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

wolf in my head gives me no

refer to

they?

is too much history to go through. Yes, the weak wolves of today’s shifters have accepted this, as this is how your packs work now. But they were not always so.

like Selene’s telling me the

It is.

Somehow, I know I don’t

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

is why I didn’t

any of

I take a deep breath. Explain it to me

***

ago, wolves and humans

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Challenging Common

The Great Wolves, Lycans, were respected and revered by human magicians. They worked together,

all things human, war eventually came. The gods, fickle beings that they were, grew tired of the

realm.

loyalty, agreed to be sacrificed to ensure the gods‘ safe departure. Their souls were to guide and protect the gods

up one’s life, even for a god–that’s a

They delved into forbidden magic, seeking to bring the Lycan souls back from the realm

Lycan souls merging with human bodies. But such a

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A/B

Challenging Common

order could not go unpunished.

my breath, dreading what

tale.

upon the magicians and their descendants. The returned Lycan souls, enraged by the betrayal, consumed them. Over time, these souls

frown, trying to reconcile this with the history I’ve been taught. Shifters, cursed? It goes against everything I know. We

centuries passed, the Lycan Shifters became simply known as wolf shifters. They formed their own packs, their own traditions and values, based on their unique history. And

take in, this alternate history. Part of me wants to reject it, to cling to

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Ava: Challenging Common

But-

have to do with

Ava, that you are more than what they’ve told you. You are not an omega. You are a