Pretty Much Dead Already, page 1
Pretty Much Dead Already
A Zombie Apocalypse Omegaverse
Saiya Summers
Copyright © [2025] by [Saiya Summers]
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
Contents
1. Chapter One: The Perfect Omega
2. Chapter Two: World Unraveling
3. Chapter Three: Sanctuary's Edge
4. Chapter Four: A Familiar Scent
5. Chapter Five: Scent of Destiny
6. Chapter Six: Survival in Triage
7. Chapter Seven: The Worst Idea Yet
8. Chapter Eight: Mental Health Day
9. Chapter Nine: The Weight of Small Things
10. Chapter Ten: Whispers of Threat
11. Chapter Eleven: Shadows in the Safe Haven
12. Chapter Twelve: Bonds Under Fire
13. Chapter Thriteen: Heart's Revelation
14. Chapter Fourteen: The Sound of Plastic and Promises
15. Chapter Fifteen: Passion's Ember
16. Chapter Sixteen: Enemy At The Gate
17. Chapter Seventeen: Divided We Fall
18. Chapter Eighteen: Strength in Numbers
19. Chapter Nineteen: Innovation Under Pressure
20. Chapter Twenty: The Great Escape
21. Chapter Twenty One: Betrayal's Sting
22. Chapter Twenty Two: Smoke And Mirrors
23. Chapter Twenty Three: Love's Fierce Defense
24. Chapter Twenty Four: Love's Fierce Defense
25. Chapter Twenty Five: Omega Ascendant
26. Chapter Twenty Six: Dawn of a New Pack
Chapter One: The Perfect Omega
Lira
No one tells you that the air in a bridal suite can be weaponized. That it can choke you, even if it’s honeyed with fresh peonies and champagne, even if every breath feels like a dainty velvet rope around your windpipe, tugged tighter with every stifled giggle or whiff of hair spray. No one tells you because there’s no one to tell—the whole point is to make you forget how to breathe on your own. I sit on a plush, pearl-white ottoman, hands folded like an obedient lapdog, and watch the machinery of the Westbrook wedding industry whirr to life around me.
Today, I am the main attraction: the sacrificial lamb with a six-figure lace train and eyelids dusted in real gold. There are three stylists in rotation—two for the hair, one for makeup—plus the on-call seamstress, the Westbrook family’s personal security detail hovering just outside the door, and a scent consultant whose only job is to dab perfume on my wrists and behind my ears at precisely timed intervals. I know her because she’s the only one who doesn’t speak in stage whispers. She simply exists, a phantom in soft shoes, ready to dab, dab, dab at my pulse when the clock chimes.
It’s obscene, the quantity of mirrors in this room. Full-length ones, antique with gilded frames, perched between the French doors and the dressing screen. Compact, round ones that catch my face from below, giving me a child’s perspective of my own jaw. Even the walls have mirrored panels, so the effect is that I am surrounded on all sides by iterations of myself: a terrarium of Lira's, each one dressed incrementally more like a cake-topper bride as the stylists build me up layer by suffocating layer.
The gown is a living organism, engineered by a boutique atelier in Florence and ferried to the mansion on a private jet. It starts as a skeleton of boned silk, cinched around my ribs by a bustier so tight I have to remind myself to exhale in shallow increments. The lace overlay comes next, hand-stitched with a flock of tiny doves and lilies so delicate I’m forbidden from touching them directly. Then comes the veil, yards of frosted tulle that billow around me, as light as a breath but threatening to smother the whole suite if I move too quickly. By the time the stylists pin the last section of my hair—a series of glossy, architectural waves that took two hours and a tray of curling irons to achieve—I have disappeared beneath so much ornament that I feel less like a person and more like the room’s central floral arrangement.
“I think that’s…perfect, don’t you, miss?” The youngest stylist, barely older than me, steps back and clasps her hands under her chin. Her name tag says “Aurelia,” but I suspect it’s not her real name. No one in the Westbrook employ uses their real name unless they want to be retrained as kitchen staff.
