Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

EPHEMERA

From a Chicago Tribune article, July 15, 2031

Amazon Executive Arrested in Omega Trafficking Bust

In the latest arrest in the ongoing human trafficking investigation that has upended Chicago, Richard Burns, executive director of the Chicago Amazon headquarters, was jailed last night on charges including murder, human trafficking, sexual assault, child abuse, and embezzlement. A single omega, in critical condition, was rescued from the scene. Investigators discovered the remains of another omega, recently deceased, on the property. Search is ongoing. As victims are underage, no identifying details will be released.

Police believe Burns to be one of the financial backers of the omega trafficking ring operated by convicted traffickers Art and Tom Qualls. Brought to light three years ago by the shocking kidnapping of Mayor Keria Morning-Wolfe’s omega son, Professor Christopher Wolfe of the University of Chicago, the ring has been linked to hundreds of kidnapping and assault cases...

August 10, 2031

Jess sat in the bare conference room, flipping through the booklet Dr. Ebele had given him without much interest. The glossy photos on the pages showed rolling fields surrounded by autumn woods, young people talking and laughing on the porch of an old Victorian mansion, over-eager students waving their hands in a brightly lit classroom. All obviously staged.

Ptolemy House. A school for omegas like him, the doctor said. A place to recover and catch up on his schoolwork. What a joke. He hadn't been to school since he presented in sixth grade, and he doubted there was any catching up from that.

The click of the door handle set his pulse racing, even though he'd expected it. Just Dr. Ebele with the representative from the school. Jess caught himself sniffing even before he looked up. Blatantly, too, mouth open and nose wrinkling. Rude.

That would have earned him a slap from Da. Teasing praise from the old Alpha.

This man, this omega who smelled like old books and some kind of exotic wood, said nothing at all. Nor was there any sign of a reaction on his face. For an omega, he was intimidating. A sharp face framed by long black hair, skin a shade of brown that gave no real clue as to his heritage, and dark clothes. He had the small stature of an omega, but none of the humility Jess had been trained into. Instead, he strode into the room like an alpha, long black jacket flaring out behind him, and took a seat at the table across from Jess. 

"This is Dr. Wolfe," Dr. Ebele said, taking the seat next to the man. "From Ptolemy House."

"Doctor as in Ph.D," Dr. Wolfe said. "In computer science, so don't come whining to me about stomachaches."

"Right, got it, only computer viruses for you," Jess said, giving him Brendan's smile, the sarcastic one that used to drive Da out of his mind.

One of the only things Jess had left of his brother.

Dr. Wolfe narrowed his eyes. "I would rather you didn't come to me with those, either. There will be lessons in responsible internet usage, and you will be expected to clean up your own messes. If you go and get your computer infected…"

Dr. Ebele cleared her throat. Wolfe gave her a sideways glance, but went quiet. Looking at Jess with the motherly expression he couldn't decide whether he loved or hated, she said, "As you can see, Ptolemy House is a less restrictive environment, where you will be allowed both more freedom and more responsibility. I think you are ready for that, don't you?"

Responsibility, restriction, Jess didn't see the difference. Just different ways for adults to run his life because he was too fucked up to run it himself. But one thing stood out to him, one thing he actually cared about. "I'll get to have a computer?"

"Yes," Wolfe said, and after that, it was all just a matter of smiling and nodding and agreeing to what the two adults said.

Jess would have a computer. He could play games again. Find all Brendan's favorites and play until he didn't feel alone anymore.

He was daydreaming about getting into Brendan's World of Warcraft account when movement across the table snapped his gaze up and into focus. Jess's hackles rose, but it was just Wolfe, opening his black leather laptop bag to take out a spiral bound book.

Only a book. Not whatever Jess's stupid panic was afraid of. 

With his pulse pounding in his ears, he hardly heard Wolfe say, "I'd like you to have a look through these. Or more accurately, a smell. I assume Dr. Ebele has discussed therapeutic techniques with you sufficiently that you are familiar with the concept of a support alpha."

"An alpha to give me happy smells when I break down, yes," Jess said, rolling his eyes. Jess hoped Dr. Ebele hadn't told Wolfe how well he responded to the sessions he'd had with the clinic's alpha therapist. But then, if Wolfe was offering a support alpha, she probably had. Or maybe he was just that fucked up.

Wolfe nodded and pushed the book across the table. "Something like that, yes. While it isn't mandatory, we generally assign new students to volunteer peer counselors. This will assist us in determining compatibility."

Warily, Jess opened the book, eyeing it with suspicion, at least until the first scent hit him. Smoky, a little oily, not at all pleasant, but he could feel his pulse slowing and his hackles lowering, and he wondered if this was what Da's addicts felt like.

He flipped through a few pages before he got to one that smelled not only stupidly comforting, but actually good. Jasmine and cinnamon, like tea and cookies. He thought he might come back to that one.

At least until he got to one that actually made him purr. It was a strange scent, like vanilla and some kind of grease. Engine oil? Logically, he knew that shouldn’t smell good. Logically, he knew the scent was just his brain processing pheromones into something he could name. It didn’t matter. He was salivating. His eyes were drifting shut, and he was purring like a goddamned cat. Unable to stop himself from blushing, he sat up and cleared his throat.

Wolfe, with a look of keen interest, leaned across the table to sniff. “Ah, that will be Schreiber. A good choice.”

“Who says I made a choice?” Jess snapped, as if that would make a damn bit of difference. As if it wasn’t obvious.

Wolfe raised an eyebrow. Just one. “Oh? Would you prefer another one?”

Jess meant to say he didn’t want an alpha at all. Never again, not even one of these support alphas. But instead he found his chest squeezing in on him and his heart racing at the thought of giving up this smell. “No, it’s fine, this one’s fine,” he said, trying to sound like he didn’t care, trying not to gasp for breath. It was just a damn panic attack. Another damn panic attack.

“How about you take one more sniff to be sure?” Wolfe asked. It was a perfectly reasonable question, but he was looking at Jess like he could see right through him, like he knew exactly what was going through Jess’s head.

Like he knew Jess needed another hit.

And damned if the bastard wasn’t right. 

One sniff and he could breathe again.

Chapter Text

EPHEMERA

Posted to an Instagram account belonging to Dario Santiago, August 15, 2031

[Pictured: a young man with dark, wavy hair and bronze skin reclines on a king-size bed, wearing a red silk robe open to reveal only a black leather thong underneath. His eyes look glazed, his pupils wide, and he is smiling.]

Caption: last night of freedom 😭🤬😈🍆🍑🍾🖕

August 16, 2031

Dario arrived at Ptolemy House high. If he was going to be sent away for delinquency, he might as well live up to the label. Anyway, he had no idea how thoroughly they’d search his things, and letting this weed be confiscated and thrown away would be like pouring Champagne - real Champagne, not some sparkling imitation - down the toilet. It was very, very good weed.

Anyway, he couldn’t have done it sober.

He was going to have to find a new dealer now, but he wasn’t too worried about that. He could find a dealer anywhere, and he could always pay. But there might be an unpleasant interval of sobriety, and he wanted to get well and truly stoned before facing that.

The plan, such as it was, had been to finish the good weed before leaving, but he’d slept through his alarm, or maybe forgot to set it. Last night had been a blur of using up some other things from his stash that were too good to risk losing. Whatever the reason, he’d woken up late enough that he was still on his first joint and debating what shirt to wear when Alvaro knocked on his door.

At least it was only Alvaro, not one of Father’s collection of stern and uncompromising assistants. Alvaro could be persuaded.

And so Dario found himself slouched on the leather backseat, finishing his second and last joint while the scenery out the tinted window slowed from the blur of the highway into a more recognizable haze. The rest of the weed was in Alvaro’s pocket, the price of being allowed to smoke in Alvaro’s new Tesla. Worth it, even if Alvaro was being an idiot about the Tesla. It wasn’t like it was a Lamborghini. 

The car kept going slower, which made it more fun to watch the clouds and treetops with all their funny, puffy shapes. Like pillows. His giggling was abruptly cut off by the downward movement of the window glass.

Dario slammed his finger on the button to roll the window up and snapped, “What are you doing?”

“We’re almost there,” Alvaro said in the even, measured tone that he used when he thought Dario was being a complete moron. “Your dad called ahead, so there’s going to be someone waiting to meet us. Do you really want to get out in a cloud of pot smoke?”

Actually, he did. It would make a certain impression, he thought, and he very much wanted to see the looks on the stuffy old teachers’ faces when they smelled it. That was too much to explain, though, so he just said, “Why not? It’s legal.”

“Not in Indiana it isn’t.” The eye roll with that was audible, even if Dario wasn’t sitting at the right angle to see Alvaro’s face in the mirror.

This time, when Alvaro put the windows down, he put on the fucking child lock, and Dario couldn’t do anything to stop it.

Soon after that, they arrived. Dario didn’t bother to sit up while the car passed through the gates and up a winding driveway, only fixing his posture just before the gull-wing door lifted to reveal a sprawling old mansion that reminded Dario of his father’s vacation house in Michigan. A lot of land around it. Maybe they had horses. Dario smiled at that. He liked horses.

He stopped smiling soon after that as the smell of alpha hit him. Woodsmoke, strong and sexy, but not half as sexy as the man it belonged to. Short black hair, dark green eyes, a strong alpha chin. Tall and deeply tanned with the kind of physique that spoke of strength without bragging. He probably looked amazing naked. He already looked amazing in his clothes, a neat black uniform with gold trim and a shiny gold badge a bit like…

Shit. A cop. Security. Whatever. Fuck.

Dario climbed out of the car and flashed the cop his most dazzling smile.

The cop did not look at all impressed. “You’re Dario Santiago?” he asked in a deep, stern voice that would definitely be featuring in Dario’s heat fantasies for a while.

“That’s right,” Dario said. “Five hundred seventy-sixth in line for the throne of Spain, but I won’t ask you to call me ‘your highness.’”

No reaction to that, either. No laughter, no questions, only, “Niccolo Santi, head of security. I’ll answer to Mr. Santi or Captain Santi. Do you have any luggage, or will we need to make a trip to the supply room?” All spoken in a perfectly even, pleasant tone.

Supply room…? Dario’s well-baked brain took a moment to process that, during which time he probably looked like a gaping idiot. Well, that was what this school usually catered to, wasn’t it? And that would be what the supply room was for. The impoverished. Junkies. Lunatics. Father had made it abundantly clear how low one normally had to fall to be admitted to this facility.

Dario was not so badly off. “I have luggage,” he said, noting that Alvaro had already opened the trunk of the Tesla and looking around for someone to grab his suitcases.

No one in sight. What kind of lazy butlers and housekeepers did this place employ?

Santi - there was no way he was thinking of the bastard with a title, whatever his libido might have to say about the appeal of “Captain” - stood waiting, his face completely neutral.

Oh, fuck, he was expecting Dario to carry his own luggage, wasn’t he?

“Varito? Give me a hand here?” Dario asked, looking over his shoulder at his cousin, who sat in the driver’s seat sipping a coffee, looking completely unconcerned about any of this.

