His Unwanted Omega's Defiant Second Chance

Isabela POV:

"And now, presenting the crown jewel of Blackwood Creek-our radiant Miss Cori Schneider and her fiancé, the future Alpha of the Reynolds Pack, Caden Reynolds!"

The ballroom erupted. Crystal chandeliers trembled under a roar of rehearsed applause. Society matrons clutched their pearls, their eyes glassy with envy.

"What an immaculate match," a woman beside me breathed, wafting lavender perfume into the stale air. "An Omega that soft, pairing with an Alpha bloodline that lethal. The Schneiders have secured the northern ridge for three generations."

From the cavernous shadows beneath the marble mezzanine, I watched the tableau play out.

For twenty-eight years, I had watched this family build their empire on my suffering, knowing with sickening certainty that they would gladly step over my corpse to seal this alliance.

Cori wore virgin white. Silk faille, seed pearls, diamonds caught in her spun-gold curls. Beside her, Caden stood tall and predatory, his broad shoulders practically blocking the ambient light, his jaw razor-cut, his eyes dark with Alpha arrogance. When he brought her dainty knuckles to his lips, she blushed-a masterclass in submissive, trembling maidenhood.

At the high table sat my "parents." Alpha Greg Schneider puffed his chest, smelling of bourbon and unquestioned dominance. Beside him, Cathie, his Luna, dabbed a manicured finger beneath her mascara, weeping on cue.

Not once in twenty-eight years had they looked at me with that expression.

I smoothed down the fabric of my dress. It was pure, unadorned black. Wool crepe. No jewels. No shimmering tulle. I had not come dressed as a sister or an honored guest. I had dressed myself in mourning weeds for the family I was about to murder.

I stepped out of the dark.

The click of my single leather heel on the polished parquet sliced clean through the applause.

It was like throwing a bucket of ice water onto a blazing furnace. The band's cello squealed to an abrupt halt. Whispers skittered across the crowd like dry leaves before a storm.

"Wait... is that the other one?"

"The broken daughter? The one who can't even smell an Alpha's pheromone, let alone shift?"

"Why is she wearing black to an engagement gala? How grotesque."

On stage, Cori's angelic smile froze mid-frame. Her doe eyes widened, a microscopic sliver of feral panic flashing behind her tinted contact lenses before she expertly dissolved into wounded bewilderment. Her fingers knotted into the sleeve of Caden's tuxedo.

My father's head snapped toward me.

Instantly, the heavy, suffocating weight of an Alpha's Command slammed into my chest. Greg was releasing his dominance aura-an invisible hammer designed to break the knees of any insubordinate wolf in his territory. For years, that crushing psychic weight had forced me to choke in silence, dropping me to the floor in humiliated submission.

Down, the Alpha voice thundered silently through my skull. Kneel, you worthless cripple.

I didn't blink. I didn't break stride.

A soul that has already been pushed past the brink of endurance, stripped of every shred of dignity, does not bow to a small-town Alpha's parlor trick. I walked through his invisible wall of power like smoke through an iron grate.

Cathie turned ashen. Her wine goblet rattled against the china.

I stopped at the edge of the dais, looking up at the perfect couple.

Caden took half a step forward, putting his muscular frame between Cori and me, his eyes flaring with primal disgust. "You don't belong here, Isabela. Take your pathetic, unshifted stench out of this hall before I have the Enforcers drag you to the cells."

Cori laid a trembling hand on his bicep, her voice lilting and breathy. "Caden, please... she's my sister. Maybe... maybe she only came to offer her blessings."

I looked at Cori. Really looked at her.

A sharp, humorless laugh slipped past my lips-cold enough to frost the champagne flutes in the front row.

"Blessings?"

My voice wasn't loud, but the room was so petrified it echoed from the high ceiling rafters.

I tilted my head, letting my icy blue eyes bore straight through her painted veneer.

"My dear Cori," I said, each word dripping with venomous clarity. "You stole my surname. You stole my seat at that table. And now you're standing there wearing my fiancé's engagement band. Did you genuinely convince yourself I walked out of the shadows to offer you my blessing?"

The silence didn't just fall-it cratered.

Cori's knuckles went paper-white as the murmurs behind us turned into a riot of gasps.

Because beneath the stage, Brenda Reynolds-Caden's ruthless mother-suddenly stood up, her cold gaze locking onto the heirloom ring on Cori's finger.