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 Common

shifters.

one. I hear your

my head gives me

to our ranks, I protest. Don’t

they?

me. Child, there is too much history to go through. Yes,

sounds like Selene’s telling me the

It is.

I know I don’t want to hear

on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the

didn’t tell you anything

any of

Explain it to me

***

and humans lived in

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Challenging Common

Wolves, Lycans, were respected

eventually came. The gods, fickle beings that they were, grew tired of the constant

realm.

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

mind. To give up one’s life, even for a god–that’s a level of devotion I

delved into forbidden magic, seeking

shifters were born, weakened Lycan souls merging with human bodies. But such

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Challenging Common

could not go

what comes next

tale.

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

goes against everything I know. We are blessed by the

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

leaving me in a stunned silence. It’s a lot to take in, this alternate history. Part of me wants to reject it, to cling to the familiar stories

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Ava: Challenging Common Knowledge

But-

have to do with

means, Ava, that you are more than what they’ve told you. You are not an omega. You are a descendant of the original magicians, a being