Tangled

Ava: Challenging Common Knowledge

38 Ava: Challenging Common

Knowledge

What do you mean?❤

Selene sighs in my mind, a little huff that brings a

picture to my mind’s eye of her resting her chin on her front paws. I miss her.

You are not an omega, she finally says. Omegas don’t exist.

I tilt my head. It isn’t that I don’t believe Selene, it’s just that… well, I mean, how do omegas not exist? All shifters have ranks, once they come into adulthood.

Well–I never got a rank, because I didn’t have a rank. But everyone else has one.

Selene growls. Omegas were created for the pleasure of the alphas of old, who wanted nothing more than to breed and dominate. It was a different time.

I talk out loud, because I’m giving myself a headache by thinking too hard at her. “What about the ‘true omegas‘ they’re talking about?”

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38 Ava: Challenging Common Knowledge

There is no true omega. There are only shifters with powerful heat cycles. Some of them were known to breed strong alpha pups. Wolves and humans both tend toward the superstitious.

Powerful heat cycles come to powerful she–wolves. It has nothing to do with their arbitrary rankings.

I rub my eyes in frustration. It isn’t that I’m not understanding the words she’s saying; it’s just that nothing is making sense in my head, like we’re speaking of a foreign land.

“So they just made up this entire thing, because some strong wolf got really horny during heat?”

Yes.

“How does that even make sense?”

All of these ranks are for human ego. Alphas have always existed, though we did not have a word for them. Even strong betas can be alphas. It isn’t a birthright, but a matter of strength and leadership. Strong wolves lead the pack. Weak wolves follow. It isn’t rocket science.

I groan, resting my forehead on my hand as Selene

tomson a homb on the antiro ranking hiararahu of

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Ava: Challenging

shifters.

one. I hear your skepticism.

in my head gives me no

even our wolves refer to

they?

there is too much history to go through.

like Selene’s telling me the

It is.

I know I don’t

Sᴇaʀ*ᴄh the FindNʘᴠᴇl.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access

I didn’t tell

any of

take a deep breath. Explain it to me from

***

ago, wolves and humans lived

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Challenging Common

were respected and

war eventually came. The gods, fickle beings that they were, grew tired of the constant bloodshed waged in their names. They decided

realm.

be sacrificed to ensure the gods‘ safe

in my mind. To give up one’s life, even for a god–that’s a level

forbidden magic, seeking to bring the Lycan souls back from

so the first shifters were born, weakened Lycan souls

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Challenging Common

natural order could not go

dreading what comes next

tale.

magicians and their descendants. The returned Lycan souls, enraged by the betrayal, consumed them. Over time, these souls developed their own identity, working in harmony with the souls they shared life with. They became

reconcile this with the history I’ve been taught. Shifters, cursed? It goes against everything I know. We are blessed by the moon goddess, and given a gift–or

own packs, their own traditions and values, based on their unique history. And that, little one, is the true origin of our kind. Two souls cursed into

alternate history. Part of me wants to reject it, to cling to the familiar stories I’ve grown

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Ava: Challenging

But-

this have to do

not an omega. You are a