Omegas weren't supposed to dream of Alphas but I let myself do just that. Just this once in my life.
I kept telling myself it was okay, while standing under the bright lights of the Council Hall. My hands shook so badly I had to hide them in the folds of my dress. The air smelled like metal and glass and the faint spice of power that only Alphas carried.
Kael Drayden stood in the middle of the stage, tall and perfect, flanked by his father and the other council heads, immaculate in his silver uniform. He looked untouchable, carved out of discipline and duty. His silver badge caught the light, and the whole room seemed to shine around him.
He looked like a dream. My dream.
I'd spent years believing that maybe, just maybe, I could stand beside him, not as someone lesser, but as someone he chose. We'd talked once in the labs, about a world where rank didn't decide worth. He'd smiled at my clumsy formulas and said, You'll change the world one day, Lira.
I believed him. I believed in him.
Above him was a hundred tiers of seating gleamed like cold stars, Alphas in white, Betas in gray, and a single cluster of Omegas far below, watching me as if I was a walking legend.
The herald's voice boomed through the dome. "Candidate Lira Vance, you have been identified as the genetic match to Council Heir Kael Drayden. Step forward for confirmation."
My body moved, every step echoing against the marble floors. My pulse was a drum in my ears, my legs shaking. I told myself this was it, the moment everything changed.
The mark on my wrist glowed faintly, the bond light everyone said was proof of fate. People whispered as I climbed the stairs. An Omega had never been matched with a Drayden before.
When I reached the dais, I waited for him to take my hand but he didn't even spare me a glance.
"Kael?" My voice came out small, almost a whisper.
He turned, looking at me like I was a stranger who had wandered into the wrong story. "There has been an error," he said. His tone was calm, practiced, already prepared.
My heart stuttered. "An error?"
He looked right at me, eyes flat as stone. "I reject the pairing."
The room gasped. Murmurs rose from every tier above us. Someone in the Omega gallery gasped. My knees went weak, but I stayed standing because falling would mean giving them what they wanted, a spectacle.
My body felt cold, my thoughts too loud.
I forced a breath. "You can't."
His jaw tightened. "You are unfit to stand beside the Drayden line. The Council will not recognize this bond."
For a heartbeat I thought I'd misheard him. Then the lights on my wrist flickered. He reached forward, pressed the council's deactivation seal against my skin, and the mark vanished just like that.
It felt like he'd reached into my chest and torn my heart out.
I wanted to speak, to ask why, but the words stuck in my throat. My knees trembled. Someone shouted for guards as my vision blurred.
Don't fall. Don't cry. Don't let them see.
Two guards moved closer, ready to hold me up. I took a step back, not letting them touch me. I forced myself to stand straight even though my insides were shaking.
Kael's expression didn't change. I could see Lord Drayden watching from the high seats, his approval cold and certain.
So that was it. He had chosen his father's pride over me.
My voice came out small. "Why, Kael?"
He looked at me for a long second. Something flickered in his eyes, fear, guilt, something human, but then it was gone. "Leave with dignity, Lira. That's all you have left."
Dignity.
The word almost broke me.
I lifted my chin so no one could see the tears in my eyes. My voice shook, but I made sure he heard every word. "One day, Kael Drayden," I said, "One day you'll surely kneel and beg for my forgiveness."
"Guards!! Get this woman out of here." A councilor barked the order.
The guards stepped forward, but I shoved them off me and I walked down the stairs myself. My steps were slow and steady, even though my heart was screaming. People whispered. Some pitied me. Most didn't care.
When I finally reached the doors, I could breathe again. The night air hit my face, cold, sharp and grounding me into the fact that this was real. I'd been rejected. I walked until the lights and voices disappeared, until only the sound of my footsteps filled the street.
I looked down at my wrist where the mark had been. The skin was bare, the faint outline already fading.
He'd erased me.
After everything the council made me go through for him, he erased me. Just like that.
For a long time, I just stood there, trying to feel nothing. But the silence hurt worse than any noise. My chest ached, completely hollow. I pressed a hand against it, afraid something inside me might fall apart completely.
He'd called me weak.
He'd said I wasn't worthy.
Maybe he was right. Maybe I wasn't strong enough. Not yet.
But someday I would be.
I wiped the tears from my face and kept walking, away from the council hall, away from everything I'd been. Each step felt harder, but I didn't stop.
If I ever saw Kael Drayden again, I wouldn't be the girl he rejected.
He'd look at me and remember what he destroyed. If I couldn't belong in their world, I'd make a new one.
And when that day came, Kael Drayden would see exactly what an "unworthy" Omega could do.