“Yes,” I say. My voice is too soft, barely enough to ripple the surface of all this shimmering artifice. I try again. “It’s perfect.”
She beams, and the older stylist—her superior, if the pecking order of who’s allowed to use bobby pins is any indication—nods in crisp approval. “Alpha Westbrook’s only instruction was elegance,” the elder says, and her accent flattens the consonants so that it sounds almost like a threat. “Not drama. You must be the very portrait of grace.”
In every mirror, I see the word reflected back at me. Grace. As if they’re invoking it over my body like a priest with holy oil. In one version, I look impossibly serene, chin tilted just so. In another, I notice the faint quiver at the corner of my mouth, the way my collarbone threatens to knife through the sweet heart collar if I inhale too deeply.
“You’re shaking.” Aurelia’s concern is featherlight, but her hands are steady as she smooths the skirt at my hips, careful not to snag the appliqué.
“I always do,” I say, and it’s supposed to be a joke, but the other stylist makes a sharp tsk and glances at the clock. There’s a schedule to maintain: the photographers have already started assembling downstairs, and the Westbrook publicist has vetoed any image in which I appear less than radiant.
The suite is gaudy in the way of all old-money palaces—opulence so unrestrained it circles back to vulgar. The rug is a labyrinth of wine-red filigree, soft enough that my bare feet sink half an inch when I stand. The fainting couch under the bay window is upholstered in something rumored to be extinct, with throw pillows clustered like overfed lapdogs. Two racks of rejected gowns lean in the corner like dead soldiers, their paper tags still attached, some pieces half-unzipped in a final plea for relevance. The air tastes of spent perfume, static electricity, and something beneath it all that is faintly, thrillingly medicinal—someone must have spritzed the place with disinfectant after last night’s rehearsal dinner.
My mother always told me I was born to wear white, but the evidence suggests otherwise. My hair—red as a cardinal’s breast, no matter how many times they tone it down with blue shampoo—defies the palette. My skin is the kind of pale that bruises if you look at it crosswise, and my wrists are etched with the memory of every childhood scrape and accident. My body is a field of small, persistent rebellions, so the dress’s relentless perfection feels like a dare. When the seamstress crouches at my feet to fasten the last covered button, her knuckles brush my ankle and she doesn’t meet my eye. None of them do, unless it’s to check the symmetry of their handiwork.
The scent consultant glides forward, her appearance androgynous and sexless in a way that’s either by design or necessity. She dabs the pulse points of my neck with a blend called “Snow Maiden,” which costs more than most sedans. The cold tip of the perfume wand grazes my jaw and I flinch, so slight it could be mistaken for a breath.
She leans in. “Are you feeling faint?” She whispers, as if this were a confession.
“Only a little.” I try for a smile. “Is that permitted?”
A brief, human flicker crosses her face, and then she steps away, folding back into the invisible perimeter of the suite. Maybe I imagined it.
Someone brings in a tray of hors d’oeuvres—miniature blinis topped with iridescent roe, sugared orchid petals, slivers of seared tuna balanced on black ceramic spoons. No one expects me to eat, so the tray becomes another ornament, shuttled from vanity to coffee table and back again without losing a single piece to digestion. I stare at the plate of orchid petals and think about how every living thing in this house is ultimately decorative. That even my nervous system, currently firing on all cylinders, is just a series of pretty noises behind a well-manicured mask.
The stylists drift to the edges of the room, conferring in urgent but inaudible whispers. I flex my fingers to keep the blood flowing. My hands are trembling, as they always do before a big event, but today it feels worse. There’s a quality to my nerves that’s new, raw, almost electrical. It takes effort to smooth my skirt with the necessary composure, to act as though I am not inches from panic. The layers of lace slide beneath my palms, catching ever so slightly on the callus near my thumb—a souvenir from when I learned to sew my own repairs, before the Westbrook housekeepers confiscated my needle and thread, citing insurance policy.
