The Omega's Rise to Power

Chapter 1

Lena

“Look at her,” a voice sneers, thick with arrogance. “Still pretending she belongs here.”

My fork freezes halfway to my mouth. I don’t have to look up. I know that voice. Kade. It drips with the entitlement of an Alpha heir who has never been told no in his entire life. The clatter of his friends’ trays hitting my table is like a gunshot in the noisy mess hall. Three of them. Of course. He never travels without an audience.

“What’s the matter, Omega?” Kade asks, leaning down so his hot breath ghosts across my ear. “Lose your appetite?”

I keep my eyes locked on the cracked grain of the wooden table. I can feel hundreds of pairs of eyes on me now. The usual lunchtime roar has faded to a low murmur. A show is starting, and I’m the main attraction.

“Leave her alone, Kade,” someone says from a few tables over. It’s Finn, his voice a low warning. A friend.

Kade laughs, a short, barking sound. “Stay out of this, archer. This is pack business.” He straightens up and circles the table, his heavy boots thudding against the stone floor. “See, the thing is, we all paid a lot to be here. Our families sponsor this academy. But you,” he stops right in front of me, “you’re a charity case. A stray they took in after your pathetic parents got themselves killed.”

The words hit like stones. My hands clench into fists under the table, my knuckles white. He’s talking about the border skirmish. The one everyone calls a heroic sacrifice when they’re making speeches but a foolish mistake in whispers. My parents, both respected warriors, gone in an instant. Leaving me to be passed around until Kade’s pack, the pack my parents served, grudgingly took responsibility for me. They sent me here to Bloodfang Battle Academy to keep up appearances.

“They were warriors,” I say, my voice barely audible.

“They were fools,” Kade counters, his voice loud enough for the entire hall to hear. “And now their whelp eats our food, sleeps under our roof, and takes up a spot a real wolf could use. You don’t belong in a battle academy. You belong in a kitchen.”

His friends snicker. A wave of heat floods my face. Shame. Hot, bitter, and suffocating. I want to scream. I want to launch myself across the table and claw his smug face. But I can’t. I’m an omega. He’s the future Alpha of the pack that holds my life in its hands. Any retaliation would be suicide.

So I do what I always do. I endure. I push my chair back, my movements stiff. “Excuse me.”

I try to walk past him, keeping my head down, my only goal the exit. He shifts his weight, and I feel his leg hook behind mine before I see it. My balance is gone. For a split second, I’m airborne, and then the world is a chaotic mess of falling, the sickening clatter of my tray hitting the floor, and the wet slap of lukewarm stew spreading across my shirt and the stone beneath me.

Laughter erupts. It’s a tidal wave of sound, washing over me, drowning me. I’m on my hands and knees, covered in slop, and they’re all laughing.

“Oh, how clumsy,” Kade says, his voice laced with false sympathy. “Maybe an omega’s feet aren’t made for walking. Just for staying put.”

I look up, just for a second. His face is triumphant, a cruel smile playing on his lips as he looks down on me. I see Elara and Sam rushing toward me, their faces a mixture of fury and concern. But I shake my head slightly, a tiny motion they’re the only ones close enough to see. Don’t. It will only make it worse for all of us.

I push myself up, my borrowed training uniform stained and reeking. I don’t wipe it off. I want to remember this feeling. The grit of the floor on my palms, the smell of stale stew, the sound of their laughter burning into my memory. Without a word, I turn and walk out of the mess hall, their jeers following me like a pack of hounds.

Later, hours after the academy has fallen silent, I slip out of my dorm room. The moon is a sliver in the sky, casting long, skeletal shadows across the grounds. My wrist aches from the fall, and a deep bruise is blooming on my hip, but the physical pain is nothing. It’s a dull echo of the rage that burns in my gut.

I make my way to the forgotten training ground behind the armory. No one comes here. The grass is overgrown, and the wooden dummies are splintered and rotting. It’s perfect.

From beneath a loose flagstone, I pull out my only real inheritance. Not a title, not a fortune, just a leather-bound journal. The cover is worn smooth, the pages filled with my father’s elegant, precise handwriting. It’s not a diary. It’s a combat manual. His life’s work.

I open it to a dog-eared page. ‘Form Seven: The Serpent’s Strike.’ The drawings show a smaller fighter using an opponent’s momentum to create an opening, a series of quick, precise strikes aimed at joints and nerves. It was designed for fighting bigger, stronger opponents. It was designed for someone like me.