Alvaro lowered his cup and gave Dario an apologetic shrug. “Sorry, your exalted highness, but I have to get to work. Traffic on the Dan Ryan is going to be awful, and you know how impatient your royal sire gets.”

Dario answered that with a gesture, which got him a narrow-eyed look from Santi and another shrug from Alvaro. “Well, thanks for the ride,” he said, giving Alvaro a significant glare that he hoped conveyed the message of, I gave you half of my best weed and you can’t even carry some stuff for me?

“Any time, my dear cousin,” Alvaro said, and rolled up the driver’s window. 

Bastard. He closed the gull-wing door, too, leaving only the trunk open for Dario to retrieve his luggage. Five suitcases. Nowhere near enough to hold everything Dario would have liked to bring, but the maximum permitted. He couldn’t carry them all at once, obviously, and there wasn’t even a cart to put them on, so he was stuck hauling them two at a time to the mansion’s steps, probably looking like a complete moron, especially when his gaze caught on a particularly nice set of windows on the third floor. Stained glass. Colorful. Probably old. Pretty.

Too damn fascinating under the influence, that’s what it was. Dario made a mental note to find those windows on the inside and go stare at them next time he got high.

Alvaro drove off as soon as the last bag was out. Bastard. Not even a roar of the engine as the car sped away. Fucking Tesla. There should have been a roar of engine noise. That would have been much more satisfying. The one and only adult who gave even half a fuck about him, roaring away.

Dario turned to Santi. “Help me out with these?” Surely a big, strong alpha like Santi could carry all five together, maybe in one hand...

“You packed them. You carry them,” Santi said impassively. 

So he did. It took three trips. Fortunately, he was stoned enough to take Santi’s word for it that the ones he had to leave on the steps would be safe enough. He was not, however, nearly stoned enough for the sight of his so-called room.

It was a closet. They were making him sleep in a closet. Not even a large closet. His closet in his room back in Chicago was larger by half. He’d known not to expect luxury in a place like this, but surely they knew an omega needed a certain measure of space. This room barely fit its furniture. The bed took up almost the full length of the back wall, and a desk and low bookshelf occupied most of the remaining space. Above both bed and desk were windows dressed only in bare blinds, and on the wall opposite the desk, two plain wooden doors stood open, revealing the bland beige tile of a bathroom and a closet scarcely large enough even to stand in, let alone dress in.

Where the fuck was he supposed to nest?

Panting, dripping with sweat from the effort of lugging his first two suitcases up two flights of stairs, he looked to Santi for some hint that this was all a joke.

“Best room in the house,” Santi said with a straight face. “You get two windows. The rest get only one. Benefit of having royal connections, I suppose.”

He was really starting to hate Santi. That hatred fueled him through the grueling ordeal of hauling the rest of his things up. At least no one was there to see him dragging luggage about like a bellhop. Dario was the first student to arrive thanks to his father’s special arrangement with the school. More accurately, thanks to the obscene amount of money his father had paid for the privilege of shipping off his embarrassment of a son.

Fuck him. Fuck Mother, too, for agreeing to this. And Alvaro for being their damned accomplice. And most of all, fuck Santi, who was still there when Dario got his fifth suitcase up to the room, leaning against the wall and paging through a binder.

Probably Dario’s records. It looked slimmer than Dario would have expected. That wouldn’t last, he was sure.

“Was that the last one?” Santi asked. When Dario nodded, the alpha took a thin spiral bound book from the back of the binder and held it out. “I’ll leave this for your consideration. It contains scent profiles of our available peer counselors. Once you’ve settled on one, stop by my office downstairs. If you’ve forgotten the way, you’ll find a map on the first page of the student handbook, right there on the bookshelf.”

That was the least subtle hint to read the rules Dario had ever heard. Dumb alpha. Of course Dario would read the rules. How was he going to work out how to circumvent them without reading them? More important, though, was the book Santi held out to him.

Dario knew what a peer counselor really was, and he wanted nothing to do with it. He waved it away, wrinkling his nose. “I won’t be needing that. I’m delinquent, not defective.”

Santi’s hand didn’t so much as waver. Nor did his pleasant expression. “It isn’t a matter of need, Santiago. Your father has asked that you receive the full range of services that we offer here at Ptolemy House, and that includes peer counseling. You can choose, or we can choose for you.”

That sounded disturbingly like Father’s speeches on marriage. Find yourself a suitable alpha spouse, or one will be found for you. Maybe that was Father’s hope, that this would turn out like one of those sappy movies Mother was always watching, ending with Dario happily married to his so-called counselor, who would of course be some high-class alpha slumming it to burnish their college applications.

Not fucking likely. Still, just having a support alpha didn’t mean he would have to avail himself of the alpha’s… services. Taking the book, Dario said, “Oh, very well, I suppose there are worse things than having a gorgeous alpha to follow me around all day.” He let his eyes slide blatantly up and down Santi’s body as he spoke.

Santi didn’t take the bait. “Glad you can see reason, Santiago,” he said, and turned to go.

“No, wait,” Dario said. “Let’s just get this over with, shall we? I’ll pick one right now.” The last thing he wanted was to have to go down all those stairs again just to bring this stupid book back.

He wasn’t expecting much when he opened it, and thus he wasn’t disappointed by the first few scents. Generic alpha, all of them. No two alike, but all of them similar in their lack of nuance. The kind of alpha that would make for a very pleasant fuck, but not the kind he would want to find still in his bed the next morning.

For this, he needed something better. Something he could stand to smell all the time. Something he might even enjoy smelling all the time. He found it halfway through the book. Cinnamon and jasmine, a delightfully unexpected combination. Soft floral notes warmed by the subtle strength of spice. His mouth watered at it, and his blood ran hot. Yes, this one had potential.

Looking up at Santi, who’d opened that fucking binder again, Dario said, “I’ll take this one.”

“So fast?” Santi asked, taking the book. He sniffed the page. His eyebrow twitched, but whatever he thought, he didn’t share it. He flipped through the binder and took out a single page to offer to Dario. “You’re in luck. Looks like she marked your scent down as compatible.”

Dario took it, putting a bored expression on as he looked it over. Probably unsuccessfully. Some surprise had to have shown when his eyes fell on the small photograph printed at the top of the page.

Khalila Seif, that was her name. She looked so small. A tiny, delicate girl with her head wrapped in a scarf. A hijab. That made her a Muslim, like some of his distant relatives in Spain. She had a pretty face, kind eyes and a soft smile, and it just didn’t seem possible that she could be an alpha. She looked more like an omega than he did, and everyone was always telling him how pretty he was.

And of course Santi saw it, the bastard. He didn’t say anything, but the look in his eyes said enough. “Now that we have that settled, I’ll leave you to unpack,” Santi said, turning again for the door. This time, Dario couldn’t think of any reason to stop him. “Dinner is at six in the dining hall. You know where to find me if you have any questions before then.”

“Right, of course, thank you,” Dario mumbled, still staring at the picture.

Santi paused in the doorway and gave an exaggerated sniff. “Oh, and Santiago? I would suggest a shower.”

The fucking bastard was gone before Dario could even decide what Santi was smelling - the pot, his arousal, or the dread humming underneath all that - let alone come up with a suitable reply. 

Leaving his suitcases where they lay on the floor, Dario flopped back onto the bed to stare at his new support alpha. He thought he might just get used to the idea after all.

If nothing else, with a sweet little alpha like her, he wouldn’t have to worry about being controlled.

Chapter Text

EPHEMERA

From a Chicago Tribune article, August 15, 2031

Iron Tower Ministries Pastor Pleads Not Guilty

In a hearing yesterday, Gregory Valdosta, former head pastor of Iron Tower Ministries, pleaded not guilty to charges of human trafficking, sexual assault, and child abuse. Valdosta maintains that he had no knowledge of omega trafficking occurring in his church and maintains that his sexual relationship with accuser Jane Doe, age 16, was consensual and that he was led to believe she was over the age of 18.

Judge Askuwheteau once again refused to grant bail. Valdosta will remain in custody until his next hearing, scheduled for…

August 11, 2031

Morgan nuzzled into Annis’s neck, purring. Annis smelled good. Everyone used to tell her that betas didn’t have any scent, but Morgan knew now that wasn’t true at all. Annis smelled like Earl Grey. It was faint, but it was there. She also usually smelled like roses, because she let Morgan scent mark her, which was another thing betas weren’t supposed to do.

Earl Grey and roses, like the tea in the tall glass canister on the kitchen shelf. Annis had brought it home from the store one day, laughing, and now it was the only tea Morgan wanted to drink. Annis bought a lot of things for Morgan. Soaps and books and dresses and bras that actually fit, and when Morgan asked why Annis was being so generous, Annis just smiled and said that was how mothers were supposed to be. In church, they’d always said betas didn’t make good mothers.

Morgan had spent these past two months learning that everything she knew about betas was wrong. Everything she knew about everything was wrong. She’d always known the Tower was lying, but never realized just how much. She’d been too young when Dad joined to know any better.

That was what made deciding things so difficult. It wasn’t that she didn’t know what she wanted. Not having choices hadn’t made her stop wanting them. The trouble was not knowing enough about anything to know whether what she thought was right really was.

Like this school where Annis worked. The idea made sense: a safe place for omegas who had been hurt to recover and catch up on their classes. But it had alphas. Support alphas, they were called. Or peer counselors, when they were students, too.

It didn’t matter what they were called. It sounded like betrothal. Match up every omega with an alpha to keep their sinful bodies in check. Get a mating bite young and stay out of Hell. And if that bite came from a man of God, so much the better.

Unconsciously, she reached up to rub her neck where Gregory had bitten her. Just like the pregnancies, it hadn’t taken. She’d made sure of that. She’d ran and ran and ran until someone who wasn’t from the Tower finally caught her.

Annis’s thin hand closed over Morgan’s. “He can’t hurt you now, lass. None of them can. You’re safe here, and you’ll be safe at Ptolemy House. I wouldn’t bring you there if I didn’t know it would be safe.”

With a mumble of vague agreement, Morgan burrowed her face into Annis for one last deep breath of calming tea scent, enough to screw up her courage and step back from her foster mother’s embrace. They stood at the door of Annis’s lakeside cottage, in the big sunny room that served as both living room and kitchen. Large windows lined the walls, turning the room almost into a greenhouse, filled with sunlight that streamed in past gauzy white curtains onto warm wood floors and soft, age-worn furniture. Usually, Morgan liked to look out the window at the lake, but today, it wasn’t just the lake out there. Today, a man’s shadow fell on the curtain.

There was no reason to be afraid of him. He was Annis’s nephew, and an omega like her, and she’d been doing better with strangers lately. She didn’t hide in her room when the mail truck came anymore. For two weeks in a row she’d been going into town with Annis to check out books from the library. They’d even gotten ice cream last time, and she’d looked the alpha cashier right in the eye when she paid and nothing bad had happened at all. No one from the Tower was looking for her anymore. People around here only knew about the Tower at all because it had been such a big story in the news when Gregory was arrested.

