The city of Alvernia gleamed as though it were carved from order itself. Wide cobblestone streets stretched out in symmetrical patterns, lined with lanterns that flickered pale gold at night. Towering stone buildings loomed over the market squares, their spires etched with symbols of rank and power. In every corner of the city, hierarchy was not only spoken but built into the very walls—alphas at the top, betas filling the spaces between, and omegas at the very bottom.

The balance, they called it. Alphas commanded, betas maintained, omegas obeyed. Society ran like a machine, every cog in its place, and no one dared to question whether the machine itself was cruel.

But to Jane, this so-called balance was nothing more than a gilded prison.

She moved quietly through the streets with her shawl pulled tight, her steps small and measured, as though the air itself reminded her not to stray too far from her role. Neighbors greeted her with polite smiles, sometimes admiration. “Such a perfect omega wife,” they whispered when she passed by. They saw her lowered gaze, her neatly tied chestnut hair, her gentle manners, and believed she was blessed.

They never saw the bruises blooming beneath her sleeves. They never noticed the stiffness in her movements, the way she flinched at sudden sounds. Or perhaps they did, and simply looked away. Alvernia was not kind to omegas who spoke too loudly of their suffering.

Behind the polished wooden door of her modest home was the truth of Jane’s existence. Kevin lived there. Kevin, her husband. Her owner. Her tormentor.

Kevin was the very image of an alpha, or so people said. Broad-shouldered, tall, with dark hair always slicked neatly back, he exuded confidence that others mistook for strength. His voice carried across rooms with a command that demanded silence. Men respected him, women envied Jane for being “chosen” by him, and Jane… Jane endured.

To Kevin, Jane was not a partner but a possession. He reminded her of this with every glance, every word laced with contempt. “An omega belongs beneath her alpha,” he often said, the words sharp enough to carve into her bones.

He needed no reason to hurt her. Sometimes it was the way she stood too close when he was drinking. Sometimes it was her cooking—“too bland, too salty, too cold”—before he overturned the pot and forced her to clean it from the floor while he sat back and smirked. Sometimes it was simply her presence, the quiet reminder that she existed in his world without permission.

Jane learned to live in silence. She whispered lullabies to herself at night, rocking her body on the edge of the bed as if to keep her soul from unraveling. She told herself she was still more than her pain, even when her reflection in the mirror showed only a pale, tired woman whose light had been dimmed.

And then she discovered she was pregnant.

For the first time in years, hope stirred in her chest. Perhaps, she thought, a child would change things. Perhaps Kevin would soften, if only for the sake of his heir. She laid a trembling hand over her stomach and imagined a future where his hands did not strike but held, where his voice did not spit venom but spoke to their child with pride.

But Kevin grew worse.

Pregnancy, to him, was weakness. And weakness disgusted him.

The first time she vomited from morning sickness, he struck her across the face, calling her useless. When she fainted in the kitchen one afternoon, her body too fragile to endure the heat of the stove, he poured water over her head and snarled, “Pathetic.” Each time her hands trembled as she sewed or carried tea, he found another reason to call her unfit. His rage fell not only on her arms and back but sometimes, cruelly, across her swollen belly, and Jane would curl around herself at night, whispering desperate promises to the unborn child she might not live long enough to meet.

It was a miracle she survived at all.

On stormy nights, when lightning split the sky above Alvernia and thunder rattled the windows, Jane sat by the window with her hand pressed to her stomach. Tears slid silently down her cheeks, but she never cursed her fate aloud. Omegas were not allowed to complain. If a neighbor saw her swollen eyes the next day, they would only say she looked tired. If someone noticed the limp in her step, they would say it was the burden of pregnancy.

Still, Jane carried herself with quiet dignity. She told herself her suffering was not in vain. She told herself her child would inherit more than her chains, that she could somehow shield this fragile life from the cruelty that had become her own world.

Her body grew weaker with each passing month, but her determination grew stronger.

When labor came, it was as though the skies themselves bore witness to her struggle. Thunder roared, wind howled, and rain lashed against the house. Jane fought for every breath, blood pooling beneath her as her body strained to do what it was no longer strong enough to do. Her cries were swallowed by the storm, her hands clawing at the sheets as though she could anchor herself against the darkness threatening to pull her under.

Kevin stood in the doorway, arms crossed, impatient. “Hurry it up,” he barked when her strength faltered. “You sound pathetic.”

But Jane did not hear him. Her world had narrowed to one thought, one desperate plea: Let this child live.

