Chapter 7
553words
That slap—like lightning tearing through darkness—hadn't just challenged Damian's dignity. It had shattered the cage of "forbearance" she'd built around herself for two years.
Freedom tasted sweeter than she'd ever imagined.
But Damian's parting shot had lodged like a poisoned needle in her memory, drawing forth old blood she'd thought long dried.
The Forsaken Lands.
The source of all her nightmares.
With the floodgates of memory forced open, filthy, humiliating images flooded in—all blood and dirt and shame.
Genevieve Dracott was born into an ancient, pure-blooded werewolf noble family. Her sister Seraphina had shown extraordinary Omega talent from birth—the family's precious pearl. But Genevieve's pheromone glands showed no signs of differentiation until she was ten.
In a world that worshipped bloodline power, a child without secondary sex characteristics was nothing but a "useless Beta"—a stain on the family name.
On a cold, rainy night, Lord Dracott ordered his servants to take her away. They abandoned her in the lawless Forsaken Lands—dumping ground for criminals and outcasts—like yesterday's trash.
There, she was "adopted" by an elderly, perpetually drunk Hyena-man who survived by scavenging. It wasn't adoption—he simply gained a tool to help him steal food from others.
She learned to fight wild dogs for moldy bread. Learned to scavenge through garbage for anything edible. Learned to curl into corners like a beaten animal when the Hyena-man drank himself into a rage. Learned to disappear.
For five years, survival was her only religion. Dignity and decency were luxuries she couldn't afford.
At fifteen, a family medical team found her. Their cold instruments detected that her dormant gland—silent for years—actually had Omega potential.
An Omega with Dracott blood, even one raised in the wastelands, had immense value for a political marriage.
So they "recovered" her.
They brought her back to their splendid mansion—colder than any wasteland. No welcoming embrace awaited her. Only her father's appraising gaze, examining her like merchandise, and her mother's disgust barely hidden behind an expensive lace handkerchief.
They gave her a magnificent room but "forgot" to provide clothes that fit. Seraphina—now high society's most dazzling "perfect Omega"—taught her to use silverware with a plastic smile, like someone training a feral animal.
They despised her untamable wildness while greedily calculating her value as an Omega.
That's when Genevieve understood—she hadn't come home. She'd merely been transferred from one garbage heap to a more glamorous, colder cage.
Damian was right about one thing: no one had taught her to obey an Alpha.
In the Forsaken Lands, she'd only learned to fight, to bite, to survive.
Obedience? What the hell was that?
To showcase their "recovered" Omega commodity to high society, the Dracotts held a grand "welcome banquet."
At the banquet, she wore an ill-fitting gown, paraded around by her mother like a puppet. She heard the whispers: "That's the wild child from the Forsaken Lands." "I heard she can't even use silverware properly." "Hard to believe she and Seraphina are sisters."
Meanwhile, Seraphina sat in the spotlight like a princess, gracefully playing the harp, basking in adoration. One pure and flawless, one wild and untamed—the cruelest possible contrast.
Genevieve kept her head down, silently enduring it all.
Suddenly, a piece of premium roast meat—still steaming—appeared before her lips.
