Page 48 of Knot Your Fated M.U.S.E.

"What happened?" I ask softly, drawn into her story despite myself. "When your omega traits appeared?"

The laugh that escapes her raises goosebumps on my arms. It's the kind of sound that belongs in nightmare places, in rooms where sanity goes to die.

"That's when the real horror show started."

She shakes her head, the motion sharp and pained.

"My mother... she didn't just get jealous. This wasn't some petty competition between women. This was pure hatred, the kind of envy that eats at your soul. She started trying to copy my style, wearing clothes meant for someone half her age. But that wasn't enough."

Her hands clench into fists, knuckles white with suppressed rage.

"She started force-feeding me, claiming we needed to 'bond' over meals. Ordered me to work longer hours because suddenly the bills were overwhelming. Mysterious debts started appearing in my name…credit cards I never applied for, loans I never took out."

Riot stands suddenly, unable to contain her energy. Her hands move through the air, sketching out a shape much larger than her current form.

"I ended up three times the size I am now. Like this." She gestures to indicate something enormous, her movements sharp with self-loathing. "A fucking blimp. That was her strategy…make me so physically unappealing that no alpha would look twice."

The shadows growl in the depths of my mind, roiling in my anger as we all absorb the calculated cruelty of it. This wasn't just abuse – it was systematic destruction, a mothermethodically dismantling her daughter's future out of pure spite.

I watch how Luna's unseeing eyes track Riot's movements, how Azurite's heterochromatic gaze narrows with cold understanding.

We all know different faces of betrayal, but this...this carries a special kind of horror. The person who gave you life actively working to destroy any chance you had at living it fully.

Riot's hands drop to her sides, but her fingers keep moving, like they want to grab something and tear it apart.

The rage emanating from her is almost visible, a dark aurora of pain transformed into anger because anger is safer than grief.

"I knew it was bad when just walking left me winded," Riot continues, her voice dropping lower. "When climbing stairs felt like scaling a mountain. Simple things that should take seconds stretched into endless, breathless battles."

Her hands gesture unconsciously as if feeling the phantom weight of her former self.

"That's when I realized I was following her path of self-destruction. The road she'd mapped out for me with surgical precision – the very woman who should have been teaching me to soar was methodically clipping my wings."

The voices in my head whisper warnings of similar traps, of trust turned to weapons.

I push them aside, focusing on Riot's words.

"I decided enough was enough. Had to change, but I wanted to do it right. No crash diets, no dangerous shortcuts. Started training, working out." A ghost of a smile touches her lips. "That's how I met Mina – this older omega who specialized in training packless omegas. She helped me reclaim my body, my strength. But more than that, she helped me see how fucked up my situation really was."

"What do you mean?" Luna asks, her unseeing eyes somehow finding Riot's face with uncanny accuracy.

Riot's laugh holds no humor.

"I'd been working non-stop, you know? Every penny going to my mother for 'safekeeping.' Then the jobs started disappearing – turns out being an omega without a pack is practically a crime in most places. They started cutting my hours, my positions, my opportunities."

Her voice takes on a brittle edge.

"That's when reality hit. Everything was in my name – the debts, the loans, the responsibilities. So when I lost those jobs, I was the one facing homelessness. I went to my mother, begging for access to all that money I'd been giving her to 'store away' for years."

"She had nothing to give," I say softly, the voices in my head already knowing this part of the story.

Azurite's mismatched eyes finally ignite with real anger.

"Are you telling me you wasted all those years working yourself to death…for nothing?"

Riot's laugh sounds like breaking glass, and her head drops, hiding eyes that threaten to spill years of accumulated grief.

"Fifteen years." The words come out choked. "Fifteen fucking years of my omega life, begging for scraps of maternal love like some starving dog. Fighting for approval that was never going to come. Thinking I was building a future, saving for the day I'd find my pack, find love, find freedom from paycheck-to-paycheck survival."

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