The Least Favorite (Crimson Camo)

Chapter 1 Lena

I always knew my heat was coming long before they did.

My body warned me during quiet moments with trembling hands, oversensitive skin, and jittery movements I couldn’t still. Every sign was an omen that soon I would be in an immeasurable amount of pain.

By the time my guards informed Marco and he came to visit me, it was too late to pretend I wasn’t afraid. Even in the beginning, my fear was always visible, but it never outweighed my resolve. Marco tried every angle. Pain, lies, manipulation, and pressure. All to make me say yes.

But in five years, I never had.

What did he want me to agree to?

To be willing.

The first few times Marco tried to take me, he enjoyed my fight, anger, hostility, and refusal to submit. I'm sure he thought eventually I would, but the longer I resisted, the more obsessed he became with breaking me.

That's when the real game began for him.

It wouldn't satisfy him to have me by force. He wanted me willing, pliant, and wanting.

The way every other omega "wife" in his harem was.

Marco was a prince, the prodigal eldest son of the Bellini crime family. His father, Enzo Bellini, maintained a truce with New Arca's Government and rose quickly through the Falcon City underworld, becoming the most powerful entity beneath Arca themselves.

Enzo spoiled his son without restraint. I don't think Marco had ever been denied anything in his life, and that I resisted him, again and again, consumed him.

I looked up as a click of the deadbolt announced his arrival.

Marco was deliberate about timing. He never visited me too early, when the pain was only a warning hum, and never too late, when the pain stripped me of all control, making me desperate enough to agree to anything, just to end the heat contractions.

He understood that kind of desperation was not true submission.

Every month he waited until I reached this point. Doubled over in pain with contractions rolling fully through me. My body burned while my mind still remained clear.

That was when he asked.

“My Lena, you know why I’m here. Look at me.”

Even his nickname for me implied ownership.

His voice was calm and restrained. Now and then he still used his alpha bark out of habit, despite knowing it no longer reached me. Whatever part of my mind and omega instincts that had once responded to it had fractured long beyond repair.

I kept my eyes on the floor, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth. When I took deep breaths, the contractions hurt less. I wrapped my arms around my knees, drawing my thighs tight against my chest, trying to ease the pressure coiling in my abdomen.

His hand slid beneath my chin, tilting my face upward until he forced me to look at him. My whole body shuddered, a pained cry slipping past my lips. Even the smallest touch had become unbearable for me now.

He knew well my aversion to touch, often using forced proximity as punishment.

His fingers squeezed my chin, hard.

"Open your eyes!" he barked.

I did as he asked, not because he used his alpha bark, but because I was afraid he might break my jaw as the pressure mounted. My eyes snapped open, locking onto his.

I hated looking at him. It was so much harder to resist when my eyes were on his face.

So gorgeous and chiseled with deep brown eyes, sharp cheekbones, and dark hair curling across his forehead.

Marco possessed the kind of beauty that sent women into a frenzy.

I suppose his looks made it easier for the other omegas to submit to him.

But my refusal had nothing to do with his appearance. It didn’t even have much to do with his cruelty. I’d always assumed alphas were cruel. When I enlisted with Arca, signing up for the Omega Training Center, I’d prepared myself to endure that, eventually.

No, it wasn't his beauty or his cruelty.

What stopped me from submitting was something else entirely.

For Marco, it wasn't enough to claim me. He wanted to own me. Every part of me. Body, mind, and soul. The moment I became willing, I would stop being a person and start being a resource. A possession. Just like the rest of his omega 'wives' as he so lovingly called us.

Marco used his nineteen other wives as currency.

He leveraged, traded and promised them to strengthen his hold over Falcon City and the Bellini Crime Organization.

Some were trafficked to allied crime families to seal deals and settle debts.

Some remained under his roof, rotated through his lieutenants and enforcers as rewards for loyalty, silence, or blood spilled in his name.

