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  Swallowing my surprise at her number, which was close to what I earned in a year, I reached for the coin purse that I’d secured on the inside of my skirt. The Badlands had yet to establish anything that looked like a real law. Evil wasn’t punished. I could grab the bolt of fabric out of her hands and make a run for it. There was nothing she could do to stop me. Just like there was nothing stopping her from calling my bluff and extorting me over pretty fabric.

  Quickly, I counted the coins in my purse. I didn’t have enough.

  “I have silver coins. The equivalent of four gold.” It was all the money I had in the world.

  She shook her head, hugging the bolt to her body. “A royal would have sent you with gold.”

  “She gave me silver.” Which was partially true. I was paid one silver coin a week. The equivalent of pocket change in the royal city. “Will you deny a royal what they asked for?”

  “Come back with gold,” she said.

  “She gave me silver,” I repeated. I expected a negotiation, but when it didn’t come, I walked away, disappointed. I’d find another dress to wear to the next castle ball. The fact that an omega like me could be killed for setting foot in said ball was totally irrelevant. I was going.

  “Girl.” At first, I wasn’t sure she meant me, and kept walking. “Girl. I’ll take the silver.”

  The woman gave me a toothless grin as I returned to her table. Anything was better than nothing, every omega in the Badlands knew this.

  My hands shook as I gave her the coins. For the next week, I’d only be able to eat when I worked at the castle. If any of the Collectors came to the shack I shared with five other omegas, he’d take his pay however he saw fit.

  But for a chance to step into the technicolor life of Luxoria, it was worth it.

  The woman lovingly wrapped the brilliant fabric in burlap.

  “Did you embroider this yourself?” I asked. “My Lady will want to know.”

  I prayed she didn’t ask who my Lady was. Yes, I worked as a servant, but if I used my access to royalty for my own gain, I could lose my job. Without my job, I’d be left to sell whatever I had on the Badlands open market. I’d die before I joined the ranks of the prostitutes who gave their bodies to the Alphas, hoping for a few copper coins in return. More often than not, the royal men took their fill and gave nothing in return.

  The old woman nodded, pride shining brightly on her face. “Yes. By hand. When I still had a shop.”

  “She’ll appreciate your work,” I said.

  As the old woman handed me the package, she pulled it back. For a moment, I thought she meant to steal from me. That she intended to keep my coins and my purchase.

  “Don’t let anyone see you with this until you get to the castle,” she said. “They’ll think you’re claiming to be something you’re not, and you will be punished.”

  “I’ll keep it a secret, like my life depends on it.” Because it did.

  “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU think you’re doing?” My sister Tavia stood in the doorway of our shanty, her reflection filling the empty space in the dusty mirror. She was going to get a mouthful of desert dust if she didn’t pick up her jaw. “If you get caught in the Lady’s dress, you’ll be punished.”

  “It’s not the Lady’s dress.” I might have been a little vague with the details when I said I brought the dress home to work on. I let my sister and the three other women who shared this cramped, dilapidated shack think I’d taken home sewing work to make extra money. Not all of them worked in the castle, but everyone should’ve been smart enough to know my employers didn’t care if I made extra money. “It’s mine.”

  “Zelene,” she gasped. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “There’s a party at the castle tonight to celebrate the latest military victory.” I didn’t make the dress with this specific party in mind, but in the castle, it seemed like there was always a party. Rooms full of alphas, betas, and royals, all drunk and without a care in the world. As an omega, I’d worked many of them.

  Tavia shook her head. “You’ll get yourself killed.”

  Killed. As if I was actually living.

  “What is this?” I raised my hands. My dress—hugging my curves with rich magenta and gold—was the most glamorous part of the Badlands. Daylight shone through the crooked wall slats of our home, and everything was coated with a layer of reddish brown desert dust. It made life in the Badlands one-dimensional, sad, and hopeless. “This isn’t living. This is existing. But if I pull this off—”

  “You won’t.” Tavia recently got fired from her job in the castle, no explanation given, no second chances. Now she was scrambling to find something, anything not to fall into the trafficking ring that so many omega women were forced into to survive.

  After The Division, omegas were stripped of all shifter rights. Laws that protected the residents of Luxoria no longer applied to us. Rumors swirled that if King Adalai ever shifted into his true wolf form, he might lift his harsh rules on the Badlands. But if omegas knew anything, it was that dreams seldom came true.

