☆ Chapter 26 ☆
When Lucien arrived at the heart of the Bloody Diamond pack, the first thing that struck him was not the sight—but the sound.
Voices collided in the air, sharp and venomous, spilling curses with the ease of people who had long forgotten the weight of cruelty. Words were hurled like stones, meant to bruise, to humiliate, to remind someone of their place. The crowd pressed in tight, faces twisted with disgust and thinly veiled satisfaction, as though the suffering before them was a spectacle rather than a tragedy.
Lucien recognized the pattern too well.
It was often female betas who were the loudest, their voices cutting through the chaos with particular malice. Insecurity made monsters of ordinary people. They saw omegas—especially male omegas—not as individuals, but as threats. Living reminders of what they lacked, what they feared, what they could never be. And so they fed that fear the only way they knew how: with cruelty.