That was what she had to remember. Gregory was in jail. It was all over, and she had been the one to end it, and she wasn’t going to let Gregory control her anymore. Starting by walking out the door.

Head held high, she stepped out into the hot August afternoon. A soft breeze blew in off the lake, setting the skirt of her blue sundress billowing around her legs. A long skirt, still. Pretty as she thought the ones with short skirts were, she couldn’t quite shake the voice in her head that said a short skirt advertised her availability for mating or the fear that every time she bent over, her underwear would show. Long skirts felt safer, and anyway, she liked the flow of fabric around her legs when she walked.

Looking at the stranger sitting on the porch swing, she wondered if he felt the same. Despite the heat, he was dressed head to toe in black, long sleeves and trousers and a lightweight jacket that trailed down past his knees. She knew he’d been hurt like her. Worse than her. She didn’t know him, but she knew who he was, from Annis and the news and the prayer vigils they’d had in church when he was missing.

Christopher Wolfe. The mayor’s son. Annis’s nephew. Soon to be her teacher. Such a strange, small world she lived in.

He closed his book and looked up as she approached, tucking back his long black hair to reveal a face that reminded her more of a fox than of the animal he was named for, thin and angular and intelligent. Maybe too intelligent. His dark eyes seemed to look right into her, and he turned up one wrist to offer his scent as he asked, “Would you like to sit?”

“Thank you,” Morgan said, remembering her manners even though her heart was racing and her legs had turned to jelly.

“Never share a pew with a man or an alpha. Your beauty and your scent will drive them to sin.”

Weeks of freedom, and she still heard Gregory’s preaching. Taking a wobbly step forward, she tried to focus her mind elsewhere like Annis had taught her. Look at the lake, the trees, the cloudless blue sky.

It was pretty here in Michigan. Morgan had never been to Michigan before, or even outside Chicago. There hadn’t been enough money when she was younger, when Dad was still too depressed from losing Mom to hold down a job, and by the time Dad was feeling better and working again, they’d already started going to the Tower. No chance of travel between the sermons and the youth groups and the Bible studies. Gregory didn’t think it was good for young omegas to travel. Too many opportunities for corruption, he preached, as if the most corrupt thing there wasn’t Gregory himself.

And there was his voice again, cloyingly sweet as his frankincense and honey scent. “Don’t you know what happens to pretty omega girls like you out there in the godless world?”

Her knees buckled. Her vision swam. She couldn’t breathe.

She landed on the swing. She didn’t know how. Annis. That was how. Annis had her, an arm around her waist, a hand on the back of her head, guiding her nose toward the mild and calming scent of beta pheromones.

As if from a great distance, she heard voices.

“Are you sure she’s ready for this?”

“Are you sure you’re ready, Christopher?”

A pause. “Touche.”

“I’ve seen students start the year in much worse shape than she’s in, and she’s not as badly off as she looks. Give her a minute. She’ll come around.”

Morgan wasn’t sure she wanted to. She’d just made a complete fool of herself, and maybe Wolfe was right. Maybe she wasn’t ready to go to school and be around so many people.

But Annis was speaking to her now, soft but authoritative. Motherly. “You had a bit of a fright there, but you’re all right now. You’re safe here. Go on and look, you’ll see it’s only Christopher. He’ll even let you have a sniff.”

Even without trying, Morgan could already pick up the omega’s scent over Annis’s muted pheromones and the surrounding aroma of lake and forest. Sandalwood and old books. Calm. At ease, without even a hint of fear. A good sign. If the other omega was safe, Morgan was safe, too.

She lifted her head and looked to see him sitting on the other side of Annis, a knowing look on his face. Holding out his wrist he said, “Go ahead. I won’t hurt you.”

The church looked down on such animal behavior, which made it especially satisfying to cup Wolfe’s wrist in her hand and lean in to nuzzle the scent gland there and inhale. At this concentration, his pheromones told her everything . His mood: calm, yes, but an undercurrent of unease. Concern for her, she realized. And the calm was that of one at home among family. Of course. He was Annis’s nephew, after all, and Morgan had seen his things in the closet in the spare bedroom. Books, shampoo, a hairbrush, clothes not only for him, but for his mate. And there, yes, was the intangible difference in scent that came with being partnered as he was. Satisfied omega. Mated omega.

Not a threat, all her instincts and her upbringing told her, confirming what her higher mind had known all along. She looked up, into eyes that seemed to see right into her thoughts, and he smiled. Not a broad smile, but a small and knowing one. One wounded omega to another.

“You have a sensitive nose, don’t you?” he asked.

She gave him a small nod, not yet ready to speak. What could he smell from her, she wondered. Probably too much. She’d always been very sensitive to others’ scents and terrible at controlling her own, a weakness Gregory had been all too eager to exploit.

"There's nothing to be ashamed of. Your fear kept you alive. You needed it where you came from. It will take time for your mind to recalibrate itself to your new environment." He reached out for her, but his hand froze in the air, and he asked, “May I?”

Did she want to be petted? Another decision Morgan wasn't entirely sure how to make. She answered both Wolfe and herself by rubbing her cheek against his hand. Yes, she did. More of the animal behaviors Gregory used to rail against. A sign of omegas’ sinful nature, proof that they were beholden to the flesh, doomed to fall down the slippery slope from chaste comfort to promiscuity.

A whole lot of bullshit, Annis would call it, and Morgan was inclined to agree. There wasn’t anything at all sinful in the way Wolfe stroked her cheek, smoothed back her hair. She felt no arousal, nor did she smell any from him. She was very, very aware of those things now. This was nothing like that at all. It was like being touched by Annis, like the fuzzy memories of her childhood when Mom was alive and Dad hadn't yet set foot in the Tower. Soft and soothing and warm.

"If you're ready, I came to tell you about something that might help with that recalibration," Wolfe said.

Curious despite herself, Morgan sat up. She knew what he was here for, but the framing of it was interesting. Recalibrating her mind. Could having an alpha around do that?

It helped, too, to have Annis's hand on her shoulder, steadying her.

Wolfe took a binder from his black leather bag and flipped through it. "You should know that what I am about to do is, technically, a violation of school policy. The proper procedure is to anonymously match students with counselors based on scent compatibility, but in your case, there are more pressing concerns than scent alone, and I believe we have just the person to address those concerns. Ah, there she is." He pulled a single page from the folder and passed it to Morgan. 

Glain Wathen, it said at the top. Alpha female, sixteen years old. Asexual aromantic. A small picture showed a tough-looking girl with very short hair and a dragon tattooed on her arm. There were more biographical details, something about police internships and support alpha training camps, but Morgan’s eyes fixed on those two words near the top.

Asexual aromantic. 

Annis tapped a lavender-painted fingernail beneath the words. "Do you know what that means?"

In theory, Morgan did. She understood prefixes and root words. She was less sure of how to actually say it.

"Wathen does not experience sexual or romantic attraction," Wolfe said before Morgan could find the words. "She would be a friend to you. A protector. A sister, perhaps, if you become close. Never a mate."

"We thought that might be just what you need," Annis added. "You’re afraid of what will happen if an alpha is attracted to you. She isn’t attracted to anyone at all.”

"Like… the opposite of you?" Morgan blurted, which was probably about the stupidest thing she could have said. Her cheeks burned.

But Annis laughed, and Wolfe's lips twitched up in a faint smile.

"Exactly the opposite of me," Annis agreed without a trace of embarrassment.

It still amazed Morgan, how freely Annis spoke of her many attractions and affairs. Promiscuous, the church would call it. That was another thing betas weren’t supposed to be. Clearly, that was no impediment to Annis.

"But doesn't she go into rut?" Morgan asked. Another stupid question, and it made her cheeks even hotter, but she needed to know. "What does she do when she's in rut?"

"In answer to your first question, she takes blocking medication, as all alphas on campus do. I am sure Annis has already explained our safety measures," Wolfe said. "As to the second, that is neither your business nor mine, which is, I think, the point of all this."

“Oh. Right. Sorry.” About ready to die of embarrassment, Morgan stared down at the page. Glain had a fierce smile. She didn’t look friendly, exactly, but she looked like the kind of person it would be good to have as a friend. Someone who would scare away creeps like Gregory.

“What do you think?” Annis asked. “Shall we see how you like her scent?”

Wolfe had the scent book already open and ready to hand over at Morgan’s tentative nod. The whole of it had the vague musky aroma of alpha, some dozens of scents commingled into meaningless pheromonal noise. Morgan held her breath until she’d lifted the flap covering the sample panel, and she held the page very close to her nose as she inhaled.

Smoke. Not just any smoke, but the smoke of a target range, like the one she’d gone to with Annis once. Gunpowder. Morgan hadn’t cared for it then, the loud noise and the strong odors, but it was different when the smell came from pheromones instead of combustion. As an alpha’s scent, it smelled good. Beneath the smoke, very faint, was something green and fresh and a little bitter. Tea. Green tea.

Morgan smiled at that. She wasn’t sure she believed in God anymore, but it seemed like a sign. First Annis, now Glain. Good people smelled like tea.

“Yes,” Morgan said, looking up at Annis and Wolfe. “She smells good. I want to meet her.”

Chapter Text

June 12, 2030

Niccolo Santi woke on the first ring of his phone. He answered it before it rang again, hardly even processing the name on the screen. He'd never been a heavy sleeper, but lately, it seemed he barely dipped beneath the surface of slumber. Even asleep, some part of him remained alert, watching, waiting.

“Nic, I’m so sorry to do this, but I need your help. It’s Christopher.”

He was already out of bed and charging to the closet to find a shirt by the time he put name and voice together and grasped who he was talking to. Mayor Keria Morning-Wolfe. Chris’s mother. Calling about Chris.

“Have they found him?” he asked, hope and fear colliding in his chest and making his voice come out all rough. Switching the phone to speaker, he grabbed the first shirt within reach and pulled it on.

“Yes and no. There’s a video. The police are working on it, but I don’t know… look, you know that project Christopher was working on? The tracing program? If I send you this thing, can you try using it?”

A video. Santi’s stomach sank, hope turning leaden as he recognized just how shaken Keria sounded. He’d done enough work in cybercrimes to know what kinds of things happened in videos of kidnapped omegas. That was what had inspired Chris’s project, those terrible cases he’d seen Santi work on, the ones where the chances of rescuing the victim were so slim. And now Chris was one of those cases. Missing for over a year. Santi wished he didn't know the odds of rescue after so long.

“I’ll try,” Santi said, heading down the hall to Chris’s study. A single flick of the lightswitch turned on not only the blue-tinted overhead light that Chris swore made it easier to focus, but the whole roomful of computers and monitors and glowing things Santi couldn’t even identify. Ignoring most of it, he sat in Chris’s chair and entered Chris’s password on the main keyboard. The keys were still lit in the University of Chicago’s maroon and white, in celebration of the tenured position that had seemed a certainty.

Santi had already burned the dismissal letter that came two months into Chris’s disappearance.