I glance at the clock: ten minutes to the first look. Twenty until the processional. An entire lifetime, if you count it by heartbeats.
Aurelia hovers near my shoulder, arranging the train for what must be the tenth time. “You’re a vision,” she whispers. “Alpha Westbrook won’t know what hit him.”
The other stylist scoffs. “He’s seen her already, darling. That’s how these things work.”
Aurelia blanches, then smooths her own skirt and busies herself with the train again. “Still, it’s different today,” she insists, quieter this time. “She’s his Omega now. They say it changes everything.”
I want to tell her that it changes nothing, that the only difference is the thickness of the velvet rope, but I bite down on the inside of my cheek instead. My r
For a moment, the suite falls quiet, save for the faint hum of the climate control and the clicking of someone’s heels in the hall. I hear a scrap of music—strings and piano, filtered through the half-opened doors—and imagine the ballroom below, full of Westbrook and Vale family luminaries, all of them waiting for the spectacle to begin.
One of the stylists, emboldened by the lull, offers me a sip of sparkling water through a silver straw. I take it, careful not to disturb the lipstick, and the cold fizzes across my tongue. I almost want to ask her to keep feeding me, like some tragic hothouse bird, but I suspect the joke would not land.
I’m so tightly trussed in my corset that, when I laugh, it comes out like a hiccup.
Aurelia adjusts the bodice one final time, then steps back, hands raised as if framing a masterpiece. “Ready?”
I nod, and my veil ripples with the motion, catching the light in a way that makes my entire head look illuminated from within. In the mirrors, I am a glowing cloud, suspended and untouchable. In my body, I am a knot of nerves strung tight enough to snap.
This is what I was made for: to be an artifact, a storybook illustration in the Westbrook family saga. There’s a part of me, deep and embarrassingly childish, that hopes for disaster—a wine stain, a broken heel, some excuse to run from this room and hide in the kitchens with the pastry girls, licking sugar from my fingers.
But that’s not how the story goes.
Aurelia takes my hand—so gently, as if she expects it to break—and leads me to the threshold. The other stylists fuss behind us, plumping the train and fluffing the veil, their hands practiced and reverent. The seamstress murmurs a final benediction in Italian. The scent consultant materializes one last time for a discreet dab on my neck.
All that’s left is to walk.
I gather the skirt, careful not to crush the doves, and smooth it with shaking hands. The door to the suite swings open, and the light from the hallway floods in, sharp and almost blue in contrast to the suite’s womb-like haze. For a moment, I hesitate, toes curling in the the half size to small shoes. Then I step forward, the train gliding behind me, and all the eyes—real and mirrored—follow my every move.
I keep my head high, the way they taught me, even as my hands tremble at my sides.
I am a vision.
I am grace.
I am walking into the jaws of a future I never chose.
And, in every reflection, I look just like a bride.
The corridor leading away from the bridal suite is padded so thickly that my footsteps vanish into the carpet. For a moment, I let myself drift, body weightless on a current of perfume and adrenaline. I think about how many hours—years, really—have been spent making me into this. Not just the gown, but the entire construct of “Lira Vale, Omega Bride.” I was tailored long before they ever measured my hips.
I pause at a landing, one level above the ballroom, and stare at the massive grandfather clock. Its face is gilt, but the minute hand ticks forward with a tiny, insistent click. The photographer is late, and so am I, but no one rushes me.
No one dares.
It gives me a sliver of time to think. I do what I’m not supposed to: I close my eyes.
I’m twelve, back in the Vale estate’s finishing room, knees pressed together under a starched linen skirt while Mother instructs me in the sacred art of Small Talk. “Remember, darling, always defer. Never argue. If an Alpha wishes to discuss weather, you adore the sun. If he loves finance, you worship the market.” She walks a measured circle around my chair, like a wolf examining its favorite cub. “Omegas are not hired to challenge, only to complement. Do you understand?”
