When The Alpha Demanded My Silence

The Alpha Queen, heavy with her pregnancy, found the noise of pups in the courtyard too much to bear. She decided to assign us motherless Omegas to various mistresses to be looked after. I was placed under Kaeli Payne’s care.

Kaeli didn’t take to me at first. She had no pups of her own and wasn’t fond of tending to others’ children. But as time passed, she softened toward me, perhaps because I was quiet and never caused trouble. She often embroidered, and I would sit silently beside her, watching her work. I think she grew used to having a mute pup nearby, someone who wouldn’t disrupt her solitude. Eventually, she began to talk to me.

She told me she had no family name. In her pack, only the high-ranking wolves—alphas, betas, and gammas—had surnames. She was just a common Omega, born to a farmer’s family. Her parents had called her “Eldest Girl.” It wasn’t until Gael Foster, the Alpha, noticed her that she was given a name. He said she resembled a famous beauty and called her Kaeli, after a legendary figure. From then on, she was known as Kaeli Payne.

Her words made me think of my own mother. I never knew her name either. Outside the pack, I called her “Mother,” but within the walls of the packhouse, they made me call her “Little Mother.” Yet, since I became mute, I never spoke that title aloud. Gael Foster—would he even remember her face now, let alone her name?

Kaeli told me that Gael had spent a small fortune to bring her into the pack, just as he had for Regina Stephens, another Omega. But when Kaeli entered the pack, her family had only asked for a single cow in exchange. A cart had carried her away, and she thought her life would change. Gael had called her beautiful, but his interest faded after a couple of years. Now, he barely remembered her.

She laughed bitterly. “What does it matter if a woman is valued highly?” she said. “Regina was worth more, wasn’t she? A prized Omega, young and beautiful. Yet, in the end, she was just a bargaining chip, traded away to strengthen Gael’s alliances. She was nothing but a pawn.”

Kaeli continued, her voice edged with bitterness. “And me? I was only worth a cow, but at least I wasn’t treated like a commodity. I wasn’t bought and sold like an object.”

I listened quietly, my thoughts swirling. No matter the price, whether a fortune or a cow, we were all just pawns in the Alpha’s game. In the end, every Omega was a victim of the pack’s rigid hierarchy.