Keria was still talking, meaningless blather about how grateful she was for his help and how much she believed in Chris’s project, the same one she’d barely paid any attention to while Chris was working on it, absorbed as she was in her neverending reelection campaign. Santi only really paid attention to the words that mattered. “There. It’s forwarded.”

He’d already pulled up his email, and there it was. No subject. Nothing but a link. He hovered the cursor over it with the sense that one of the monsters from Chris’s favorite horror movies lurked just behind his shoulder, waiting to swallow him whole.

“And Nic?” Keria said, her voice wavering like the tiny arrow on the screen. “Don’t watch it. Whatever you do, don’t watch it. I mean it. Just feed it into Chris’s program and call me if anything comes out. I have to go. The detective’s calling.”

He watched it. He told himself it was because the program needed the video playing to do its work, but he could have turned off the monitor, looked away, minimized the window. He told himself it was to confirm that the omega in the video really was Chris, but he knew that as soon as the first frames loaded. There was the crow tattoo on his shoulder. There was the face that filled both Santi's fantasies and his nightmares.

Santi could have looked away then, but he couldn’t tear his eyes from the omega, nude and bound on the floor. He would tell himself later that it was because he missed Chris so badly or because he was punishing himself for losing Chris. But in truth, it was as much denial as any of those things. It was a gnawing whisper in the sinking pit of his guts that said, That can’t be Chris. Chris isn’t so thin. Chris isn’t bald. Chris wouldn’t cower like that. This isn’t happening to him. It will stop. Any second now, it will stop.

It didn’t stop. Not until the video ended, and Santi stood, walked calmly across to the hall to the bathroom, and threw up.

Numb, he went back to Chris’s computer to find the tracing data waiting on the screen. A Chicago address. A Hyde Park address. One Santi knew, and with that, he knew exactly who had Chris.

Artifex fucking Qualls. Chris’s department chair, who had been skirting the edge of sexual harassment every single day Chris worked there. The fucking bastard had lied to Santi’s face and said he had no idea where Chris was.

Shaking with rage, Santi picked up his phone to call Keria.

Alone in the dark, Wolfe hurt. He always hurt. There was nothing else. Especially after…

No. He wasn’t going to think about that. Not now, while his thoughts were his own. The memories would come later, in flashes and in dreams, when he couldn’t stop them.

For now, his mind obeyed him, and he thought of Nic. Hallucinated, really. Images made the jump from imagination to delusion so easily now. Through the dark, he saw Nic curling around him. Felt his mate’s strong arms and heard the rumble of his purr.

His own. Not Nic’s. In a distant corner of his mind, he knew that, but it was so easy to pretend. Especially now, with the pain so fresh and his nose clogged by sobbing. As long as he didn’t move, didn’t try to find Nic’s scent, he could keep pretending. Maybe long enough to steal a bit of sleep.

He drifted. Slept, maybe. Hurt, certainly.

There was noise outside the door. Voices. Feet. Real, probably. For all that it mattered. There were too many noises for it to have anything to do with him.

When they came for him, it was only one voice, one set of feet, maybe two. Never more.

He didn’t really want to think about what more voices meant. Kidnappings. Sales. It would be so much easier not to care. There was nothing he could do. He’d tried, and what a bitter joke that had been. He couldn’t even save himself.

Hands clenching into painful fists, he retreated into delusions. Or tried to. Idiotically preoccupied with the noise beyond the door, his imagination put Nic there, speaking in a low, urgent voice.

“It’s locked. Who’s on locks? Well get them over here. He’s in here.”

Oh. A rescue fantasy. He’d thought he was long past done with those.

He closed his eyes and listened to Nic talk to the other figments of his imagination. Predictably, the lock was stubborn. Even in fantasy, he couldn’t have an easy escape. He tried to hurry it along. Rubbed his mating scar, still there no matter how many times the other alphas bit him. Tried to visualize the door opening, Nic stepping through, but his stubborn auditory hallucination kept the visual one from coming.

At last, the hinges squealed, and light bloomed red through Wolfe’s eyelids. Too bright.

Wolfe froze, panic lancing like ice through his veins. The light was his imagination. It had to be. It couldn’t be real. If it was real, that would mean…

“Christopher.” A whisper reverent as a prayer.

A heavy thump. The sound of a man falling to his knees. Shuffling closer.

Fingertips, very gentle, on Wolfe's face.

Gods, how cruel his imagination was, to give him this.

A thin whimper slipped past his lips. He didn't dare open his eyes.

"Shh. It's all right. I'm here. I've got you." Nice, gentle words. Gentle hands, too, and more solid than he usually imagined them. 

Holding him. Lifting him. Cradling him against a firm, warm chest.

He choked back a sob. Sniffled.

The aroma of cedar and smoke filled his nose.

He'd never been able to imagine that. Oh, how he had tried.

Nic. It was Nic. Nic, Nic, Nic. Real. Not a dream, not a fantasy, but real.

He was crying. Purring. Squirming in Nic's arms until he'd shoved his nose right into the scent gland at Nic's neck and gasped in desperate lungfuls of that glorious scent, all while Nic stroked his head and murmured softly in his ear. 

The rest passed in a blur that only later resolved into flashes of vivid memory. 

Being lifted, carried. Nic's voice. "Give me a blanket. He's shivering."

That was Nic's calm voice, the one he used at crime scenes.

Oh. This was a crime scene, wasn't it?

Soft fabric wrapped around him. Fleece. So warm. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been warm.

Movement. Vaguely upward. A rush of fresh, cool air on his face. Noise. Flashing lights.

He burrowed into Nic, whimpering. His eyes hurt. So did everything else. None of that mattered, though. He had Nic.

Later, in the formless expanse of days in the hospital, he would see the photo. The one of those dozens of flashes had turned out just right for the front page of the Chicago Tribune. He would see himself in Nic's arms, small even with the bulk of the blanket around him. They were looking at each other, in that photo. Him in adoring awe, Nic in tender concern. It was beautiful, but in a voyeuristic way that made him feel at once warm and nauseous every time he looked at it. He couldn't decide whether he loved it or hated it, but he kept it, tightly folded, between the pages of his journal.

Chapter Text

EPHEMERA

From a notebook belonging to Thomas Schreiber

Frauke Upgrades:

Electric engine

Gas engine

Seat covers

Heat/air conditioning

Wiper blades

Tires

Winter tires???

Air freshener. Scent-suppressing. URGENT!!!

New paint - Frauke wants to be a pretty bronze with some red LEDs and a lion on her hood and i need to get stencils or a friend who is good at art

Software - ask Wolfe?

Brakes - increase regen, what to do about rust?

Biodiesel? Ethanol? Hydrogen? No too hard. No hydrogen yet.

Coffee maker - wire Keurig in, make housing in shop class, water reservoir? water bottle attachment?

SOLAR PANELS!!! That is what she needs! Solar panels! Fold out from roof?

Wolfe says I can make her compatible with Tesla charge network must buy parts

August 17, 2031

Thomas went to the hospital with Dr. Wolfe to pick up Jess. Most of the omegas were either dropped off at Ptolemy House by their families or picked up by one of the teachers who owned a van, but Jess had no family to bring him, and Jess was afraid of cars. That meant Jess needed Thomas.

It wasn’t easy to get used to thinking that. Jess needed him. Another person, depending on him for comfort and security. The responsibility of it at once excited and terrified Thomas. He’d always wanted to help others, but he’d never expected to be able to do it so directly. Until the day Captain Santi called, he had been sure none of the omegas would pick his scent. But Jess had chosen Thomas, and now Thomas would be the one to help Jess get better.

The drive into Chicago was long, but Thomas didn’t mind. It gave him plenty of time to ask Dr. Wolfe questions. That was the other thing that excited Thomas about Ptolemy House. He would be studying with Christopher Wolfe and Greta Jones. The genius AI researcher and the brilliant mechanical engineer. And he was riding in Christopher Wolfe’s car. Being driven by software that Wolfe himself programmed. It was like a dream.

Thomas had been a little disappointed when Santi told him he couldn’t pick Jess up in Frauke. He’d been working on Frauke all year, even before he had his license, and he was very proud of her. The old Volkswagen hadn’t looked like much when he’d rescued her from the junkyard, but she was beautiful now. Thomas wanted to show her to Jess and tell Jess all about her new engine and the upgrades he was planning for her. But Frauke smelled like alpha. Jess couldn’t be in a car that smelled too much like alpha.

Apparently, even Dr. Wolfe had to have his car cleaned to remove any traces of his mate’s scent. Captain Santi controlled his scent very well, but they hadn’t wanted to risk it. Jess was sensitive, and no one wanted to start his school year by bringing up bad memories for him. It would be different once Thomas and Jess had time to bond. Once Jess was comfortable with him, he could introduce Jess to Frauke. Once they were whatever they ended up being to each other. Friends, brothers, boyfriends…

Thomas had to stop thinking about that before he started blushing and embarrassed himself in front of Wolfe. Luckily, there were a lot of very interesting things in the car to ask about, and that kept his mind occupied until the car pulled itself to a stop in the hospital parking garage.

Wolfe took the reserved space just outside the hospital door. He hadn’t even turned the car off yet when a small shape hurtled out of the hospital, yanked open the back door, and threw itself in.

The car door slammed shut, and the thin figure who’d landed on the seat next to Thomas stuck out both hands, wrists up. “Hi-I’m-Jess-you-must-be-Thomas-nice-to-meet-you-let’s-go.”

Thomas blinked at that incomprehensible jumble of words. It sounded like a greeting. Sort of. Not that he needed any introduction to recognize the skinny omega as Jess. The smell of books, paper and ink and binding glue, drifted up from his outstretched wrists.

There was a knock on the window of the front seat. Jess flinched. Wolfe rolled the window down and addressed the frowning, dark-faced beta standing outside the car. “Dr. Ebele. I was under the impression that we would be meeting Brightwell inside. ”

Dr. Ebele shot Jess a stern look. “As you can see, the patient has decided not to cooperate.”

Jess sat very still, not taking his eyes off Thomas. He didn’t say a word. Thomas decided that under the circumstances, Jess probably had the right idea to stay quiet.

Wolfe looked over his shoulder at Jess and Thomas with the expression of someone considering a complex math problem. Turning back to Dr. Ebele, he said, “And it appears you do not have his discharge papers with you.”

“Didn’t think to grab them while I was chasing him out the door,” the doctor replied. “I’m going to need you to sign a few things before you take him.”

Wolfe and the doctor exchanged one of those significant looks adults gave each other when they were trying not to let anyone else in on their thoughts, and Wolfe said, “Of course. I’ll be right there.” He turned back to Jess and Thomas and added, “The two of you may remain here. Take the time to get acquainted with one another.”

Thomas hardly had time for a “yes, sir” before the car door slammed behind Wolfe, leaving him alone in the back seat with Jess.

Jess hadn’t moved. He sat with his wrists held out, looking at Thomas with an expression that Thomas couldn’t read. “Well?” he said. It sounded like a challenge. “Aren’t you going to have a sniff?”