Hours passed. Pain carved itself into her bones until she could no longer tell if she was still breathing. But then, at last, through blood and agony, a new sound broke through the storm—the fragile, uncertain cry of a newborn.

A boy.

Jane gathered him to her chest with trembling arms. His tiny body was warm, his breaths shallow but steady. Tears blurred her vision as she pressed a kiss to his damp forehead. “You are my miracle,” she whispered. “My Elias. My light.”

Her body was broken, but her heart overflowed.

Kevin barely glanced at the child. His lip curled in disdain. To him, Elias was nothing more than another link in the chain of ownership—a son destined to grow up as pliant as his mother, another life to mold, control, and bend to his will.

But Jane’s weary eyes told a different story. In them burned a quiet defiance Kevin had never seen before. For the first time, she felt something stronger than fear: the determination to protect her child. No matter the cost.

And At that moment, as thunder faded into the distance and rain softened against the windows, Jane vowed silently to the tiny boy in her arms: I will endure. I will suffer. I will fight if I must. But you, Elias—you will not be broken. You will not be only chains.

Elias’s earliest memories were not of sunlight, nor laughter, nor the warmth of other children’s company. They were of shadows.

The shadow of curtains drawn too tightly, so thick that even the brightest summer light barely slipped through. The shadow of his father looming above him, always watching, always ready to strike. The shadow of silence that seemed to live inside the house—heavy, suffocating, pressing against the walls until laughter had no place to grow.

He remembered pressing his palms against the window glass, his breath fogging the pane as he stared out at the world he was forbidden to touch. From that small square of sky and cobblestone street, he watched the children of Alvernia play. They chased one another with bare feet slapping the stone, scraped their knees, wrestled in the grass, and shouted with voices so free that even the wind seemed to carry their joy. Elias’s small chest ached with longing. He wanted to know what it felt like to run until his legs burned, to fall and laugh instead of cry, to have a voice that carried without fear of being silenced.

But Kevin’s words always rang in his ears.

“Omegas don’t belong out there. Omegas serve. Omegas obey. You’ll stay inside until I say otherwise.”

Kevin’s rules were absolute. Jane never dared to question them, and Elias quickly learned that he should not either. The house was his world, and the house was a cage.

The rooms smelled of musty wood and dust that never seemed to go away, no matter how much Jane cleaned. The furniture was sparse, sturdy but cold, chosen not for comfort but for Kevin’s convenience. Jane softened it in little ways—she would drape embroidered cloths over the table, arrange flowers in chipped vases, and sing lullabies in the evenings as though the walls could be coaxed into remembering kindness. But no matter how hard she tried, Elias could feel it: the house was a prison.

Still, Jane gave him what she could. She sat with him near the fire during long winters, her voice gentle as she read from worn books that smelled of ink and age. She told him stories of heroes who fought against monsters, of kind kings and brave knights, of worlds where light conquered darkness. When he asked her questions—why do the heroes always win? Why are the monsters always defeated?—her eyes would grow sad, and she would brush his hair back from his forehead. “Because, my darling, stories remind us of what should be, even when it is not.”

She taught him to read before he was old enough to walk steadily. She showed him how to sew stitches into fabric, how to whisper prayers in the dark, how to hum to himself when silence pressed too heavy on his chest. She gave him lessons in kindness and strength, though she could never say them aloud in Kevin’s presence. Instead, she passed them in small ways—a touch on his shoulder, a whispered word when they were alone, the way she kissed his bruises after Kevin’s hand had fallen.

But Elias still felt the weight of his cage.

By the time he turned six, curiosity became too heavy to bear. That summer morning, the sound of children playing outside drifted through a crack in the curtains. Their laughter rang like bells, and the sunlight slipped into the house in narrow beams, painting golden dust across the wooden floor.

Elias sat cross-legged, staring at the light. He could almost hear the grass whispering in the breeze, almost feel the warmth of the sun on his face. His heart thudded in his small chest, faster and faster.

Just once, he thought. Just one breath of the outside air.

He rose to his feet, his hands trembling as he reached for the door. The wood creaked faintly beneath his touch, a sound so loud in the silence that it made him glance toward the staircase where Kevin slept. His breath caught, but no footsteps came.

Slowly, carefully, Elias pushed the door open.

The world met him in a rush. A warm breeze brushed against his skin, so different from the stale air of the house. The grass was cool beneath his bare toes, soft where the wood of the floors had always been hard. He tilted his face upward, eyes wide as the endless blue sky stretched above him. For the first time in his short life, he saw the world not through glass but with his own eyes.