I did, even then. I memorized it as easily as I memorized which forks belonged to which course, or how to lower my gaze just enough to look coy instead of insubordinate. There were more lessons, hundreds of them: how to modulate my voice for various audiences, how to silence my scent when necessary, how to anticipate needs before they were spoken. I became fluent in deference.
The worst of it was the morning of my first heat suppressant class. Mother stood by as the chemist explained the mechanics: patches, pills, and the silent, choking panic of never knowing what I might be like if I weren’t always edited. “It’s not about hiding,” Mother told me as the patch stung my thigh, “It’s about control. It’s about not scaring the world.” I accepted this as gospel, because there were no alternatives in our world.
Now, at the edge of the landing, I press my hands together to stop their trembling. The lace bites into my knuckles, a row of tiny, precise teeth. Somewhere below, a string quartet is tuning up. The music filters up the staircase in tiny, questioning scales—each note sharp and deliberate, just like the rest of this day.
I open my eyes to a sea of mirrors, reflections arrayed along the landing. I scan my own image for flaws, as they taught me. There is nothing: no errant hair, no lipstick smudge, not even a crease in the veil. But the girl in the mirror doesn’t look like me, not really. She’s too symmetrical, too preserved. Her smile is a muscle memory, not an emotion.
Someone approaches from behind—a stylist, probably, judging by the cloud of citrus shampoo. She hesitates, then lays a hand lightly on my arm. “Are you comfortable, miss?” Her voice is as colorless as the walls.
I nod, even though my ribs are close to fracturing under the corset’s grip. “Perfectly comfortable,” I say, and the lie floats between us like a soap bubble.
She lingers, scanning my face in the mirror, and I wonder if she sees the crack in my composure. “If I may, you look a bit…distracted.”
“Just nervous.” I offer a smile, this time with a sliver of real feeling in it, but it comes out as a grimace. The woman’s eyes flick toward the clock, then back to my reflection. “Alpha Westbrook deserves a happy bride,” she says, with the bland certainty of someone reciting a company policy.
I almost laugh, but the corset won’t allow it.
“Thank you,” I manage. She beams, reassured, and retreats to the end of the hall.
I remain, suspended on the landing, and let my thoughts swim backwards. In another world, perhaps I would have studied something besides the arcane arts of domestic warfare. I remember watching the gardeners at the Vale house, their hands black with soil, and envying the way they were allowed to get dirty. I once stole out to the rose beds, squatting among the thorns, just to see what it was like to have blood on my knees. Mother found me, of course, and scrubbed me clean with a scented cloth that stung. She wept afterwards, but not for the reason I expected. “I just want you to have a place in this world,” she said, voice wobbling, “and this is the only way.”
She was right. There is no place for wild things here. Only for ornaments, precision-engineered and perfectly displayed.
A commotion at the bottom of the stairs draws me back to the present. Someone—probably Grayson’s father, or the event planner—calls out a last-minute directive. I hear the word “timing,” then “Omega,” then my own name. The music in the ballroom halts, then resumes, a single violin note stretched thin as a filament.
The discomfort in my body is getting worse. The gown is heavier than it looks, weighted with so many layers of tulle and underskirt that my shoulders burn from the effort of simply existing upright. The corset is a vice, every breath shallow and urgent. Sweat prickles at the back of my neck. I wonder if anyone would notice if I fainted, or if they’d just prop me up like a mannequin until the ceremony concluded.
I peer again at the mirror. My reflection holds itself together, but the eyes are wrong: not empty, exactly, but distant. I try to remember the last time I saw my own face without a veil of foundation and design. Maybe last summer, on the balcony at the Vale estate, when I snuck a cigarette from Father’s private stash and smoked it until the nicotine made me sick. I’d looked at myself then—cheeks flushed, hair wild—and felt, for one dangerous minute, like something real.
Now, I am distilled to a single purpose. I exist to look the part, and the part is perfect. I force my lips into the prescribed smile, but it slips as soon as I stop thinking about it.