“Um…” Thomas wasn’t sure what to say. Traumatized omegas sometimes showed fear as aggression, he remembered that from summer training. He had to show Jess he wasn’t a threat. Slouching in his seat to make himself look smaller, Thomas held out his hand, palm up, and said, “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do.”

That was, apparently, the wrong thing to say. Jess’s eyes narrowed and his hackles went up, making him look like a disgruntled cat in a carrier. It was… cute. Thomas felt his cheeks getting hot, which was even worse. He shouldn’t be reacting this way when his omega was upset.

“I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t want to, would I?” Jess muttered, thrusting his wrists toward Thomas. He kept them together, Thomas noticed. A trained behavior, maybe. That was common in abused omegas.

It didn’t seem like an appropriate moment to point that out. Thomas got the feeling Jess wouldn’t at all like being called an abused omega. He was going to have to take Jess at his word. Carefully.

Luckily, Thomas had a lot of practice at being careful. He took Jess’s hands as gently as he would hold a delicate piece of machinery. They shook in his grasp, and he took a moment to rub his thumbs over the omega’s palms, soothing him before moving down to the scent glands on the wrists. He gave only the lightest of touches there, just enough to raise a bit of scent.

He inhaled, deeply. He couldn’t help it. Jess smelled good. Like a bookstore full of everything Thomas ever wanted to read. His eyes closed, and he couldn’t help that either, but he kept from showing any other sign of how deeply the scent affected him. He knew his manners, and he also smelled fear intertwined with that wonderful new book smell. Jess was afraid. He wasn’t going to scare Jess more.

But Jess didn’t look afraid when Thomas let go of his hands. Jess looked offended. “You can tell me if I stink,” Jess muttered. “I get it. The soap here is shit.”

That was so wrong Thomas didn’t even know where to begin. “You don’t stink,” he said, and stopped, because anything else he could think of sounded like flirting, and he couldn’t flirt with Jess. They barely knew each other, and anyway, there were rules. The omega had to be the one to initiate any romance or…

Oh God, he was turning red, wasn’t he? He was messing this up so badly. He had to say something. “I’m sorry. Um. Really. You don’t smell bad at all. You smell good.”

Jess looked dubious. “If you say so.”

And that, of course, was the moment Wolfe opened the driver’s side door and got in. The older omega dropped a packet of papers onto the front passenger seat and turned to look into the back seat. His nose wrinkled, and his narrowed eyes fixed on Thomas. It wasn’t a pleasant look. It was the way the worst judges at robotics contests, the ones who always found some reason to take off points, looked at his work.

“I thought my directions were clear,” Wolfe said in a silky tone that made the back of Thomas’s neck prickle.

Jess gulped and inched back in his seat. Thomas didn’t blame him. Thomas wanted to back away from Wolfe himself, but he couldn’t. He had to protect his omega. Right now, that meant being the focus of Wolfe’s attention. He met Wolfe’s eyes and said, “Yes, sir. They were.”

Wolfe’s eyebrow twitched. “Were they. Explain to me, then, why I smell distressed omega and no alpha.”

“I can’t give him my scent if he doesn’t want it,” Thomas said, feeling like a weight was pressing down on him. “I offered.”

Wolfe shifted his gaze to Jess. “Did he?”

“No. He didn’t want my scent, either,” Jess said, and shrugged. “It’s ok. We don’t have to sniff each other all the time, do we? It’s just for, you know…” His voice trailed off, and he looked down at his hands, clutched together in his lap. Shaking.

Thomas had a very strong and very stupid urge to put himself between Wolfe and Jess and bare his teeth. He ignored it, but he was relieved when Wolfe broke eye contact with Jess all the same.

Pressing a knuckle into his forehead as if fighting the start of a headache, Wolfe heaved an exasperated sigh and said, “For the time being, let us limit ourselves to describing actions without ascribing motivation to them. Schreiber, how did you go about offering your scent?”

“I held out my hand. Wrist up,” Thomas said slowly. Had that been wrong? It was the most respectful way he knew.

“And nothing else?”

Thomas shook his head. “I didn’t want to be pushy.”

That got another sigh from Wolfe. “Brightwell. Without delving unnecessarily into unpleasant memories, would it be correct to say that this does not match the scenting protocol you were taught?”

Jess gave a hesitant nod. He didn’t add any detail, but the hollow look in his eyes said enough. Thomas wanted very badly to punch whoever caused that.

For a second, Thomas thought he saw Wolfe’s stern expression soften, but then Wolfe was pushing his glasses up on his nose and looking at them both like they were a pair of bickering preschoolers. “I have the dubious pleasure of informing you both that the only problem here is a spectacular failure of communication resulting in several entirely unsupported assumptions.”

There was a moment’s silence. Jess and Thomas looked at each other, then back at Wolfe.

“Try again. This time, use your words, children.” Wolfe turned around and pressed the car’s power button. It started with an electric hum somewhat louder than Frauke’s electric engine. Thomas wondered if that meant it was more powerful; he added it to his mental list of things to ask about. Later.

For now, holding out his hand to Jess again was the only thing that mattered. He gave the omega a shy smile. “No hard feelings about before. I should have thought…”

In the front seat, Wolfe muttered something under his breath in a language Thomas didn’t know. The vehicle emitted a series of soft beeps as Wolfe tapped his way through the navigation interface on the touchscreen.

“It’s ok, really,” Jess said. His left hand twitched in his lap, but didn’t move. Like he couldn’t get it untangled from his right. “So… I can touch you? That’s ok?” 

“Of course you can. You can touch me as much as you want. I’m here to support you.” Thomas said. He should have stopped there, but Jess looked so uncomfortable that he blurted out, “Would you like a hug?”

Jess blinked. For a split second, Thomas was sure he’d made a terrible mistake, but then Jess laughed and said, “Yeah, why not.” 

He threw himself at Thomas the same way he’d thrown himself into the car, with more speed and force than anyone would expect such a small body to hold. Thomas had to wriggle his arm out from under Jess to wrap it around the omega’s back. Jess nuzzled his chest. It was impossible not to purr at that, and with his purr, Thomas felt himself release his scent. Only a little leak. He stopped it right away, but Jess didn’t seem to mind at all. In fact, Jess was purring too.

“You’re soft. Nobody told me you’d be this soft and smell this good,” Jess mumbled, squirming his way up to press his face into the scent gland at Thomas’s neck.

Instinctively, Thomas cupped the back of Jess’s head and guided his nose into place. It all seemed unreal. He’d heard over and over again how soothing his scent could be to a traumatized omega, but he’d never really believed it. Not many people liked his scent. His dads did, and his grandparents, but of course they did. They were family. At school, well, it had been a very good thing that he learned to control his scent well. But now he, the weird-smelling geek, had a calm, purring omega in his arms.

Thomas almost forgot where he was until Wolfe cleared his throat and said, “Charming as this is, it’s time to go. Into your seat, Brightwell.”

Jess slithered onto the seat without complaint. The middle seat, which was a new experience for Thomas. People didn’t usually want to sit right next to someone as big as he was, not when there was any other seat available. Jess seemed pleased with that arrangement, though.

At least until the seatbelt clicked and the car backed out of the parking space. At the first shudder of movement, Jess went rigid. By the time they were out of the garage and onto the street, he was panting, harsh and shallow. Sour fear-scent filled the air.

“Jess? What’s wrong?” Thomas asked.

No answer. Thomas met Wolfe’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Scent,” Wolfe said, voice clipped. “Now.”

The order hit with the force of a blow, not so physically as an alpha’s command voice might, but emotionally, making Thomas feel like a complete idiot for not recognizing the panic attack and acting already. He’d practiced this all summer. He knew what to do.

Putting his wrist right beneath Jess’s nose, Thomas pushed aside the howling storm of his feelings, found his instinctive drive to calm a frightened omega, and released his scent. In a soft voice - not his alpha voice, that was only for emergencies - he said, “Listen to me, Jess. I’m going to count, and I want you to take a nice, deep breath. Can you do that? Let’s try it. One, two…”

Jess dragged in a ragged breath. Not half as deep as Thomas would have liked, but better. The next one came deeper, steadier. Jess reached up with shaky hands to hold Thomas’s wrist and press it to his face. After a few breaths like that, Jess shook himself like a wet dog and looked up at Thomas to say, “Sorry. Was trying not to do that.”

“And if you were afraid of water, I suppose you’d dive right into Lake Michigan,” Wolfe said.

“To get it over with,” Thomas said, following the logic of it. From a certain perspective, it did make sense. Jess was afraid of cars and alphas, so he threw himself into the car with his support alpha to push past the fear. “That was very brave.”

“You think so?” Jess asked, perking up a little. He still looked very, very uncomfortable, fidgeting in his seat as if his skin was crawling.

“I do,” Thomas said. “But you don’t have to be brave by yourself. You can ask me for help. Is there anything I can do?”

He might as well have offered Jess a trip to the moon. Jess looked at Thomas like he was trying to work out the catch, and finally said. “I’m fine. Really. I’m over it now.”

“You are not,” Wolfe said. “No one is over it that fast. Think again.”

Thomas wasn’t one to argue with a teacher, but he couldn’t help thinking Wolfe was being too harsh with Jess. Maybe it was overprotective alpha instinct, but he didn’t like it at all. Jess looked so nervous and confused, even a little sick. Of course he didn’t know what to ask Thomas to do.

It was Thomas’s job to tell him, and Thomas thought he knew what would help. “You can have more of my scent,” he said. With his free hand, he dug in his pocket for his phone. “And I have something to show you.”

Without letting go of Thomas’s wrist, Jess tipped his head to peer at the phone. “What’s that?”

Thomas unlocked the phone and pulled up his photos. There, first on the list, was the one he wanted. He held the screen up for Jess to see and said, “Dr. Wolfe told me you needed a computer, and I like building them, so I made you one.”

The omega’s eyes went wide, and he took a very long, slow breath. “For me? Really?” his voice came out all quiet.

It was a good computer, and Thomas had worked hard on it, but it didn’t deserve that awed reaction. That, as much as anything else, told Thomas just how bad things must have been for Jess until now. He smiled and swiped to the next picture, this one showing the inside of the case. “Yes. For you. Want to hear the specs?”

Jess leaned closer to him, shaking still, but at least as much from excitement as adrenaline. “Oh, God, yes, tell me everything.”

Chapter Text

EPHEMERA

Posted to Instagram by Khalila Seif, August 17, 2031

[Pictured: A young woman of Arab heritage holds a book and smiles at the camera. She is dressed in a purple and gold patterned head scarf and a lavender dress. The title Don Quixote is visible on the cover of the book. Behind her is a large poster depicting famous Islamic architecture from around the world, and a neatly made bed is visible in the corner of the frame.]

Caption: Ready to leave for Ptolemy House! Doing World Literature reading in the car. Coincidence that this is the first book assigned?

