The Omega Who Rose from the Ashes: The Alpha's Regret

"The day she ’claimed’ me," he said, his voice dropping with the weight of the memory, "we were nine years old. The stirring of my wolf was just beginning, a restless thing I barely understood at that age. We were playing hide and seek in the woods, the kind of careless game children play before they understand what they truly are. As my senses would sometimes sharpen whenever my wolf’s presence drew closer to the surface, I tracked Claire without even trying. My heart raced at the thought of being alone with her, since she was always surrounded by friends, always just out of reach. I found her further away than we were allowed to go, tucked into a part of the woods that felt forbidden and thrilling."

He paused, his eyes finding mine again, searching for something I couldn’t name. "I snuck up on her and tackled her to the ground. My wolf was closer to the surface than he had ever been whenever I was with her, as if some part of him recognized what I couldn’t. She fought me, kicking and twisting, but I was bigger, and she ended up beneath me on the forest floor. I pinned her hands as she tried to claw at me, which I found so incredibly cute, even as she glared at me like she wanted to set me on fire. I leaned in to smell her hair, something I had wanted to do since that first day at the festival, years before I understood why. I buried my nose in her loose curls, our rolling around having freed them from their ribbon. I felt her heartbeat pick up under me; mine did too, at the thought of finally being so close to her. I closed my eyes, her scent making the connection to my wolf stronger than it had ever been, and for the first time, I gave my beast the chance to come to the surface."

"It was at this moment," he shared, and a blush, an actual, genuine blush, crept up his face and neck, making my jaw drop open. He looked like he was talking about his first crush, and if what he was saying was true, he was. "This is when she raised her head and bit me. Right here." He touched the scar again, his fingers lingering as though the memory still burned there. "I felt my whole body tingle and get hot, a mix of pain and what I now know to be pleasure coursing through me. I smelled my own blood, and that jerked me out of the haze I’d fallen into. When I pulled back, I saw her lips stained with my blood, and I felt... so happy seeing it, so strangely complete. I didn’t know what had just happened, but my wolf fully came to be in that moment, awake in a way he’d never been before. He urged me to bite her back, to complete the bond right then and there, but I was confused, and I didn’t want to hurt her. As I debated with my animal, she huffed, pushed me off, wiped the blood from her face, and left without a word. Thanks to my wolf’s presence, my wound healed quickly, but I’ve carried this mark ever since, a permanent reminder of the girl who changed everything."

I frowned at his words, my mind desperately trying to recall that day, sifting through years of buried memory. My father looked at me, his face begging me to say that M was lying, or at least exaggerating the truth beyond recognition. And then it hit me. A memory, sharp and clear, sliced through the fog of my childhood like a blade. My shocked gasp filled the room, and I pressed a hand to my mouth as if I could stop it from having happened.

I remembered that day. I remembered my anger and frustration that M was always chasing me, always claiming it was because I was so small and so slow, though I never quite believed that excuse. I had no idea his wolf was present, no understanding of what stirred beneath his teasing. All I remembered was how furious I’d been when he tackled me to the ground and dirtied the new dress I’d gotten for my birthday, a dress I had begged my mother for. I remembered how fed up I’d felt at his constant picking and poking, day after day, until something in me finally snapped. Instinct took over, and I went for the throat, some ancient part of me knowing exactly where to strike. I recalled that it was actually another voice in my head at that time, a small, insistent whisper telling me what to do, guiding my mouth to his neck. At first, I had recoiled, knowing full well that even in play-fighting, as pups, we were always taught to never bite anyone on the neck, as it would carry consequences far beyond a scolding. But the urge had been too strong to resist. My hands trembled as I raised them to my lips, my face going pale, my stomach roiling with the implication of his words settling over me like a shroud. I had claimed him when we were children. The thought alone made the room spin.

