Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
MAYA
T he only thing worse than getting up before dawn is doing it with a blush hangover.
My head pounds like a war drum as I squint against the morning light filtering through the curtains.
The royal car rolls smoothly over pristine roads, but every tiny bump feels like someone driving a nail into my skull.
Memories from yesterday swim hazily through my mind—the arena, the pink powder dissolving in my lemonade, and what happened after with Ares while Logan fought below.
I press my fingertips to my temples, willing the throbbing to subside. My body feels hollowed out, like someone scooped my insides with a rusty spoon and left me empty.
“Drink,” Logan says, passing me a bottle of water. His voice is carefully measured, betraying nothing of what he might know about my activities during his fight. “We’ll be there soon.”
“Where exactly are we going?” I manage to ask, my voice scratchy.
“The Spring Palace,” Logan replies, adjusting his immaculate uniform. Unlike me, he looks refreshed despite yesterday’s brutal fight. Only the faint bruising around his eye hints at what he endured. “Home of the royal women. My sisters are eager to meet you.”
The car turns onto a winding path lined with cherry trees in full bloom. Pink petals drift across our windshield, a delicate counterpoint to the heaviness in my limbs.
“Why are we visiting them?” I take a sip of water, grateful for its coolness against my parched throat.
“The photoshoot,” Ares chimes in from the front passenger seat, glancing back at me. “Belinda’s exclusive, remember?”
Of course. I promised myself to focus on survival, not on the crawling shame that threatens to overwhelm me whenever I think of yesterday.
As we pull up to the gates, I notice something unusual—all the guards are female. Tall, muscular women in royal uniforms stand at attention, their expressions professional but wary as our car approaches.
“Female Alphas,” I murmur, surprised.
Logan nods. “The Spring Palace has always been protected by women. Tradition dating back to my great-grandmother’s time.”
The palace itself is breathtaking—smaller than the main royal residence but more elegant, with graceful spires and walls of pale pink stone. Gardens stretch in every direction, bursting with spring flowers and carefully tended trees.
As we exit the car, I notice how the female guards watch Logan and the other men with undisguised suspicion. One particularly imposing guard steps forward to greet us, her hand resting casually on her weapon.
“Prince Logan,” she says with a curt nod. “The Queen Mother is expecting you.”
Logan’s posture shifts subtly—a tightening of his shoulders, a forced quality to his smile. “Captain Reyes. It’s been too long.”
“Not long enough for some,” she replies, her gaze sweeping over our group dismissively.
As we follow her through the palace gates, Logan falls into step beside me.
“The Spring Palace has traditionally been considered a refuge for the female members of the royal family,” he explains quietly.
“I wouldn’t be allowed to set foot on these grounds if my grandmother hadn’t specifically permitted it. ”
“Why?” I ask, genuinely curious.
“History,” he says with a shrug. “Not all royal marriages were happy ones. This place became a sanctuary where royal women could escape... difficult situations. The Queen Mother has absolute authority here.”
I absorb this information as we walk through courtyards filled with fountains and flowering trees. Unlike the main palace with its imposing stone and formal gardens, everything here feels deliberately gentle, almost ethereal.
Captain Reyes leads us through a series of elegant hallways until we reach a sunlit conservatory. Inside, a group of women watch our arrival. I recognize Logan’s sisters from photos—three young women with varying shades of his same golden eyes and proud bearing.
But my attention is immediately drawn to the older woman seated in their midst. Slim and regal with silver-streaked dark hair, she radiates authority without moving a muscle. The Queen Mother.
“Grandmother,” Logan greets her with a formal bow. “May I present Maya Tantamount, my bonded mate.”
The Queen Mother’s piercing gaze fixes on me, assessing everything from my posture to the pendant at my throat. I expect coldness, judgment—the typical aristocratic disdain.
Instead, she smiles, warm and genuine. “So this is the Omega who has captivated my grandson.” She extends her hand. “Welcome to the Spring Palace, child.”
I step forward to take her hand, surprised by the strength in her grip. Up close, I see intelligence and a hint of mischief in eyes so like Logan’s. There’s something else too—a shrewdness that suggests she sees more than she reveals.
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” I reply, executing the curtsy I’ve practiced a thousand times.
“None of that here,” she says with a dismissive wave. “This is a place where titles matter less than character. Call me Eleanora.”
One of Logan’s sisters—barely a teenager, but obviously Omega—steps forward with an eager smile. “We’ve heard so much about you! Is it true that you rejected Logan, and he spent a year pining for you? That’s so romantic!”
I raise my eyebrows at that. Just how sheltered from the world to these baby royals get to be? I already knew that the daughters of high-ranked Alphas rarely get sent to the Enclave, but I didn’t think that meant they were protected from knowing anything about how things really work.
Logan clears his throat. “Perhaps we should begin the tour before the photographer arrives.”
“Oh, hush,” Eleanora says, waving him off. “The girls have been dying to meet someone who might finally put you in your place.”
As Logan’s sisters surround me, peppering me with questions, I catch his expression—a mixture of exasperation and something that might almost be pride. Cillian watches from the doorway, a faint smile playing at his lips.