August 17, 2031

Finished checking her hijab, Khalila watched in the mirror as the dozing pile of omegas in the backseat yawned and stretched. There it was again, that gut-deep sense of satisfaction she felt every time she heard a purr or caught a whiff of contented omega scent, even though she knew perfectly well that it was her brother’s doing, not her own. Saleh was the one whose scent saturated the blanket that the three of them snuggled under, the one who had proved such a success as a peer counselor that he had been assigned to three omegas this year. She was so very proud of him.

Inshallah, she would follow in his footsteps.

Saleh was the first one out of the car, tightening the drawstrings of his hoodie to make sure his scent glands were covered as he slid from the seat. Khalila followed him around to the trunk, already open to reveal their neatly stacked luggage. As she reached for her first bag, Saleh’s hand closed over hers.

“Khalila, listen,” he said, and at that one word, her hackles went up. He’d said it in Arabic. There were only two topics that would require speaking a language the omegas didn’t know, and Khalila doubted he was about to quote the Quran. Sure enough, he continued, “I know you’ve made up your mind, but please don’t think you’re stuck with this. It isn’t too late to change your mind, even after you meet him. Reassignments do need to happen sometimes. Scent compatibility isn’t everything.”

Though Saleh’s worrying had been on her nerves since Captain Santi called yesterday with her peer counseling assignment, Khalila reminded herself that her brother meant well and hugged him. “Allah would not give me more of a challenge than I am capable of overcoming,” she said with every bit of the confidence that she felt. “You didn’t put up this much of a fuss over my university course selections.”

“I know better than to stand between my little sister and mathematics,” Saleh said, pulling back to an arm’s length to regard Khalila with a serious face. “But reforming a billionaire’s delinquent child? You have to admit that’s different.”

“He’s still a person who needs help,” she replied. “Do you really think so little of my abilities?”

Saleh smiled and shook his head. “If anyone can manage this, it’s you. Go on ahead. We’ll bring your bags up. You have an omega to meet.”

For that, she hugged him again, and gave her thanks to the three omegas as well. A year ago, she might have hugged them, but now she had the lessons of her summer training ringing in her ears. Gestures of family affection that came naturally to her might be harmful to them, triggering Allah only knew what terrible memories. 

At least that wouldn’t be a concern with Dario. If she even wanted to hug him. But of course she would. Maybe not right away, but he would learn to be better. She would make sure of it. And no matter how difficult he was, Dario would still be family to her, just like Xiang, Phoena, and Sarven were to Saleh. Like a younger sibling, one who needed a lot of guidance and support. Or maybe a cousin. Like Rafa. Very much like Rafa, come to think of it. She would have to remember to call Aunt Fatima and ask for advice.

Passing through the heavy wooden doors into the entry hall, Khalila spotted a familiar face from summer training. One impossible not to spot, really, considering he was as large as she was small. “Thomas! It’s so good to see you,” she called out, waving.

Only when he turned to face her did she spot the skinny omega at his side. Dressed in a school tracksuit and looking pale and nervous, the omega moved reflexively closer to Thomas.

“Khalila!” Thomas started to wave back, but sensing his omega’s discomfort, he wrapped his arm around the omega’s shoulders instead. “This is Jess. I’m giving him the tour. Jess, this is Khalila. We went to camp together over the summer. If you need help with your math, she’s the best one to ask. She got perfect scores on the SAT, ACT, AP, everything.”

Jess gave her a shy smile. “Sounds like someone worth knowing. Good to meet you, ah… Khalila.”

He was going to say alpha. Oh, the poor thing. No wonder neither he nor Thomas was coming any closer. He must be afraid.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Jess,” she replied, pouring as much sweetness into her voice as she could. He needed to know that alphas could be kind and caring. Thomas would be very good for him. “But Thomas is underestimating himself. He’s very good at math, too! Has he told you about his robotics projects?”

Eyes going wide, Jess craned his head to look up at Thomas. “Dude. You made robots?”

Thomas was absolutely adorable when he blushed, and Khalila was suddenly very aware that she was intruding on their bonding time. She quickly extracted herself from the conversation and headed for the stairs, pulling her phone from her pocket to check if Dario had answered the text she sent on the way to school.

He had not. She would have to start with his room, then. Allah willing, she would find him there.

Half an hour later, after checking not only Dario’s room, but also the library, the dining room, the gym, the game room, the supply room, and Captain Santi’s office, Khalila could only conclude that Allah did not think she had enough challenges in her life. She trudged back up the stairs, frustrated, and checked his door again. Still not there.

Or not answering. But no, she wasn’t going to jump to that conclusion yet. After a quick peek into her room across the hall, where her brother had left her bags neatly stacked by the closet, she headed down the hall, noting names on doors as she went. Glain was right next door to her, she was pleased to see, and judging by the muffled voices from the room across the hall, already helping her omega settle in. Next to Glain, Thomas, then some less friendly ones. Katja, the alpha with an ankle monitor from juvenile prison that she didn’t even try to hide, was on the other side of Thomas. It wasn’t really a surprise to see she’d made it in, though. She was already bonded with her omega, and both had court orders to attend the school, which Katja had made a point of bragging loudly about on the first day of camp. Next to Katja, an even more unpleasant name. Joachim Portero, who’d spent the summer conspicuously fiddling with a rosary every time she came near.

Oh, why couldn’t he have been the one compatible with Dario? Two snobby Catholics, perfect for each other.

Khalila froze in place, shocked at the viciousness of that thought, and whispered a quick prayer for humility. It gave her calm, as prayers always did, and clarity. She could not let her frustration with Dario, or even with the other alphas, turn to cruelty. She had to be better than that.

With renewed determination to be kind and charitable, Khalila continued down the hall to the student lounge. From what Saleh said, it was a lovely room, with big stained glass windows and very comfortable couches, but it didn’t seem like the kind of place an omega known for being unsociable would choose to go. Still, she was running out of places to check, and she really didn’t want to take Captain Santi up on his offer to have Dario called to the office. That would be a terrible start.

The first thing that struck her as she entered the room was the beauty of the windows. With the afternoon light streaming in, their geometric patterned panes glowed like jewels, casting a rainbow across the couches and the wooden floor. She could not imagine a more perfect place to read, or to study, or…

Or to meet her omega, because that was the second thing she noticed. Sprawled on the couch right beneath the windows, and every bit as beautiful, was Dario Santiago. Wearing a suit, of all things, one that looked very fine even with the silvery white shirt coming untucked from the deep blue trousers and the buttons on the matching jacket undone. Eyes closed and limbs slack, he appeared to be asleep, but he lifted his head as she approached and brushed back loose curls to look at her, a lazy smile curling his lush red lips.

“Ah, my lady, you have arrived,” he said, swinging his legs over to rise from the couch. There was something cat-like about him, more than the usual feline characteristics of an omega. The fluidity of his movement, maybe, or his eyes. The pupils were very wide, like a cat’s in broad daylight, and Khalila found herself drawn to them, even as something about the sight made the back of her mind itch.

“You can call me Khalila,” she said, ignoring the whisper of instinct that very much liked being addressed as my lady by such a beautiful omega. Politely, she offered her hand, to shake or to scent as he preferred.

“Khalila,” her name rolled off his tongue in a rich tenor. “It is an honor to make the acquaintance of so beautiful an alpha.” Dario came closer, until she could smell traces of his chocolate and dark fruit scent, and swept up her hand, bowing as if to kiss it. Heart thumping in her throat, she watched his face move lower, closer, and, very suddenly, drop. 

Whether he had overbalanced, or stumbled, or caught a whiff of her scent and been overcome by it, she would never know. One moment, he was on his feet, the next he was on his knees, clinging tight to her hand and looking up at her with those wide, wide eyes. Imploring.

Desire struck her hard, a tidal wave of hormonal yearning unlike anything she’d felt before. This was her omega, her instincts screamed. Hers, on his knees where he belonged, waiting for her to seize him, bite him, claim him. The intensity of it frightened her, and she fought her instincts, knowing to the very core of her being that she could not act on them.

From somewhere to the side, Khalila heard a gasp, and she was suddenly very, very aware that they were not alone. She couldn’t look away from Dario, but she caught traces of scent. A few she didn’t know, students from Saleh’s year, probably. Thomas’s greasy vanilla. Oh, Allah, that meant poor little Jess was seeing this.

It had taken her seconds, at most, to master her instincts. Dario, it seemed, had not mastered his. He remained on his knees, still looking at her with those dark and wild eyes.

That was when she remembered. Wide pupils were a symptom of drug use. He was high. With understanding came embarrassment, and anger hot on its heels. How dare he? Who did he think he was? The nerve of him, to humiliate them both like this, and in front of vulnerable omegas!

Lips curling into a snarl, she whispered, “What are you doing? Get up!”

His already wide eyes somehow widened into something that looked very much like fear, and he begged, “Please, my lady, Khalila. Please…”

It looked genuine, that fear. It smelled genuine, too. If it hadn’t, she never would have turned her wrist up to him, releasing a modest burst of scent. Enough to calm him from whatever drug-induced reaction he was having.

A flash of relief crossed his face, and he pressed his nose to her wrist, inhaling deeply. For a second, she shared his relief, and with it a twinge of pity. His misery might have been self inflicted, but it was no less real than any of the other omegas’ troubles. Addiction was, after all, a mental illness.

And then he grabbed at her sleeve, trying to tug it up and expose her scent gland, and ruined it all.

She kept control. For that, she was grateful. Very quietly, with only the lightest touch of her alpha voice, she growled, “Let go of me and get on your feet. Now.”

Immediately, he released her wrist and jumped to his feet, where he stood, swaying, looking like he’d been slapped. Good. He deserved it. He might not share her faith or her commitment to modesty, but surely even he must know not to mess with other people’s clothes. Some behavior deserved consequences.

Recovering himself, Dario cleared his throat and bowed low. Much too loudly, he said, “My most sincere apologies. I intended no offense, only a humble greeting to a most radiant alpha. I did not expect to be so overwhelmed by your exquisite scent.”

The nerve of him! And, as if his victim-blaming excuse for an apology wasn’t bad enough, Khalila heard a muffled giggle from one of the onlookers. She had to get out of here. She had to get them both out of here, because even if he was being insufferable, he was still her responsibility.

“We are leaving now,” she growled, sidestepping around to grab him by the scruff of the neck. 

He yielded, surprisingly. His head dropped, his shoulders slouched, and he came docile as a kitten out of the room. Khalila stared straight at the floor ahead, not daring to look at any of the others. Only when they reached the hall did a flicker of movement in her peripheral vision draw her gaze up.

Professor Wolfe fell into step beside her, walking quietly as a stalking panther. She hadn’t even smelled him. “Are you all right, Seif?” he asked softly, and it took her a second to realize the words sounded so soothing not because of his tone, but because he’d said them in Arabic. Seeing the surprise on her face, he said, “Yes, I speak many languages. Answer the question.”

“I’m fine,” she said. “I thought it would be best to take him back to his room.”

“Yes,” Wolfe said. It sounded almost like praise, but that was unlikely. Wolfe, from what little she’d seen of him over the summer, was not one to reward anything less than perfection, and Khalila knew how far her handling of Dario must be falling from that mark.