  Working in the castle had offered us some protection, except for when we faced those who thought our jobs gave us privilege. There was a hierarchy among omegas too. And Tavia was desperate to not fall through the floor straight to the bottom of it.

  “Do I look like an omega in this dress?” I challenged.

  A wild storm of emotion swirled in her eyes. I knew what it was. Desperation. Exactly why I had to take this chance.

  She shook her head, hopeless as ever. “They’ll know. They’ll see the dust on your skin and hear the rumble in your belly. You’re too skinny to be anything but an omega. Your cheeks are too pink from the sun. No dress can hide that.”

  “After a few glasses of mead, all they’ll care about is a place to stick their dick.”

  Tavia’s face paled. She’d been holding secrets from me too. “You know the laws. If anyone in the royal city attempts to mate with an omega, they’ll be killed.”

  I didn’t need to mate with just anyone. I needed one male who wasn’t an omega, to take notice of me.

  “I have to try.” I didn’t want to cry. I’d put on eye makeup, the little bit I was able to smuggle out of the castle, and I didn’t want to mess it up. Tonight, I wasn’t an omega. If my plan worked, I could lift up Tavia and all our friends. They could take everything away from me, but I’d tucked my dreams deep in a place where not even the king could reach. “If nothing changes, we’ll starve to death, and that’s if we’re lucky. I’m scared for you, Tavia. I’ll do whatever it takes so you don’t have to sell yourself night after night.”

  “That’s exactly what you’re doing.” She clapped her hand over her mouth. Emotion raised the volume of her voice. She knew she couldn’t stop me, but she also knew better than to draw attention to herself. “You’re selling yourself to someone who doesn’t care if we live or die.”

  “No one cares about us.” By design, there was very little loyalty among omegas. We couldn’t be a pack without an alpha. The women who lived in this shack did their best to look out for one another. But they’d taken our voices and our power. All we had was comfort and sympathy. We wanted so much more. “I’m willing to take this chance to make our lives better. What if one night could change everything?”

  “You always were a dreamer.” Tavia’s shoulders softened once she realized there was no talking me out of this. No better alternative. She reached into the chest at the end of our bed. The intricately carved mahogany stayed covered in a layer of dust no matter how often we cleaned it, but was the only thing we had left of what belonged to our mom. Everything else we’d been forced to sell to buy food or make rent.

  Tavia retrieved one of our everyday dresses from the chest and handed it to me. It was as brown as the dessert. “Put this on until you get to the castle. Don’t draw attention to yourself in the Badlands.”

  I pulled it over my head, and just like that, the magic of my beautiful dress was gone. Only until I got to the cas
tle. In my new dress, I could be whoever I wanted. Beta. Alpha. Royalty.

  “Thank you,” I said. Tavia didn’t have to help. Even if she was my sister, all I had in the entire world, she could’ve reported me. If she did, I wouldn’t live to see midnight.

  “I love that you can still dream.” She wrapped her arms around me. “One day, I hope I can again too.”

  Keep reading His Forbidden Omega!

  Don’t miss out on Kristen’s other books! Check out www.kristenstrassel.com for all the info.

  Smoky Mountain Dragons

  Love Spell

  Midsummer Spell

  Harvest Spell

  Samhain Spell

  Yule Spell

  The Royal Omegas (with P. Jameson)

  His Forbidden Omega

  His Defiant Omega

  His Rebellious Omega

  Sawtooth Shifters

  Her Captive Wolf

  Her Guardian Wolf

  Her Renegade Wolf

  Her Christmas Wolf

  Her Spellbound Wolf

  Her Fated Wolf

  Super huge tease—there is a Sawtooth/Werewives mashup miniseries coming early 2020.

  Colorado Shifters

  Wanted by the Lion

  Taken by the Buck

  Mated to the Cougar

  The Real Werewives of Alaska

  Running Wild

  Reindeer Games

  Silver Fox

  Catching the Vixen

  Wildcat

  Playing to Win

  Intercepting Christmas

  The Escort

  No Strings Attached

  Wrapped Around My Finger

  Ties That Bind

  The Passion Project

  The Inheritance

  Dirty Little Secret

  Exposed

  Night Songs

  Because the Night

  Night Moves

  We Own the Night

  Silent Night

  Cirque Macabre

  The Fire Dancer

  Sin City Vampire Club

  Queen of the Night Time World

  Blood Courtesans

  Wanted

  Sacrifice

  Fated & Forbidden (multi-author series)

  Fire Brand