Chapter one

Merliya pov

The mop bucket hit my face before I saw it coming.

Cold, filthy water drenched me. I gasped, choking on soap and grime, as laughter rang down the servants' hallway.

"Oops." Sasha stood over me, the empty bucket swinging from her hand. "My mistake."

I stayed on my knees, water dripping from my auburn curls. Three days as an Omega, and I'd already learned the only rule that mattered. Don't fight back. Fighting back made it worse.

"What's wrong, murderer?" Ella kicked my scrub brush across the floor. "Cat got your tongue?"

Murderer. That was my name now.

"She won't even defend herself," a third girl sneered. "Pathetic."

I reached for the brush with shaking hands. Sasha's boot came down on my fingers.

Pain shot up my arm. I bit back a scream as she ground her heel in, smiling like she was enjoying every second.

"I didn't do it," I whispered. It was all I ever said. It never helped.

"Nobody cares what you did or didn't do." She pressed harder, and stars burst behind my eyes. "You're an Omega. You exist to be stepped on."

Finally she lifted her foot. I fell forward onto my raw palms.

"Clean it up. If I see one spot when I come back, you'll regret it."

They left, their laughter fading. I sat in the puddle of dirty water, cradling my throbbing hand.

This was my life now. Three days ago I'd had a family. Now they were ash, and the whole pack believed I was the one who'd struck the match. The Council called it mercy, letting me live as an Omega instead of exiling me to die in the wild. It didn't feel like mercy. It felt like a slower way to bleed out.

I pushed myself up and got back to work. The marble floors of Alpha Dayn's estate wouldn't scrub themselves. And the truth wouldn't clear itself either. I just had to survive long enough to find it.

By evening every muscle in my body screamed. Three hallways. Two loads of linen. Silver polished until my hands cramped.

I was limping toward my room when voices stopped me.

"—ceremony's tonight," a guard said. "All security in place?"

"Yes, sir. The Alpha's mating ceremony proceeds as planned."

My heart stuttered. The mating ceremony. Tonight.

Under the full moon, every unmated wolf of age would gather in the ballroom, and the Goddess would draw fated mates together. It was supposed to be the most beautiful night of a wolf's life.

"What about the Omega?" one guard asked. "The redhead?"

The other laughed. "You think the Goddess wastes a mate on a family killer? She'll die alone. Just like she deserves."

Their laughter chased me all the way to my room, a closet barely bigger than the mattress inside it. I sank down and finally let the tears come, shaking, my hand pressed over my mouth so no one would hear.

When the worst of it passed, I threw my brush across the room out of pure helpless anger. It struck the wardrobe, and the door swung open. Something soft slid off the shelf and pooled on the floor.

Crimson satin.

The only beautiful thing I owned. The Luna had given it to me months ago, back when my family was alive and my worst problem was a sister who hated me. ‘Take it,’ she'd said, smiling. ‘The color's too young for me.’ I'd never had a reason to wear it. I'd never imagined a life where I would.

I started to fold it back onto the shelf. Then something stubborn flickered in my chest. The same stubborn thing that had kept me breathing through three days of boots and buckets.

The ceremony was a masked ball. No one removed their mask until the moon peaked.

I could slip in. Stay in the shadows. Just once, just for an hour, see for myself whether the Goddess had truly turned her face from me.

It was insane. If anyone recognized me, they'd kill me.

I put the dress on anyway.

It fit like it had been made for me. I let my hair fall loose in dark red waves and found a black feathered mask abandoned in the courtyard. In the cracked mirror, a stranger looked back. Beautiful and wanted.

It was a lie, tonight, I was going to let myself believe it.