“I don’t know what got into him.” It sounded like a pathetic excuse as soon as she’d said it.

Wolfe sniffed the air. “Nothing legal,” he said, nose scrunched up in disgust. “I suspect the effect is more than he bargained for. He will need to be settled. Given the circumstances, would you prefer that Santi handle it?”

Rationally, she understood the generosity of that offer. Instinctively, Khalila seethed with rage. Another alpha handling her omega? No. The thought of it made her hackles stand on end, and she had to consciously keep the growl from her voice when she replied, “No, thank you.”

With a sharp nod, Wolfe moved around to Dario’s side. He said something in Spanish, much too quick for Khalila to even try to follow, and Dario answered in the same language, sounding dejected. Khalila could only admire the genius of it. Speaking with them separately without having to separate them physically.

Whatever Wolfe was saying, it made Dario slouch even more and turned the chocolate of his scent bitter in a way that made Khalila feel strangely protective. As if he needed protecting.

Fortunately, they reached Dario’s room before Khalila’s instincts could grow too annoying. He’d already unpacked, she saw. The closet door hung open, revealing enough clothes for three people, and the bed was piled high with pillows. She steered him there, shoving aside a tangle of blankets to give him room to sit down.

Dario didn’t so much sit as slump down onto the mattress, forearms resting on his knees. He didn’t look up at her as he said in a very soft voice, “I’ve made an ass of myself, haven’t I?”

“Hush,” she said, tucking back a curl that fell into his face despite the thick layer of hair gel that coated it. She looked over her shoulder at Wolfe, who leaned against the door frame, arms crossed. “Do you have any suggestions on settling him, Professor?”

“Normally I’d advise a good, hard spanking for behavior like that,” Wolfe said. Hard to tell from his dry tone whether he was being serious. 

Khalila felt Dario stiffen beneath her hand. Her own body grew hot, and she quickly said, “I don’t think that’s appropriate.”

Wolfe’s harsh laugh cut her off. “Correct. That would not be appropriate in this situation. Consider this a test, Seif. You have training and instincts. Use them.”

A test. Of course it was, and the strictest teacher in Ptolemy House grading her on it. Thank Allah she’d always done well on tests.

Think, Khalila, what does an unsettled omega need? The answer came easily. Safety first. And an omega felt safe when they were held tightly. Or, better, wrapped in a blanket. There were plenty of those at hand, so Khalila grabbed the heaviest one, an absurdly gaudy purple velvet thing edged in gold embroidery, and wrapped it around Dario’s shoulders. She paid attention to his scent while she pulled it tight around him, pinning his arms at his sides. The fruit and chocolate both became sweeter, which she took as a good sign.

Next, sensory input. Something for his mind to focus on instead of whatever drug-induced thoughts were troubling him. Not a spanking. He needed something softer. Tipping his chin up with one hand, she stroked his smooth cheek with the other. She looked down into his dark, unfocused eyes and found the gentle but authoritative voice she’d practiced. “Dario, sweetheart, can you hold still for me? Just like this. Very good. If you hold still, I can pet your face. That feels good, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” he murmured. A shiver ran through him, and he lifted his chin more, offering his throat in a gesture of submission that sent an answering shiver through Khalila’s own body. This wasn’t an empty gesture or an accident like his kneeling, but real vulnerability. A glimpse of the person underneath all the bluster and bad behavior.

He smelled so sweet now. Sweet, submissive omega. So sweet and so right. And that was what he needed from her next. Scent. A practiced, controlled release of it, enough to comfort, not so much as to overwhelm. Their scents blended well, she thought. Jasmine and cinnamon and chocolate and fruit. Satisfied, she purred. A second later, she heard Dario’s purr join hers.

Behind her, Wolfe cleared his throat. “Good work, Seif. I’ll leave you to it. Santiago, I’ll see you after dinner.”

The door clicked shut behind him.

Chapter Text

EPHEMERA

Posted to Instagram by Glain Wathen, August 16, 2031

[Pictured: An alpha dressed in cargo shorts and a tank top grins at the camera and holds up a sword. She has short brown hair and a Welsh dragon tattoo on one arm. In the background, more swords and knives hang from a rack on the wall beneath a Welsh flag.]

Caption: 🐲🗡Last sword practice before school.🗡🐲

Can’t bring them, so I’m leaving my collection with the boys. That’s right, douchebags, hands off my brothers. I’ve been teaching them to stab pushy alphas, and I’m sure they’d love to practice. 😈

Fist raised to knock on the door, Glain had the hilarious thought that this was as close as she would ever get to the supposedly common teenage experience of picking up a date. It was as stereotypical as could be, really. Neatly-dressed alpha at her omega’s family’s door, hoping to earn their approval. Swallowing a laugh, she knocked.

It wasn’t anything like that. Glain wasn’t there to claim a mate. Morgan would only be hers insofar as the omega would be Glain’s responsibility, and Glain only cared about Morgan’s foster mother’s approval because the beta who called herself Auntie Annis was going to be one of her teachers. 

She’d expected it to be Annis who opened the door. It was Annis’s house, one of the old guest cottages on the school’s property that now housed faculty, and Morgan’s profile said she was shy. Afraid of alphas. Understandably.

The scent that greeted Glain as the door swung open, though, was not the faint human odor of a beta, but roses, a whole bouquet of them, flowery and sweet. Or at least, a blend of pheromones that her brain interpreted as roses. It was downright unsettling how that worked. She didn't even like the smell of roses, but for some reason, her brain assigned it to an omega scent that woke all her protective instincts. 

Morgan looked like she needed protecting. She wasn’t small, exactly. She’d developed the kind of typical omega curves that made Glain grateful to be an alpha, but she hunched her shoulders and looked down at her feet in a way that made her look even shorter than she really was. There was a note of fear in her scent that Glain’s nose registered as cloyingly floral, bordering on rot, but that didn’t stop her from extending a hand and saying, “Hi. I’m Morgan. You must be Glain. It’s nice to meet you.”

Remembering from training that a firm handshake was never a good idea with a skittish omega, Glain clasped Morgan’s hand gently as she said, “Good to meet you, too. Welcome to Ptolemy House.” She left the scent gland on Morgan’s wrist alone. There was more than enough scent in the air already.

That would be something to work on later, when Morgan was more comfortable. 

Glain had her own scent under tight control, so she made a point of offering her wrist. “Only if you want,” she made sure to add. “And you can ask any time you need a sniff. It’s part of my job.”

She couldn’t help but feel proud, saying that. Her job. Her first job, the start of a career in law enforcement. Experience as a support alpha would make her a strong candidate for a position with an omega protection unit, or maybe an anti-terrorist unit. She would take down traffickers and alpha supremacists, make the world safer for omegas like her dad and brothers.

And Morgan. The omega’s hand trembled on Glain’s wrist as she swept her thumb over the scent gland and inhaled deeply. Her nostrils flared, but she didn’t move, not even to lean in or to lift Glain’s wrist to better smell the slight release of pheromones triggered by the touch.

“It’s true, then. You really aren’t,” Morgan said after an awkward moment. “Aren’t attracted to me, I mean. I would know. I can smell it.”

“You’ve got a sensitive nose,” Glain said, which was stating the obvious, but better than any of the sarcastic rebuttals that sprang to mind. This wasn’t like her old school; Morgan wasn’t trying to be rude. The poor omega was fresh out of a cult. She didn’t deserve to be snapped at just because she’d had her head stuffed with bullshit.

“Tell me about it.” Morgan’s mouth opened in a smile that looked almost ready to turn to a laugh, and she looked over her shoulder to say, “You can come out now, Auntie Annis. I did it. I’m fine.” Looking back at Glain, she added in a whisper, “She’s hiding around the corner in the living room. Can you smell her? She smells like tea.”

Only when the beta came to stand behind Morgan did Glain pick up even a hint of scent. Bland, like any beta, just skin and sweat and some artificial floral notes of laundry detergent and shampoo. No tea. Whatever pheromones Morgan smelled were beyond Glain’s ability to detect. She met Morgan’s eyes and gave a slight nod of acknowledgment, then extended her hand to Annis.

This time, she gave a firm shake. There wasn’t anything fragile at all about Annis, though the beta looked as old as Glain’s grandparents, with streaks of gray in her red hair and wrinkles around her smile. “Glain Wathen. A pleasure to meet you, Ms. …” 

“It’s Aunt Annis, and I’ll not answer to anything else,” the beta said, with a tone as firm as her handshake. Not stern, but assured of her authority. “I like to think of us as a family here.”

Because the omegas need it, she didn’t say, but Glain heard it loud and clear. She gave Annis a sharp nod and said, “Glad to join the family, then, Aunt Annis. If it’s all right with both of you, I’d like to take Morgan over to the school and help her get settled in. It’s early enough that we could beat the rush to the supply room.”

“That’s a good idea,” Annis said, at the same time as Morgan said, “I really don’t need anything.”

The two blinked at each other for a moment, and Annis raised an eyebrow. “It can’t hurt to look, can it? You haven’t had a chance to go shopping on your own.”

Morgan let out an exasperated sigh. “Fine, I’ll look. Let me grab my backpack. Auntie Annis got some second years to haul everything else up to my room already.”

While Morgan ducked into the house, Annis gave Glain a significant look. Glain answered with a nod. Yes, she had studied Morgan’s therapy goals, and knew that gaining confidence in everyday social situations was near the top of the list. A trip to the supply room, where there were sure to be other students present, was a good way to work on that. 

All the same, Glain took Morgan the long way around through the gardens rather than taking the path that led straight from Annis’s cottage to the main building. She didn’t want to overwhelm the poor omega on the first day, and by the look of it, Morgan was plenty overwhelmed. The smaller girl kept pace with Glain easily enough, but she hung back a step, arms crossed over her chest. Quiet as a mouse.

Though she wasn’t really into flowers, even Glain had to admit that the side garden was impressive with its beds of brightly colored blossoms and fragrant rose bushes. Morgan, who wore a long, floral-patterned dress, barely looked up from the path. That wouldn’t do at all. Stepping onto a narrow side path, Glain held out her hand and said with a wink, “Come on, let me show you a secret.”

Morgan hung back a moment, and Glain could see the decision playing itself out on the omega’s face. Nervous curiosity overpowering a timidity that must have been forced on her. Her hand lifted, wavered, then grasped Glain’s as she took a step forward. “Ok. Show me.”

It was out of their way to detour around to the back of the kitchen garden, but totally worth it to see the look on Morgan’s face when she led them between two hedges into a row of apple trees. Most bore only small, green fruit, but the apples that hung from the branches of the nearest one were bright red. A moment’s bafflement, then wide eyes and a hopeful, “Are these ripe?”

Yes, she had read Morgan’s file closely. Including the section on favorite foods.

Glain plucked an apple from a low-hanging branch and held it out. “Most of them won’t be ready for weeks, but this one ripens early. Early Blazes, they’re called.”