Freedom.

It was sweet, it was wild, and it filled his chest until he thought it might burst. He took one small step into the yard, then another, each breath filling him with joy he had never known. His lips curved into a smile, hesitant at first, then blooming like dawn.

But freedom lasted only minutes.

“ELIAS!”

The voice cracked across the yard like thunder.

Elias froze, his small body stiffening as though the sound itself had struck him. He turned, heart plummeting, and there was Kevin—his broad frame filling the doorway, his shadow stretching long across the grass. Fury carved deep into his face, his eyes sharp enough to cut.

Before Elias could move, Kevin’s hand closed around his arm like iron.

The world blurred. He was dragged inside, the door slammed shut, and then the blows began.

Kevin struck him again and again, his voice a roar that shook the house.

“You dare disobey me?” Smack.

“Omegas don’t get to choose!” Kick.

“You are mine—mine—to command!” Fist.

Elias’s small body curled in on itself, but the blows kept coming. Pain lit across his skin like fire, sharp and merciless. His cries filled the house—thin, desperate, high-pitched with terror—but no help came.

Jane rushed forward, tears streaming down her face. “Please, Kevin! Please, he’s just a child!” Her hands reached out, desperate to shield her son, but Kevin shoved her back with such force she stumbled to the floor.

Her pleas were drowned by his rage.

When at last Kevin’s fury was spent, Elias lay gasping on the wooden boards, his body trembling, bruises blooming in purple and blue. Blood stained his lips, and his tiny hands twitched as he tried to breathe through shallow, wheezing sobs.

Jane crawled to him the moment Kevin stormed from the room. She gathered him in her arms, rocking him gently despite her own trembling. Her voice broke as she whispered apologies into his hair. “I’m so sorry, my love. I’m so sorry.” She dabbed his wounds with a cloth, kissed his forehead, and prayed desperately that he would survive until morning.

Elias did survive. But something inside him had changed.

The next day, sunlight streamed through the curtains again. The sound of children laughing carried through the glass. But Elias did not reach for the window. He did not press his palms to the pane, or watch with longing. He stayed close to his mother’s side, silent and obedient, his wide eyes dulled with fear.

He had learned the truth. His cage was not made of wood or iron. His cage was pain and fear, forged by his father’s hands.

It was invisible, but it was unbreakable.

And so Elias stopped trying.

The bruises on Elias’s small body faded with time, but the shadows in his eyes never left. Where once there had been sparks of curiosity, now there was only watchfulness. He no longer asked about the world outside. He no longer pressed his palms to the glass to watch the other children run. He sat quietly at his mother’s side, his lips sealed, his wide eyes following her every move as though the smallest gesture she made contained an answer to survival.

Jane noticed the change and her heart splintered.

She had hoped that childhood might shield him, at least for a few more years. That he might remain soft, innocent, untainted by the weight of the laws that bound their kind. But Kevin had shattered that hope with his fists, and now Elias knew fear—too young, far too young.

Jane could not undo Kevin’s cruelty, but she could prepare Elias for the world that awaited him.

She hated it. She despised every law, every tradition, every unspoken rule that chained omegas to obedience. She raged against them in silence, her fists curling in the dark when she was alone, her prayers bitter as ash on her tongue. But rage could not protect her child. Dreams of freedom could not keep him alive.

Kevin’s house was a prison, yes. But the world outside was a battlefield—and Elias, her tender, innocent boy, would one day be thrown into it whether he was ready or not.

So she taught him.

---

It began in the early mornings, when Kevin had not yet stirred from bed. The house was quiet then, the air still heavy with the coolness of dawn. Jane would take Elias’s small hands in hers, smoothing his tiny fingers as though she could wipe away the memory of pain with her touch. Her voice was soft, barely above a whisper.

“Keep your head lowered, my love. Omegas are not meant to look alphas in the eye. If they think you’re defiant, they’ll hurt you.”

Elias would nod solemnly, his thin neck bowing as he practiced lowering his head until his chin brushed his chest. His dark hair fell forward to cover his eyes, and Jane felt her stomach twist. He looked so small, so fragile, yet already burdened by rules meant to strip him of dignity.

“Good,” she murmured, though the word caught in her throat. She brushed his hair back gently, forcing a smile. “Just like that. Always remember.”

At night, she taught him how to serve.

