After I Knelt, The Lycan Prince Recognized Me

The banquet hall of the Blackridge Pack house smelled like roasted meat, expensive wine, and too many wolves in one room. I moved through the crowd with a tray balanced on one hand, head down, shoulders curved in the way Omegas were supposed to carry themselves. Six months of practice. Six months of being invisible.

The hall was full tonight. Alphas from three neighboring territories. Betas standing at attention near their leaders. And Lycans — the real power, the wolves who made every other wolf in the room feel small without saying a word. They sat at the head table, expressions carved from stone, auras locked tight but still pressing against the air like a physical weight.

Thalia Boyd presided over it all from the center seat. She wore white. Her hair was perfect. She smiled at the right moments and inclined her head with practiced grace, performing future Luna for an audience that seemed willing to believe her.

I kept my eyes down and refilled glasses. My wolf clawed at the inside of my chest, furious and restless. I shoved her down. Not yet. Not yet.

The clock in my head ticked forward. Fifty-eight minutes left on my year.

I slipped backstage through the service corridor, balancing empty trays, aiming for the kitchen. I didn't make it.

Crue stepped out from the alcove near the hall entrance, blocking my path. He smiled the way he always smiled — easy, charming, like the world had never told him no.

"Fallon," he said. "Perfect timing."

I stopped. Set the trays on the side table. "What do you need?"

"Change of plans for tonight." He leaned against the wall, casual. "The entertainment fell through. We need someone to step in."

I waited.

"You're going to go out there," he said, gesturing toward the hall, "and perform a submission display. You know — kneel, bare your neck, show the Alphas what proper Omega deference looks like. It's good hospitality. Makes the room comfortable."

My wolf slammed against my ribs so hard I felt it in my teeth.

I locked her down. Forced my breathing steady. "You want me to kneel in front of the entire hall."

"Exactly." He smiled wider. "It's not a big deal. You've done it before in training. Just go out there, hold the position for a minute or two, and come back. Easy."

I looked at him. Really looked. The Beta's son, charming and hollow, spending my humiliation like currency to impress wolves he wanted to stand beside. He had no idea what he was asking. He had no idea what I was.

My wolf screamed.

I calculated the time. Fifty-six minutes left. Less than an hour. I could endure one more hour. I had endured six months. I could survive this.

"Fine," I said.

Crue blinked, surprised I hadn't argued. Then he grinned. "Good. Go now. They're waiting."

I walked past him, through the door, into the hall.

The noise dropped the moment I stepped onto the open floor. Conversations stopped mid-sentence. Heads turned. I felt every pair of eyes lock onto me — the Omega server, out of place, walking toward the center of the room with no tray and no clear purpose.

I stopped in the open space before the head table. The polished floor reflected the chandelier light. I could see Thalia at the edge of my vision, sitting perfectly still, watching me with cold, gleaming satisfaction.

I knelt.

The position was exact. Knees together, hands flat on my thighs, spine straight, head tilted back to expose my throat. The universal gesture of submission. Every wolf in the room understood what it meant.

I held perfectly still.

My wolf howled inside my chest, clawing, raging, demanding I shift and tear the room apart. I shoved her down with everything I had. Not yet. Not yet.

The scent hit me then — dark cedar and smoke, sharp and overwhelming, cutting through the crowd like a blade. I knew that scent. I had known it since I was thirteen years old, standing in the royal training grounds while a quieter, more serious boy watched me from across the sparring ring.

Princeton Richardson was here. In this room. Watching me kneel.

My wolf screamed louder.

I didn't move. Didn't shift my gaze. Didn't let my hands shake. I counted the seconds in my head, each one dragging like broken glass across my skin.

At the far end of the hall, I heard the faint creak of wood — someone gripping a table edge too hard.

I kept counting.

Fifty-four minutes left. Fifty-three. Fifty-two.

The room stayed silent. No one spoke. No one moved. They were all watching the Omega perform her role, baring her neck, demonstrating perfect submission.

Thalia's satisfaction radiated from the head table like heat.

I held the position. My jaw ached from locking it so tight. My wolf battered against my ribs, desperate, furious, begging me to let her out.

Not yet.

Fifty minutes.

Forty-nine.

Forty-eight.

The clock in my head ticked forward, relentless and exact.

And then — finally, impossibly — it hit zero.

My wolf detonated.

The shift was volcanic. My suppressed Lycan wolf erupted outward in a surge of silver-white fur and overwhelming aura, massive and blinding, twice the size of any Alpha in the room. Glasses shattered across tables. Wolves staggered backward, unable to stand under the weight of the power flooding the hall.

I shifted back.

I was standing now, human again, still in the center of the floor. My hand shot out, seized Crue by the throat before he could even register what was happening, and I hurled him across the polished floor with one hand.

He slid twenty feet and slammed into the far wall with a sickening crack.

The banquet hall went absolutely silent.

I stood there, breathing steady, and looked at the room full of Alphas and Lycans who had just watched me kneel.

None of them moved.

I smiled. "My name is Fallon Wright. Daughter of Lycan King Raymond Wright. And my year is over."