[SIDE STORY OF CASPIAN:]
The Dragos family had money, status, and blood on their hands.
Caspian's father Roric Dragos and mother Elena Dragos were both alphas, feared in their circle. For years, their name was whispered in the same breath as fear. Because of omega smuggling. His father ran it. His mother stayed quiet. She told herself it was _his_ business. Not hers.
They already had a daughter, 16 years older than Caspian. An alpha. The perfect heir. Life was smooth and peaceful for them until. Until the Elena again got pregnant.
New technology had just hit the market—tests that could predict an unborn child's gender. Elena heard about it from her secretary so did it in secret. She wanted to surprise Roric with another alpha child but test came and the results are unpredictable.
60% chance: Omega.
She panicked at sudden turned of events. She knew what her family did to omegas. That day first time she tried to persuade his husband about stopping this business but Roric personally hate omegas like everyone else from his family. She didnt know the reason behind this hate but She begged her husband to stop. "What if our child is one of them? End it please. End this cruel business."
Roric laughed at her words. "If my child is an omega, I'll kill him with my own hands."
She was too shocked when she heard that. She didn't argue again. Instead, she paid the doctor, the nurses, anyone who knew. She buried the result. She carried the secret and the stress alone.
When the doctors told her the delivery would cost either her life or the child's, so stop stressing about whatever she was stressed. Her husband tried to convince her to abort. She didn't hesitate.She refused.
The night before delivery, she called her 16-year-old daughter seraphina to her room.
She told her everything.
"If I don't come back," she whispered, "protect your brother."
Seraphina didn't promise. She hated omegas too. But she said, "I will keep secret and I'll try to protect him but don't expect from me to love him."
That night was too cruel for Elena. She prayed all night.
"Oh god protect my son"
The delivery day came. She went in labor room and never came back to hug her son, she didn't make it back to lift her son like she hold seraphina back then.She died that day. The hospital shook with Caspian cry but no one was there to listen him. He found comfort in the nurse's hands that day.
Roric never held him. Not once. He knelt beside Elena's body and stared blankly at darkness that spread out in his life.
It was Caspian's sister who picked him up first. And just like that the funeral of her mother end in few days. Everything was normal again.
The days came and goes just like before. Life continues.
---
Caspian was 12, in 6th grade, when his first heat hit him at school. The other kids backed away like he'd caught something contagious. Someone gave him patch to wear. Teachers send him in nursing room.
The headmaster was Roric's friend. He didn't call serphena. He called Roric.
That was the first time Caspian saw his father at school. He ran up, grinning, showing his friends: "Look! That's my dad!" He thought Roric came to take him home because he was sick.
What he didn't know that his admission got cancel that day.
When he reached home, he didn't even entered the palace when at the gates, in front of staff and everyone, his father slapped him. Hard enough for a little child. He Grabbed him by his white hair that was just like his mother and tried to drag him away.
That's when his sister stepped between them.
The whole Dragos family was there. His father's side, his mother's side. All watching.
"I won't let you drag him in that room," she yelled:
" Leave him, he will not got out of his own room."His father still didn't go , he was staring at seraphina for quite a while like he was telling her that it's the biggest mistake she ever made. But she didn't back down just like Elena so Roric agreed to her.
And that was it. Caspian room became his world.
Every time some of his relative got chance to enter his room, they beat him,They cursed him, spat on him, called him a stain. But his sister was fast to reach. She always stopped them. Caspian didn't know that what he will do without her.
Every time someone beat him he stopped flinching. Pain became routine.
Until on day his father came to announced his marriage.
The beatings stopped after that announcement. Caspian thought it was over. He thought his sister would again save him.
But, she didn't come to save him.she came to convince him. "This marriage is good for you."
That night, Caspian cried for the first time in years. The sister who'd been like a mother to him had turned. She cursed him like the rest.
He made a decision. He would run.
The next day, his sister came , she was sad , he can felt that. Caspian understood. Maybe she was guilty. But he didn't question his marriage again . He already knew what he'd do.
She took him to pick his wedding clothes. Caspian smiled and chose the lightest outfit he could find—something he could run in.
And seraphina though that Caspian had changed his mind.
---
On the wedding day, the makeup artists tried to hide the faint scars on his skin. They almost succeeded. But up close, you could still see them.
Caspian was calm, too calm. He was waited for the moment of weakness. And god send him that moment like his wedding blessing.
When Silas arrived, all the maids ran to greet him. The y all went and they forget that Caspian was alone. He grabbed a maid's shawl, pulled it over his head, and slipped into the crowd.
After moment later there was Chaos everywhere when maids came to take him but he wasn't there.
The panic errupted in the palace.Roric ordered the guards to search the palace for him. Silas brought his own men. They searched the city.
But Caspian never left the palace.
He waited until the guards were gone in the city for his search, the palace was without any guards so hy ran for the gates.
Halfway there, his sister's voice stopped him.
"Caspian!"
He turned. She stood at the palace doors, face pale, eyes full of fear.
Caspian eyes filled with tears as one tear slide down from his cheeks . He mouthed the words: _"Thanks for everything you did for me."_
"Come back here!" she shouted.
He didn't look back.
The only omega of the Dragos family ran from his own wedding that day. Not the first one to ever dare.
But Omegas remembered his name after that. Because he was not the only one to ran away but he was the only one who didn't get caught and the only one to crossed the territory of enemy mafia.
---