Rejected Omega Was Told to Sing the Luna Hymn as a Joke – But Her Voice Left the Alpha King Speechless
Summoned to the King
It was also safe and predictable, and no one mocked me for being wolfless. Hours blurred together; my hands grew raw and my back ached, but there was something almost meditative about it—the simplicity, the lack of judgment.
Until the whispers started.
“He’s asking for her now? But it’s only been one day.”
“He specifically requested the singer.”
My hands stilled in the wash water. Thomas appeared at my elbow, his expression grim.
“The king wants to see you.”
My heart kicked against my ribs.
“Why?”
“He doesn’t explain himself to us.”
Thomas handed me a cloth to dry my hands.
“Come. Don’t keep him waiting.”
He led me through different corridors, these ones ascending rather than descending, growing gradually lighter and more refined. The rough stone gave way to polished marble, and the torches became crystal chandeliers.
We were moving into the palace proper.
“Remember,”
Thomas said quietly as we climbed a final staircase,
“whatever he asks, answer honestly. The king values truth above all else, even painful truth.”
The Presence of the King
“What does he want with me?”
Thomas’s expression was unreadable.
“That’s between you and him.”
We stopped before massive double doors of black wood carved with wolves and moons. Thomas knocked once, then opened the door and gently pushed me inside.
The doors closed behind me with a sound like a coffin sealing. The room was magnificent, with floor-to-ceiling windows letting in golden afternoon light and bookshelves lining the walls with thousands of volumes.
A massive desk dominated the space, covered in papers and maps. The king stood at the window with his back to me.
He was dressed differently than at the banquet—simpler, in dark pants and a white shirt open at the collar. His black hair was loose around his shoulders.
He looked almost human until he turned around. Those storm-gray eyes locked onto me with an intensity that made my breath catch.
Up close and in private, his presence was even more overwhelming. The air itself seemed to bend around him.
“You can sit,”
he said, gesturing to a chair near the desk. I sat because my legs wouldn’t hold me much longer.
The Power of the Song
He studied me in silence, his expression unreadable.
“Do you know why I brought you here?”
“To serve in your household, Your Majesty?”
“No.”
He moved to the desk, leaning against it with arms crossed.
“I brought you here because your voice did something impossible.”
I waited, not sure what to say.
“I’ve heard the Luna Hymn performed hundreds of times,”
he continued,
“by Luna queens, by high priestesses, by trained virtuosos. It’s always the same: technically perfect, emotionally empty—a performance.”
His eyes never left mine.
“You made it real. I don’t understand… you made me feel it.”
There was something raw in his voice.
“For the first time in years, I felt something other than rage or emptiness. You reminded me what it was like to want something.”
The silence stretched between us, fragile and dangerous.
“Why?”
he asked finally.
“Why did you sing it that way?”
The Worth of Longevity
I could have lied; I could have given him something pretty and diplomatic. But Thomas had said the king valued truth.
“Because I have nothing else,”
I said quietly.
“No wolf, no mate, no future. All I have is the ability to understand beautiful things I’ll never possess.”
I swallowed.
“So when I sang about love and bonds and blessings, I sang about grief. Because that’s all those words mean to someone like me.”
He was very still.
“You think you have no future?”
“I know I don’t, Your Majesty. I’m wolfless and barren. In our world, that makes me worthless.”
His voice had gone soft and dangerous.
“Is that what they told you? That your value is determined by what you can breed or what animal sleeps in your bones?”
“It’s not what they told me. It’s what they showed me every day for twenty-three years.”
He pushed off the desk, moving closer—not threatening, but deliberate.
“And yet you’re still here. Still surviving. That requires a different kind of strength.”
“Or just stubbornness.”
A King Split in Two
His mouth twitched—almost a smile, almost. Then his expression shifted, becoming more serious.
“I want to make you an offer, Catherine. But first, I need you to understand what you’d be agreeing to.”
Dread pulled in my stomach.
“What kind of offer?”
He moved to the windows, staring out at the city. When he spoke, his voice was carefully controlled.
“I’m cursed. You’ve probably heard whispers already; the servants gossip—they always do. What they don’t know is the nature of the curse or how it came to be.”
He turned back to me, and his eyes held something I hadn’t expected: vulnerability.
“I’m not just an Alpha King. I’m split, divided—two souls in one body.”
He gestured at himself.
“During the day, I’m this: human-shaped, rational, capable of ruling. But when night falls…”
His jaw tightened.
“I become something else. Something monstrous. A beast that doesn’t think like a man, doesn’t reason like a wolf—just rage and hunger and chaos, barely contained.”
The Choice of a Witness
My breath came shallow.
“The screams last night… were you?”
“Me,”
he confirmed.
“Throwing myself against spelled walls because my other half wants to tear through this palace and everything in it. The only thing keeping the kingdom safe is this underground prison and the magic that binds me here after dark.”
I should have been terrified; I should have run. But all I felt was a strange, horrified compassion.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I want you to stay,”
he said simply.
“Not as a servant. As something else. A companion, maybe. Someone to talk to when I’m still myself. Someone to…”
He hesitated, and I realized this powerful, terrifying king was struggling to find words.
“Someone to remind me I’m still human.”
“I don’t understand what you’re asking.”
He pulled something from his desk drawer, a small velvet box. When he opened it, candlelight gleamed off a silver ring set with a moonstone.
The Price of Knowledge
“The curse has conditions,”
he said quietly.
“I remain split until someone can love both halves of me—the king and the beast. Not one or the other. Both.”
His eyes met mine.
“I’ve tried, Catherine. For five years, I’ve tried. I’ve courted nobles, invited scholars, even consulted witches. No one can see past the monster. The moment they witness what I become at night, they flee or break.”
“So what are you asking?”
“I’m asking you to try.”
He set the box on the desk between us.
“Stay here. Talk with me during the day. And at night, when I’m the beast… just survive me. Just stay in the same room and don’t run screaming. That’s all I’m asking.”
“In exchange for what?”
“Safety. Protection. A purpose that isn’t washing dishes in a dungeon.”
He paused.
“And a chance to matter. To save someone, even if that someone is me.”
It was insane. Absolutely insane.
“I could die,”
I said flatly.
“You could kill me.”
The Accord
“I’m bound by powerful magic. I can’t harm you unless you try to harm me first. The cage holds… usually.”
His voice carried a threat of doubt.
“Usually.”
“I’m not going to lie to you, Catherine. There’s risk. But there’s risk in the servants’ quarters, too—in the pack lands, in the territories, everywhere for someone like you. At least here, the risk has purpose.”
I stared at the ring gleaming in its box. He wasn’t asking me to love him; he was asking me to endure him.
In exchange, I would matter. Just a little. Just enough.
“I have one condition,”
I heard myself say.
His eyebrows rose.
“You’re negotiating with a king?”
“You brought me here because I’m honest. So honestly, if I’m going to spend my nights trapped with a monster, I want something real. Not payment, not protection—something that’s mine.”
“What?”
“Teach me. During the days when you’re human, teach me about history, politics, the world beyond pack territories. Give me the education I was denied for being wolfless. Let me use that library.”
I gestured at the shelves surrounding us.
“Let me be more than I was.”