I follow Logan’s sisters deeper into the Spring Palace, their chattering voices forming a cheerful backdrop to my throbbing headache. The youngest—Lyra—loops her arm through mine with casual familiarity, as if we’ve known each other for years instead of minutes.
“You have to see the nursery,” she insists, tugging me along a sun-dappled corridor. “The babies are absolutely adorable, and Alexandra’s little boy is a terror in the most delightful way.”
The other sisters—Alexandra and Emilia—exchange knowing smiles as they lead me through a series of increasingly intimate family spaces. Unlike the formal areas of the main palace, everything here feels lived-in, comfortable, and decidedly feminine.
We enter a bright room painted in soft blues and greens, sunlight streaming through tall windows that overlook a private garden.
The space is filled with toys, colorful rugs, and small-scale furniture.
In one corner, a young woman—clearly a nanny—supervises three little girls playing with elaborate dollhouses.
“My twins,” Alexandra says proudly, nodding toward the identical girls with golden curls. “Sophia and Eliana, just turned four last month.”
The third child, slightly older with dark braids and a determined expression, looks up at our entrance. “Aunt Lyra!” she shouts, abandoning her dolls to race across the room.
Lyra scoops her up with practiced ease. “This little monster is Olivia, Emilia’s daughter.”
Emilia rolls her eyes fondly. “Six going on sixteen, I swear.”
The children regard me with unabashed curiosity, their eyes widening at my purple hair. I smile awkwardly, unsure how to interact with them. I’ve had so little experience with children.
“And where’s my little prince?” Alexandra asks the nanny, who gestures toward a connecting room.
“Napping, Your Highness. Finally.”
As if summoned by his mother’s voice, a cry erupts from the other room. Alexandra sighs dramatically. “Never fails. Excuse me.”
She returns moments later with a chubby baby boy in her arms, his face red from crying. He can’t be more than eight months old, with a shock of dark hair and pouty lips currently twisted in displeasure.
“This is James,” Alexandra says, bouncing him gently. “Would you like to hold him?”
Before I can respond, she’s transferring the baby into my arms. I take him reflexively, panic momentarily overriding my hangover. His tiny body feels alarmingly fragile, his weight surprisingly solid.
James stares up at me with Logan’s golden eyes, his cries quieting as he studies my face. A tiny hand reaches up to grab a strand of my purple hair, tugging with surprising strength.
“He likes you,” Emilia observes, looking pleased.
The baby gurgles, a string of drool escaping his mouth as he continues to clutch my hair. His tiny fingers grip with surprising strength, and I find myself reluctantly charmed by his stubborn determination.
“Hello, James,” I say softly, awkwardly shifting him in my arms to a more comfortable position. He responds with a toothless smile that transforms his entire face.
As I hold him, watching his expressions shift from curiosity to delight, I wait for the maternal instinct to kick in—that overwhelming surge of nurturing feelings the Enclave instructors insisted was natural to all Omegas.
They’d lectured endlessly about our biological purpose, our innate drive to nurture and reproduce.
But what I feel isn’t the all-consuming maternal yearning they described. There’s tenderness, yes, and a certain protective instinct—but it’s distant, intellectual. I can recognize that James is adorable without feeling any desperate desire to have one of my own.
The thought of pregnancy—of my body swelling with Logan’s child, or even Cillian’s—fills me with dread rather than longing. It would be one more chain binding me to this gilded cage, one more aspect of my life I couldn’t control.
And what would happen to an Omega daughter born into this world? Would she be sent to the Enclave, taught the same lessons about submission and service that nearly broke me? Would she face the same violations, the same dismissal of her personhood? The same painful choices between terrible options?
I look down at James, now contentedly chewing on his own fist, blissfully unaware of the world he’ll inherit. As a male Alpha—and a royal one at that—his path is already paved with privilege.
An Omega daughter wouldn’t have the same protection. She might avoid the Enclave, but being mated to an Alpha would be her ultimate destiny whether she wanted it or not.
“He’s perfect,” I tell Alexandra, meaning it despite the tangled emotions beneath. “You must be very proud.”
She beams, maternal pride radiating from her. “He is a handful, but worth every sleepless night. Don’t you just want to eat him up?”
I smile noncommittally, grateful when Lyra distracts everyone by suggesting we show me the famous Spring Palace gardens.
As I carefully hand James back to his mother, our eyes meet briefly, and I wonder if she can see the truth behind my polite facade—that beneath my perfect Omega exterior beats the heart of a defective specimen, one who doesn’t yearn for motherhood as nature supposedly intended.
The little girls clamor to join our garden tour, and as we file out of the nursery, I feel a weight lifting from my shoulders. The pressure to perform motherly instincts I don’t possess fades with each step away from the babies.
Perhaps someday, if I ever truly gain my freedom, I might choose to have children. But it would be my choice—not biology’s mandate, not Logan’s demand, not society’s expectation. And until that day comes, I’ll guard my body as fiercely as these palace women guard their sanctuary.