M continued, his voice softer now, almost confessional, as though he were finally setting down a burden he’d carried too long. "I thought the scar would fade, but it didn’t. I hid it, not wanting my parents to know, and for some reason, not wanting Claire to get into trouble for breaking the rules, even after everything. But one day, I did ask my father what would happen if a girl bit a boy on his neck. He said that either she was defending herself, attacking him, or... marking him. I didn’t want to believe it, refused to for years, but as I got older, I found all other females annoying and repulsive, no matter how hard I tried to feel otherwise. One time, a girl kissed me at a party, and I felt sick for three days afterward, guilty as well, as if I’d betrayed something sacred. My wolf kept asking for his mate, wanting to claim her before anyone else did, growing more insistent with each passing year, but I didn’t know what to do or what to say to Claire, so I soothed my wolf by always finding small ways to touch her. Her hair, her skin, anything within reach. I know I was a jerk, but I just needed to touch her, needed it like breathing."

He took a deep breath, and the room fell so quiet I could hear it shudder out of him.

"That night, when I took her, it was because my wolf had finally had enough. We ran into each other at the market two days before, and it took every ounce of my control not to shift right there as my wolf scented that she was going into heat within days. The thought drove him mad, especially with another male circling what he considered his. He took control of me that night, but I will admit that I didn’t fight him, not even for a moment. I was actually glad of his plan, relieved even. So we, both of us together, took her and brought her back to the woods, to the house I’d built at the very spot where she’d marked me all those years ago. I admit that in my haste and excitement, it being my first time, I might have been a bit rough, but I had no intention of hurting her, never that. I’d hoped that after my wolf and her heat had calmed, we could finally talk, could sort out what we were to each other, but she left while I was out hunting, and I came back to an empty house and a silence I’ll never forget."

He turned to face the council, his expression earnest, his voice ringing with conviction that seemed to fill every corner of the room. "So, members of the Council, I simply ask that Claire take responsibility for claiming me. Because of that bite, I cannot be with anyone else but her, my body and wolf both refuse it. And having her mate with another male would drive me mad, and likely my wolf as well, past any reason or recovery. Plus," he added, his eyes flashing with primal triumph, "my wolf made sure that she’s carrying my child."

The room erupted. The council members all spoke at once, their faces a mixture of shock and dawning realization. The crowd dissolved into a chaos of shouts and gasps, voices overlapping until they became a single roar. My father held my mother, who looked like she might faint at any second. T stood frozen, his face a mask of disbelief and fury warring for dominance. And me? I couldn’t breathe. The world tilted on its axis, the faces blurring into a swirl of color and noise that made no sense. M’s words echoed in my head, drowning out everything else, repeating over and over like a curse.

I claimed him.

The head elder slammed his gavel down, the sound cracking through the chaos like a whip. "Order! We will have order!" he boomed, his voice silencing the room instantly. He looked down at M, then at me, his ancient eyes weighing my fate as though he could see straight through to my soul. "Claire," he said, his voice grave. "Is what he says true? Did you bite him when you were children?"

All eyes turned to me, heavy and unbearable. My throat had gone dry, my tongue thick and useless in my mouth. I looked at T, and the hope and love I saw in his eyes shattered something inside me I hadn’t known was still whole. I looked at my parents, and their fear for me was a tangible thing, a weight pressing down on all three of us. I looked at M, and I saw the raw, desperate hope of a male who had waited a lifetime for his mate, who had built a house in the woods and carried a scar for years, all for this moment. I took a shaky breath, the words catching painfully in my throat before I finally forced them out.

"I... I remember the day," I whispered, my voice barely audible even to my own ears. "I remember being angry. I remember... biting him. But I didn’t know... I didn’t understand what it meant."

A collective sigh seemed to move through the room like a wave. The elder nodded slowly, his expression thoughtful, contemplative. "Intent is not always a factor in a claiming, especially one done by a child’s instinct," he mused, more to himself than to anyone else, stroking his chin. He looked at M, then back at me, his gaze heavy with implication. "This complicates matters greatly."

He raised his gavel again, and the entire room held its breath as one. "We will recess for one hour to consider this new testimony. We will reconvene to render our verdict."

The gavel fell, and the sound was the final, damning note of my life being torn apart, piece by piece, in front of everyone I had ever known.

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