I take a deep breath, the cool night air clearing my head. I let Kade’s taunts fade. I let the laughter die away. They don’t matter here. Here, I am not a charity case. I am not a victim.

My feet find their position in the damp grass. My hands rise, mimicking the faded ink drawings. The first movement is stiff, clumsy. The second is better. By the tenth, it starts to feel natural. My body twists and flows, my hands slicing through the empty air. I practice the footwork, the blocks, the counters. Sweat beads on my forehead, plastering strands of hair to my skin.

They think I am weak. They see an omega and expect me to break. They push and they prod, waiting for me to shatter into a million pieces. Let them. Let them see whatever they want to see. But out here, in the dark, where no one is watching, I am forging myself into something else. Not just a survivor. A weapon. And one day, they will not be laughing.

Chapter 2

Ronan

The mess hall stinks of boiled vegetables and unearned confidence. I stand by the far wall, a pillar of shadow they all pretend not to see. It’s a useful trick.

From here, I see everything. The future of our people. A collection of pampered brats who think strength is measured in the volume of their laughter. They swing their swords like clumsy butchers and call it combat. They posture and preen, convinced their bloodlines are a substitute for skill. They are a disappointment.

My eyes land on Kade, the Alpha heir. He holds court at the center table, a king of fools. He is strong, I’ll grant him that. His form has power. But his mind is a blunt instrument. He telegraphs every move, not just in the sparring ring, but here. Now.

He circles the small omega girl. Lena. I remember her file. Orphaned. Parents were Alphas, good soldiers. Died on the northern border. Now their daughter is a pack charity case, a target for the insecure.

Kade needs this. The audience. The public humiliation of someone who cannot fight back. It’s a display not of dominance, but of profound weakness. A true Alpha solidifies his power through respect, not fear. Kade only knows how to inspire the latter.

He hooks his leg behind hers. She falls. The stew spatters. The laughter is a roar. It’s pathetic. A waste of my time. I turn and leave before anyone notices I was there at all.

Hours later, the moon hangs thin and sharp in the sky. I walk the perimeter, the silence a welcome relief. My boots make no sound on the damp earth. It is a discipline I learned long ago, one these children with their heavy, stomping feet will never master.

A sound cuts through the quiet. A soft scuff. A sharp exhale of breath. It comes from the old training grounds behind the armory. No one uses that place. It is a relic, forgotten.

My instincts take over. I move toward the sound, a ghost in the long shadows cast by the moon. I stay low, using the crumbling wall of the armory for cover. I peer through a gap in the stones.

It’s her. The omega. Lena.

She is not crying. She is not licking her wounds. She is training.

Her stance is wrong. Her balance is off. But there is a fire in her movements that catches my attention. She moves through a sequence, her hands slicing the air. It’s sloppy, but it’s determined.

She pushes herself, repeating the motions again and again. Sweat slicks her hair to her temples. Her knuckles are scraped raw from a fall I must have missed. She gets up. She starts over.

Then she shifts into a new form, and I freeze. My breath catches in my throat. I know that sequence. I have not seen it in fifteen years. Not since Elias drew it for me in the dirt of a battlefield, laughing about how it could topple a brute twice his size.

Form Seven: The Serpent’s Strike.

It’s from his journal. The personal combat manual of one of the finest tactical minds our people had ever produced. A man who fell on the northern border. Her father.

I watch her, really watch her now. I see past the omega designation. I see past the public victim. I see the daughter of a legendary warrior, trying to honor his memory in secret with nothing but his words on a page.

She is not just practicing. She is studying. Her mind is working, analyzing the angles, the leverage. It is the kind of intelligence that cannot be taught, only honed.

The girl I saw humiliated in the mess hall is a mask. A carefully constructed shield. The real Lena is out here, in the dark, forging herself into a weapon with nothing but inherited ink and impossible will.

Most of the students in this academy are loud, hollow drums. They beat and bang, signifying nothing.

But this one. This quiet, broken omega.

She is a razor blade in the dark.

A flicker of something I have not felt in a long, long time sparks in my chest. Interest.

I will watch her.

Chapter 3

Lena

“Observe,” the instructor’s voice booms across the packed training arena. “Alpha Kade demonstrates a classic takedown against a lighter opponent. Note the use of leverage.”

I stand on the sidelines, trying to make myself small. My classmates press in on all sides, their scents a cloying mix of sweat and anticipation. On the mat, Kade circles a younger beta who looks terrified. This isn’t a lesson. It’s a performance.

“A good Alpha knows how to control the entire field of battle,” Kade says, his voice loud enough for all of us to hear. He’s not even looking at his sparring partner. His eyes are scanning the crowd, a predator looking for a new toy.

