moan slipped from her mouth as her eyes fluttered shut.
"Hmmm…"
She devoured it like it was her first meal in weeks. Because, for this body, it might as well be. The sweet juice dripped down her chin, and she didn't even care. Her entire being lit up. Her hands moved on autopilot. One apple gone. Two gone. Faster than lightning. Her body didn't just want more — it demanded it.
Whatever punishment was coming for this?
Worth it. She needed to be alive to be punished anyway, right?
Rhea reached for the third apple, already halfway to her mouth, when—
"What do you think you're doing?"