Access to an omega wasn’t just indulgence.

It was power.

It kept his men obedient and dependent. Where else would an alpha, dodging mandatory enlistment in Arca's military, procure a highly rare omega?

Arca hoarded them. Military conscription was required by law for all omegas.

Command assigned them only to the most elite, highly trained, alpha soldier units.

They weren’t paired for comfort or choice.

Command paired omegas for reproduction and unit strength.

Arca wanted stronger soldiers, tighter unit bonds, and better weapons.

Marco also understood that scarcity.

What began as a handful of trafficked omegas, small enough to be overlooked by Arca, grew into a dozen. Then nearly two dozen. Like Arca, Marco learned that controlling omegas meant controlling men. Desire became loyalty. Access became obedience.

And refusal became unthinkable.

That was why he couldn’t tolerate mine.

“My beautiful Lena,” he said softly. “Why do you insist on doing this to yourself?”

I said nothing. I never did. Not anymore. Three years into this torture, I stopped speaking entirely, too afraid that if I opened my mouth, submission would slip out before I could stop it.

Marco crouched until he was level with me, his deep brown eyes locking onto mine with unnerving intensity. The scent of sandalwood enveloped me. Once it had been tempting, even mouth-watering. Now it conditioned me to expect pain and fear instead.

"I miss the sound of that pretty voice. I'm looking forward to hearing it again while you scream in pain and beg for my knot during your heat," he paused, eyes sweeping my body. "Or we could be done with all this."

His hand glided from my chin, lower, circling my breast, as my nipple pebbled under his touch. I flinched inward.

"Your body begs for me Lena, I see it respond to my touch. I know what you need. Give in, and I will make you feel so wonderful. You don't need to torture yourself anymore," Marco said, mistaking my body's reaction as arousal rather than repulsion.

“You’re already suffering,” Marco continued, his voice coaxing. “You don’t get anything for enduring it alone. No reward or mercy, only pain.” I braced as his thumb brushed my jaw again, almost reverent. “You could make it stop. You could let me take care of you."

His hand lingered at my jaw, his thumb soft against my skin.

“Your heat lasts forty-eight hours, which you know. Two days of excruciating pain every month. Cramping so badly you can’t stand.

Your body tears itself apart because it has no knot to fill your empty cunt.

” His voice softened with something resembling pity.

“No omega is meant to endure that alone. Not without medication, heat tools, or monitoring. Not for five whole years. Most would be dead by now.”

My breath hitched.

For a moment, my resolve wavered.

And for the first time, I truly considered it.

Not him. Never him. Just the end of this pain.

Then he spoke again.

"Let me own what’s already mine.”

Something inside me went cold.

Ownership.

My resolve snapped into place just long enough for me to spit in his face.

Marco froze. His expression then twisted with rage as his palm struck my cheek, fast and brutal, snapping my head to the side. Pain flared brightly, and I tasted blood.

His voice turned vicious, evil words spilling out that were meant to cut, humiliate, and make me feel small.

“You really think this ends any other way?” he snapped. “There is no future for you that doesn’t circle back to me!” His mouth twisted in disdain. “You endure because I allow it. You exist because it is my will. You are nothing without me.”

He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “Every month you break a little more. I see it in the way you shake and in the way you hug your knees tighter.” A cruel smile curved across his lips. “You won't win by holding out, Lena. You just make it take longer.”

Then he stood, walked to the door and rested his hand on the handle. For a moment, he said nothing. Then he turned to me, his expression calm again, certainty settling over him.

“I have nothing but time,” he said evenly. “I can see how close you are now. Every heat takes something from you. I’ll keep chiseling away at what’s left until there’s nothing to resist with.”

His eyes held mine.

“It’s been five years, Lena. My resolve hasn’t weakened, but yours has.” His mouth curved into a cold smile. “Even if it takes another five, you will be mine, willingly.”

The door closed behind him with a final, echoing click.