The lessons were quiet, hidden in the dim glow of a single candle, the curtains drawn tightly. Jane would place a cup before him, her voice steady despite the ache in her chest. “Kneel first. Back straight, but not too straight. Graceful, not proud. Show respect.”

Elias knelt, his small knees pressing against the rough wooden floor. His hands trembled as he lifted the cup, but Jane guided him, her fingers warm over his. “Slowly. Carefully. Not a drop spilled.”

Again and again, she made him practice until his movements were fluid, almost beautiful. She taught him how to bow, how to place his hands, how to move through a room without drawing notice. His feet learned to fall softly, his voice to speak in careful tones.

“Good evening, master. How may I serve you?”

The words were small and uncertain at first, but repetition carved them into his tongue. Each time they passed his lips, Jane’s heart cracked a little more. She would turn away, pressing her hand to her mouth, hiding the tears that threatened.

The hardest lesson, however, came with tears.

One evening, as the sky outside deepened into indigo, Jane sat Elias before her, his face framed by her trembling hands. His eyes searched hers, trusting, too trusting.

“Elias,” she whispered, her voice breaking though she forced it steady, “sometimes… omegas are safer when they cry. Alphas like it when you look fragile, when you look as though you need them. If you can’t cry, they might grow angry.”

Confusion flickered in his eyes. “But Mama… what if I’m not sad?”

Jane swallowed hard, her chest tightening. “Then you must pretend.”

She showed him how to bite the inside of his cheek, how to let the pain well tears in his eyes. How to quicken his breathing, let his voice tremble, let his lower lip quiver. Elias tried, clumsy at first, but patient under her guidance.

The first time he succeeded—his small shoulders shaking, tears spilling down his cheeks on command—Jane broke. She turned away swiftly, her hands covering her face to stifle the sob that rose in her throat. He was only a child. Her child. And she was teaching him how to break himself before anyone else could.

Elias crept to her side, tugging at her sleeve with his small hand. “Mama? Did I do it right?”

Jane dropped to her knees, pulling him into her arms. She pressed her lips to his temple, her tears falling silently into his hair. “Yes, my love,” she whispered. “You did perfectly.”

---

The lessons continued.

Some days, Jane would make games of them, trying to soften the weight Elias carried. She would sit on the floor and declare herself the “great alpha king,” and Elias would practice bowing to her, his lips twitching with shy laughter at her silly stern face. Other times, she would whisper stories between lessons, weaving in secret truths.

“Kindness is a strength, not a weakness,” she told him as he learned to serve tea.

“Obedience can keep you alive, but never forget you are worth more than their commands,” she murmured as he practiced kneeling.

“Love is your light, Elias. Hold onto it, even when the world tries to put it out.”

He absorbed every word, his young mind soaking in the lessons both spoken and unspoken. He grew quieter, yes, but sharper too. His hands learned grace, his voice learned softness, his tears learned to fall on cue—but behind his wide eyes, something watched, something remembered.

---

“Why, Mama?” Elias asked softly one night, tugging at her sleeve as she tucked him into bed. His voice was small, fragile as a bird. “Why do I have to learn all this?”

Jane froze, the question striking her like a blade. She sat on the edge of the bed, gathering him into her arms. His head rested against her chest, his heartbeat quick beneath her palm.

“Because one day, an alpha will come for you, Elias,” she whispered, her voice steady though her heart bled with every word. “And if you don’t know how to survive… they’ll destroy you.”

His small fingers curled into the fabric of her dress. His body trembled. “Will you be there?” he whispered.

Jane shut her eyes. She wanted to promise him yes—that she would protect him, that she would fight the world for him, that no alpha would ever touch him while she lived. But she knew the truth. She was only an omega too. Her strength was not enough to shield him forever.

So she kissed his hair and lied. “Yes, my love. I’ll always be here.”

Elias sighed softly, his breath evening as sleep took him. Jane sat there long after, listening to the gentle rhythm of his breathing.

And when at last she lay down beside him, her body curling protectively around his small frame, her tears came silently. Every lesson she gave him was a chain she placed around his neck. But better her hands—gentle and trembling—than the merciless grip of an alpha who would one day claim him.

Her heart broke, piece by piece, with every bow of his head, every whispered yes, master, every tear he learned to summon. But she bore the pain.

Because Elias was her miracle.

Elias was her light.

And she would do whatever it took to keep that light burning, even if it meant teaching him how to survive in a world that wanted him in chains.