Dead Knot (Forgotten Omegas: Initiation #2)

Prologue The Price Of Breathing

PROLOGUE: THE PRICE OF brEATHING

~JESSICA~

There's something pathetic about knowing the exact moment you'll die.

The rain falls mercilessly, each drop a cold, sharp needle against my broken skin. I can't move. Can't scream. My vocal cords feel shredded, like I've swallowed broken glass. Fitting, since the pavement beneath me is littered with shards of it, digging into my exposed flesh.

How long have I been lying here?

Minutes? Hours?

Time loses meaning when you're waiting to die.

My vision blurs, the world around me distorting through tears and rain. The alley smells of rotting garbage and copper—my blood, pooling beneath me, mixing with dirty rainwater and creating abstract patterns on the concrete.

It's almost beautiful, in a morbid way.

Beautiful like my broken dreams.

Another breath rattles through my chest, sending waves of agony through my ribcage. Definitely broken. Multiple ribs. My lungs strain against them, each inhale a battle I'm losing with increasing speed.

I try to move my legs, but they won't respond. The heaviness isn't just physical pain—it's the crushing weight of comprehension. Understanding what being an Omega truly means in this world.

This was always going to be my fate.

A harsh laugh escapes my lips, the sound transforming into a sob that sends fresh agony through my chest. The tears come faster now, hot against my rain-chilled skin.

"Please," I whisper, though I don't know who I'm begging. There's no one to hear me. No one to care. "Please..."

That's what they wanted, wasn't it? Those Alphas with their hungry eyes and cruel hands. They wanted me to beg, to plead, to submit. And I did. I begged until my voice broke, until the words became meaningless sounds of desperation.

It didn't matter.

Nothing I said or did mattered. Because I was born Omega, and in their eyes, that made me nothing more than a vessel for their desires. Disposable once they'd finished.

The worst part? This shouldn't have happened. This couldn't have happened. Not to me. Not to Jessica Vesper Calavera.

I did everything right.

I followed every rule, observed every restriction placed on unmated Omegas. I had a bodyguard—the best money could buy. I excelled in school, maintained a perfect GPA. I danced until my feet bled, pushing myself beyond every limit to prove I was more than just my biology.

I was going to be the exception. The Omega who broke through barriers, who claimed space at Juilliard, who showed the world that we were more than just broodmares and bedwarmers.

What a cosmic joke.

All those late nights studying, all those early mornings at the barre, all those bruised toes and aching muscles—meaningless. My dreams, my ambitions, my entire identity... reduced to this . Broken and discarded in an alley like garbage after a particularly wild night.

"Is this what I was born for?" The question scrapes past my swollen lips, lost in the sound of the downpour.

My parents had always told me I was special. Different. That my Omega status was a gift, not a curse. That the right Alphas would cherish me, protect me, treasure me like the precious thing I was.

Another lie.

Where are those mythical protectors now? Where is the pack that was supposed to recognize my worth, to shield me from the darkness of the world?

The only Alphas I've known have taken everything: my dignity, my security, my future. They've carved their ownership into my skin with teeth and nails and worse things, leaving wounds that will never fully heal—if I live long enough for them to try.

I won't.

I can feel death approaching, its cold fingers already caressing my soul. The edges of my vision darken, consciousness slipping away in ebbing waves.

And in these final moments, as my life flickers like a candle in a storm, something unexpected ignites within me.

Rage.

Pure, molten rage that burns through the fog of pain and despair. It roars through my veins, setting fire to every cell, every atom of my being.

This— this —is what being an Omega means? To be violated, brutalized, and left to die alone in the rain?

The anger swells, filling the hollow spaces inside me. If I could move, I would scream. I would claw at the sky, tear it open, and demand justice from whatever cruel gods decided this was to be my fate.

"No," I rasp, the word barely audible over the storm. "No."

I refuse to accept this. I refuse to die here, forgotten and un-mourned, another statistic, another "tragic incident" buried on page six of tomorrow's paper.

But my body betrays me, refusing to obey the commands of my fury-fueled mind. My eyelids grow heavier, the darkness encroaching further.

If I die here, nothing changes.

More Omegas will follow my path. More innocent souls will believe the lies, will trust in a system designed to break them. They'll dance and dream and hope, never realizing they're already marked for slaughter.

The thought sends a fresh wave of anger through me, but it's fading, like everything else. My consciousness slips further away, pulled down by the inexorable gravity of my injuries.

As my eyes begin to close, something— someone —appears above me. A silhouette against the stormy sky, rain dripping from their outline.

I blink, struggling to focus. For a moment, I think it's death itself, come to claim me at last.

But then I see them—eyes so blue they cut through the darkness, through the rain, through my fading consciousness. They bore into mine with an intensity that stops my failing heart for one suspended moment.

Those eyes... they're not gentle or kind. They don't offer comfort or peace. They burn with something I recognize, something that mirrors the fire in my own soul.

Vengeance.

In those vivid blue depths, I see a promise. Not of salvation—no, it's far too late for that—but of retribution. Of consequences. Of a reckoning that will shake the foundations of this cruel, unjust world.

I want to reach for them, to grasp this impossible lifeline, but my body is beyond my control now. My vision tunnels, those blue eyes becoming the last pinpricks of light in an encroaching void.

As consciousness finally slips away, one last thought burns through my mind:

If this is death, I won't go peacefully into whatever afterlife awaits. I'll drag every Alpha who touched me down to hell. I'll make a deal with the devil himself if it means watching them burn.

And if, by some miracle, this isn't my end—if those blue eyes promise something other than a gentle passage to oblivion—then God help anyone who stands in my way.

Because the Jessica who entered this alley—the naive, hopeful girl who believed in rules and dreams and promises—she's already dead.

Whatever rises from this broken body will be something new.

Something forged in pain and tempered by rage.

Something that will make them all pay.