To ruin an Omega

Chapter 300: Da rules 1

HAZEL

I stared at the body longer than I meant to, like if I stood there long enough the scene might rearrange itself into something less final. The sentinel’s eyes were still open, fixed on the painted ceiling as though he’d found something interesting in the wolves and moons and battles stretched across the plaster. The murals looked grand from a distance, heroic even, but up close they were cracked and yellowing in places. I noticed that now because I needed something else to look at. Anything but the way his neck bent wrong against the marble.

Wenzel’s footsteps had faded minutes ago. He had disappeared down a corridor without a backward glance, leaving me in the echo of what he’d done as if this were routine, as if I were expected to gather myself and drift off like I’d just witnessed a heated conversation instead of a man dying in front of me. My feet refused the idea. They stayed rooted to the floor while my eyes kept slipping back to the body despite every effort to focus elsewhere.

Two minutes earlier the sentinel had been alive. He had been breathing. He had been listening. I had been asking questions that Wenzel called smart, and now a man was dead because he’d been close enough to hear them. The worst part was the tangle of feelings sitting in my chest, the way guilt pressed against something colder and more complicated. If I had planned it, if I had decided someone needed to die, I could have sorted the feeling into a neat little box and locked it away. But this had not been my choice, and the lack of control made everything messier.

The gallery had gone quiet in a way that felt unnatural. My breathing sounded too loud in the space, each inhale catching halfway up my throat like it didn’t trust the air here. My heartbeat thudded in my ears with a stubborn insistence that made me want to press my palms against my ribs and hold it still.

I told myself to move. Staying meant being found. Staying meant questions I didn’t want to answer, suspicions I did not have the strength to carry in this new place. Even knowing that, I lingered another second, maybe two, until the thought of those empty eyes pulled at me again and finally managed to shove me into motion.

I stepped away without looking back. The decision felt fragile, like a thread that might snap if I tested it by turning my head. I picked up my pace as the gallery stretched ahead of me, longer than I remembered, lined with portraits of healers whose painted smiles followed my progress with unsettling patience. Their hands, captured mid-gesture in oils and varnish, looked capable and gentle. I wondered what they could have done with a broken neck, whether the past held miracles the present had forgotten, whether anyone here had ever tried to save someone that far gone.

By the time I reached the doorway my hand was gripping the frame hard enough to sting. My fingers had gone pale, the skin stretched tight over bone. I forced them to loosen and kept walking, leaving the gallery behind with the sense that the silence would fold back over the space as soon as I was gone.

The hallway outside was empty, which felt like a small mercy. No sentinels stood watch. No Omegas lingered with curious eyes. No one waited to ask why I looked like I had stepped out of a nightmare. The absence should have comforted me, yet it left a hollow feeling that spread through my chest and settled in my stomach.

I had seen worse than a ghost. I had seen what Wenzel Asker did to people who happened to stand in the wrong place at the wrong time. The memory churned inside me, sour and heavy, and I pressed a hand to my stomach as though I could keep it from spilling over.

The word fleshcraft echoed through my thoughts. It tugged at the edges of memory without offering clarity, like a name half remembered or a song I could not place. I turned it over again and again, searching for meaning that refused to surface.

When I rounded the corner and stopped short, the reason became clear. Three Omegas approached in a quiet line, their steps measured and unhurried. A sentinel followed behind them carrying a large black bag slung over one shoulder, the kind meant for transporting heavy canvas. The lie lasted only a fraction of a second before reality settled into place. I knew exactly what it was for.

They saw me. None of them reacted. No surprise flickered across their faces. No concern creased their brows. They moved with the calm certainty of people who already knew what waited down the hall.

Of course they knew.

The sentinel dipped his head in a brief nod as they passed, a polite gesture that made the moment feel even more surreal. The Omegas did not acknowledge me at all. Their blank expressions stayed fixed ahead as they continued toward the gallery with the bag swaying gently at the sentinel’s side.

I stood there long after they disappeared around the corner, listening to the rhythm of their footsteps fade until the hallway swallowed the sound entirely. I kept waiting for something, some delayed reaction or distant shout, but nothing came. The silence returned, heavier than before.

How often did this happen? The question slipped into my thoughts without invitation. How many bodies had been carried through these corridors, zipped into black bags and erased from memory before the sun set? The estate suddenly felt older, darker, steeped in a history I had never wanted to imagine.

My feet began moving again without direction. I only knew I needed to be somewhere else by the time those Omegas returned, somewhere that did not place me at the edge of a freshly scrubbed crime scene.

I turned another corner too quickly and nearly collided with someone heading the opposite way. The apology rose to my lips on instinct, the words forming before I had time to think.

“Sorry, I—”

They died the moment I looked up. Green eyes met mine, the same sharp shade as Wenzel’s but younger and rimmed red as if sleep had been a stranger for days. He studied me with open disdain, his gaze traveling from my face down to my shoes and back again with slow, deliberate judgment.

His lip curled. “Are you looking me in the eye, Omega?”

The accusation landed like a slap, sharp and unnecessary. For a split second the urge to drop my gaze tugged at new instincts I knew I would spent weeks undoing. I straightened instead, lifting my chin because surrender felt repulsive. Not after everything I had been through.

“I’m Luna Hazel Hughes of Silvercrest,” I said, the title feeling unfamiliar in my mouth, like borrowed clothing that had not yet molded to my shape. “You must be an Asker.”

His expression shifted the longer he looked at me. Recognition came first, quick and sharp, and then something softer settled in behind it. Amusement maybe, or pity. I could not decide which bothered me more.

“Oh.” He dragged the word out as if he had all the time in the world. “The bride to be.”

He stepped closer without asking, and the smell hit me before anything else did. Pot and alcohol, thick and stale, clinging to the fabric of his nice clothes. It was an odd combination for expensive tailoring to be soaked in carelessness.

“You’re actually not bad looking,” he said, tilting his head while he studied me like I was an item displayed behind glass. “If I were you, I’d run now. This isn’t the family you want to be trapped with.”

I did not move. I refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing how the words landed, even though they lodged somewhere deep and uncomfortable.

His smile never touched his eyes. “But I heard you sort of have no choice. It’s been a while since I heard about a born Luna getting demoted. How does it feel?”

The disgust that crossed my face must have slipped out before I could stop it, because his smile stretched wider, pleased with itself.

I stepped around him, keeping my voice even. “Excuse me.”

“I apologize if it sounds rude.” His voice followed me down the hall like a stray thread I could not shake. “I was making small talk. But outcast to outcast, do follow the rules or you’ll quickly fall out of favor.”

I stopped before I meant to. The words snagged on something inside me and tugged hard enough to pull me back around.

“What rules?”