His gaze lands on me.

A cold knot tightens in my stomach. He gives his opponent a dismissive shove, sending the beta stumbling backward.

“Sometimes,” Kade continues, a cruel smirk playing on his lips, “distractions on the periphery must be… neutralized.”

He moves. It’s not a lunge toward his opponent. It’s a wide, theatrical leg sweep that extends far beyond the sparring mat. It moves with impossible speed, aimed not at the beta, but at me.

My mind screams to move, but my body is frozen. His boot connects with my ankles. The world tilts sideways. A sharp crack echoes in my ears as my wrist hits the stone floor, my entire body weight following it down.

A white-hot lance of pain shoots up my arm. The air is knocked from my lungs in a pained gasp.

Laughter. It’s a familiar chorus, led by Kade’s friends. It washes over me, a second wave of pain that is somehow worse than the first.

“Kade, watch your spacing,” the instructor says, his tone holding all the urgency of a man ordering lunch. “Careless.”

Kade just shrugs, offering me a look of feigned innocence. “My apologies. Training accidents happen.”

He turns back to his bewildered opponent and ends the match in a single, brutal move. No one is watching the beta. They are all watching me, the omega who can’t even stand on the sidelines without causing a problem.

Elara and Finn are at my side in an instant.

“Let me see that,” Elara says, her healer’s voice soft but firm as she gently cradles my arm. I bite back a whimper as her fingers probe the swelling joint.

“Accident my ass,” Finn spits, his eyes narrowed into slits, fixed on Kade’s retreating back. “I should put an arrow through his kneecap.”

“Don’t,” I whisper, my voice hoarse. “It’s not worth it.”

Sam joins us, pushing his spectacles up his nose, his face a mask of cold fury. “There are three academy bylaws he just violated. Section four, paragraph two: intentional endangerment of a non-combatant. Section seven…”

“It doesn’t matter, Sam,” I cut him off, letting Elara help me to my feet. My wrist throbs with every beat of my heart.

They help me back to our dorm. Elara wraps my wrist tightly with a compression bandage that smells of herbs and mint. She works in silence, her lips pressed into a thin line.

“You shouldn’t let him do this to you,” Finn says finally, pacing the small room like a caged wolf.

“What am I supposed to do, Finn?” I ask, the words tasting like ash. “Challenge him? I’m an omega. He’s an Alpha heir.”

“There are other ways to fight,” Sam says quietly, his eyes finding mine. “Not all battles are won with fists.”

I want to believe him. But as I lie in my bunk later, the throbbing in my wrist a constant, miserable reminder of my place here, his words feel hollow.

Sleep refuses to come. The moon is high when I finally slip out, the familiar path to the forgotten training ground calling to me. My father’s journal is a comforting weight in my hand.

Tonight, the pain makes everything harder. My wrapped wrist makes a proper fist impossible. I try to move through a blocking sequence, but a sharp, stabbing pain forces me to stop. I cry out in frustration, kicking one of the rotting dummies.

“Fighting with an injury like that is foolish.”

The voice comes from the deepest shadows near the armory wall. It’s low, gravelly, and it sends a shiver of pure ice down my spine. I freeze, my heart hammering against my ribs.

A figure detaches himself from the darkness. He moves with a liquid grace that is utterly silent. It’s him. Ronan. The reclusive combat instructor. His face is all harsh lines and shadow, his eyes reflecting the pale moonlight like chips of obsidian.

“Your stance is compromised,” he says, his voice flat, devoid of emotion. “You are overcompensating for your wrist, leaving your entire left side exposed. One good push and you’re on the ground.”

I stare at him, speechless. Has he been watching me? How many times?

“Your father’s forms are brilliant,” he continues, taking a slow step closer. “But they require a foundation you do not have. You are copying the words from the page, but you don’t understand the grammar.”

He stops a few feet away. “Continuing down this path will only lead to more injuries. You will break yourself against a wall of your own making.”

“What do you want?” I finally manage to say, my voice tight.

His eyes seem to bore right through me, seeing every secret, every weakness. The air grows heavy, charged with a tension I can’t name.

“You have two choices, omega,” he says, his voice dropping lower still. “You can give up. Accept your place, lick your wounds, and pray that alphas like Kade grow bored of you.”

He lets the silence hang for a moment.

“Or, you can let me train you. Properly. I will tear down everything you think you know and build a warrior from the ground up.”

He looks from me to the darkness surrounding us.

“In secret.”