Warily, Morgan took the apple. She cocked her head to the side, considering it, then shrugged and took a bite. Her eyes closed, and her lips curled into the first real smile Glain had seen from her. Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. She licked her lips before her eyes opened once more, a look in them Glain couldn’t quite read as she murmured something too quiet to hear.

“What was that?” Glain asked. She picked an apple for herself, making a mental note to thank Khalila for passing along the tip from her brother.

“And ye shall be as gods,” Morgan recited. It sounded familiar, but Glain couldn’t quite place it, or give the response Morgan seemed to be expecting. “It’s from the Bible. What the serpent said to Eve.”

“Oh,” Glain said, making the connection. “Sorry. It’s been a while since I went to church with Mom.”

Morgan took another bite of apple and chewed thoughtfully before saying, “You.. oh. That’s right. Pagan. It said that, on your profile. Your mom’s ok with that?”

They were getting into sensitive territory, so Glain used the excuse of a mouthful of apple to consider her words. Religion had never been a big deal in her family; her parents believed deeply in their Catholic faith, but they believed just as deeply in their children. Her mother bought her books on Welsh mythology. It seemed cruel to tell Morgan that, when Morgan’s own father had forced her into a cult. Better to keep it simple, she thought. Turn the question around. “She is. It’s probably weird for you to be around people so relaxed about religion, isn’t it?”

“That’s an understatement,” Morgan laughed, but her expression turned wistful. “They didn’t let us have apples, in the Tower. Father threw away every apple we had when I presented. It would be reenacting Eve’s sin to eat one.”

“Are we having Bible study? How cold of you to leave me out, Glain.”

The back of Glain’s neck itched as her hackles rose at the sound of Portero’s voice. He’d been a thorn in her side, and Khalila’s, through summer training, with his Jesus rants and alpha supremacist dog whistles. Why Principal Murasaki had admitted the jackass, Glain had no idea. Maybe he was the only one whose scent was compatible with the omega at his side.

The omega looming over him, more accurately. Funny how the idiot with his head full of biological determinist bullshit got matched up with an omega who looked more like an alpha than he did, Glain thought as she rubbed her neck, willing her protective instincts down. Morgan was safe. Portero might be a nuisance, but neither he nor his omega was a threat. Good to know, though, that her instincts already recognized Morgan as hers. She would need that to do her job well.

“More like world mythology,” Glain said, giving Portero an entirely insincere grin that satisfied her instinctive urge to bare her teeth. “Morgan’s just told me about the myth of the Garden of Eden, now it’s my turn for a good Welsh story about Avalon.”

Predictably, Portero scowled at that. He’d never cared for having his precious Bible stories compared with anyone else’s myths. To Glain’s disappointment, though, he didn’t rise to her bait, giving her only a bland, “Fascinating, I’m sure,” before he turned to Morgan and put on a charming smile. “But I’m being rude, aren’t I? I’m so sorry, I just get so enthusiastic when I hear the word of the Lord. Let me introduce us. I’m Joachim Portero, and this is Hallem, my brother in Christ. Am I correct in concluding you are a sister?”

Morgan flinched at that, making Glain’s protectiveness come roaring back. Her lips curled into something that no longer even vaguely resembled a smile, and she stepped between Portero and Morgan. He should have known better. Even if he’d missed the news about Iron Tower Ministries in his right-wing social media bubble, he should have known from their training that religion wasn’t a topic to bring up with an unfamiliar omega. Resisting the urge to growl, she readied a scathing response.

But she didn’t need to say a word. Morgan, head high, stepped out from behind Glain to glare at Portero and snap, “I’m not your sister.” With that, she stalked away, reaching up to snatch another apple as she went.

The look on Portero’s face was priceless. Glain would have liked to take a picture for Khalila, and, if she was honest with herself, to provoke Portero into a fight. Morgan was walking away quickly, though, and unlike Portero, Glain did remember her training. Specifically the fact that a traumatized omega who had just stood up to an alpha could be very vulnerable. 

Morgan needed support right now. An arm around her shoulders, maybe a little scent, reassurance that she’d done the right thing no matter what her abusers had taught her. All things it was up to Glain to provide. Ignoring Portero, Glain hurried after her omega to do her job.

Chapter Text

EPHEMERA

Chat transcript from Blizzard customer service, August 17, 2031

Customer: I need help recovering my password. Username B_Darkstab

CSR_Chad: No problem! Have you tried the “forgot my password” link?

Customer: It didn’t work that email got deleted.

CSR_Chad: I’m sorry to hear that. In that case, we can use the credit card linked to the account. Could you verify the last four digits of the credit card number?

Customer: I don’t have that card anymore

CSR_Chad: We need to verify your identity to proceed. I see your last billing date was within the past six months. Could you check a billing statement for the number?

Customer: wtf man people’s cards get stolen all the time. 

can’t we do security questions or something?

CSR_Chad: I’m sorry, but that will not be possible without a valid email or credit card.

Customer: It’s my fucking account I can tell you all about it. level 50 omega male night elf rogue Want to know all the gear? I can tell you that too

CSR_Chad: I’m sorry, but that will not be possible. Is there anything else I can help you with today?

Customer: fuck you

*Chat disconnected*

“Jess? Are you ok?”

Jess turned away from the monitor to see Thomas by the bed, a sheet in his hands and a worried look on his face. Shit. He must have growled or something. Grimacing, he looked down. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just…” He stopped himself before he could say the first thing that came to mind; Thomas was too nice for his swearing. Nice. There was a word he never thought he’d use for an alpha. But Thomas was, undeniably, one of the nicest people Jess had ever met. It was going to take some getting used to. “Frustrated. They won’t help me recover Brendan’s account.”

The look that replaced the worry on Thomas’s face almost made Jess wish he’d gone ahead and dropped a few f-bombs. He didn’t want pity. Even if that was basically Thomas’s whole job, pitying him and giving him hits of scent. And making his bed, because he was shit at it and Thomas wasn’t.

Thomas draped the sheet over the bed, making it look entirely too easy - maybe it was, for someone whose arms spread out almost as long as the bed - and came over to put a hand on Jess’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I know that meant a lot to you.”

Yeah, because I went and babbled like an idiot about it the whole time we were setting up the computer. 

“I’m fine,” Jess said, pushing his chair back from the desk. “Maybe I’ll remember the password later. What else needs doing?”

He wouldn’t. He’d never known it in the first place, secretive as Brendan had been, but he’d rather do something else than sit and mope about it.

As if he could see right into Jess’s thoughts, Thomas answered, “Want to see if they have the books out in the lounge yet?”

Jess would have jumped at that even if he hadn’t been desperate for a distraction. Books were the one thing not stocked in the supply room. Instead, they would be in the student lounge, boxes full to pick from and stock the bookshelf in his room. Whatever wasn’t taken by the end of the week would go on the shelves in the lounge, where they could be swapped with one from his room any time he wanted. Like a library, but with no late fees. All the books he could read. Between that and the computer, this school was totally worth putting up with whatever therapy and classes he had to go to.

He’d gotten halfway out the door, the biggest of the boxes they’d used to haul everything up from the supply room tucked under one arm, when Thomas added, “Oh, and it’s almost time for the class meeting. Save me a seat?”

“Sure,” Jess called over his shoulder as the door fell shut behind him.

Though he hadn’t been to the lounge yet - hadn’t had any reason to, since the books weren’t there when Thomas checked earlier - Jess found it easily enough. He’d memorized the map of the school days ago, a habit formed years ago when Da made him run drugs, honed to perfection in his time doing jobs for the old alpha. His life used to depend on knowing his surroundings.

It might still, for all he knew. As nice as the school seemed, Jess couldn’t shake the feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Everything had a catch. Like his room. His own room, for the first time in his life. His own bathroom, for fuck’s sake, which he’d thought was too much for even a private school until Thomas told him it was because he would need to stay in his room if his blockers failed and he had a heat. Then it all made sense. This place was too nice to have cages. Too nice for chains, too. The box of heat supplies he’d been required to take had been too lightweight and quiet for chains. It had to be straps, maybe nice padded ones like the old alpha had used when he was good, that would fasten to the sturdy bar he’d seen on the shower wall. Easy cleanup there. That was what the private room with its own bathroom was really for. Tie up the inconvenient omegas someplace out of the way and easy to clean.

Even those cynical thoughts couldn’t keep him from stopping in his tracks when he saw the lounge. A big room full of couches and chairs and low tables that had been dragged into a rough circle, one wall dominated by a huge stained glass window that glowed faintly in the dwindling evening light. Comfortable, if a little too open for his taste. But the books.

Oh, the books.

There were shelves along the walls, and in front of them, rows of folding tables, each holding stacks and boxes of books. Old paperbacks towered in wobbling piles. Hardbacks that had long since lost their dust jackets lay waiting.

Used books, all of them. Jess spotted a donations stamp on one of the boxes. There was the catch, then. These were rich people’s trash.

He didn’t care. He wanted them all, and they were his for the taking. He had the lounge almost to himself; there were two omegas looking through a box on the farthest table together, and an omega with a support alpha packing books into a box of their own, but none of them so much as looked his way. His blockers dulled their scents to a faint whisper of flowers, musk, and spice, all without a hint of distress. No threats, no competition.

Jess’s box filled far too quickly, even as it seemed he would never make his way past the first table, let alone all the way to the last. There were too many choices to make. Did he want the travel guide to Spain or the one to China? Or would the books on history and culture be better choices, given that he had no passport and not a penny to his name? Not that it was any easier to decide between those. And the math and vocabulary workbooks - the sole new offerings of the lot, in boxes stamped charity - he was behind in school, he knew he was, he needed all the help he could get. But even so, were these worth the valuable space they took up?

In the end, he took the ones on algebra and long division and left the rest, tempted by a flash of gold ink from the next table over. Collectors’ editions. He should have skipped them. They were classics, all easy to find online, leather bound and gilt edged with full color illustrations and beautiful spines. The kinds of books that filled the shelves he was forbidden to touch. They were meant for decorating rich collectors’ rooms, not for reading. Once, he’d watched an interior decorator at work on the old alpha’s shelves, pitching perfectly good books into a garbage bag when their exteriors failed to match her vision. Seething with rage, he’d waited until she left for lunch and snatched the first volume he could grab from the bag. The Tempest.

A whole week, it had been his. Enough time to read it twice over, understanding maybe half of it, before he got caught. The beating was worth it, he thought. Even if Brendan called him an idiot for it. Brendan called him an idiot for a lot of things.

You’re still an idiot, Brendan’s voice muttered in the back of Jess’s head as Jess picked up a thick volume of the complete works of Shakespeare, eyes burning as if it were a fresh cut onion. Blinking hard, he put it in his box, then added The Prince and Frankenstein . Dusty and battered around the edges, all of them.

Well, now he knew what happened to those garbage bags of books. Tax write-offs.

The next few tables held a different kind of library rejects: public library paperbacks too battered for circulation. Torn and taped, covers falling off and stains on their ragged-edged pages, Jess found himself even more drawn to them than the collectors’ editions. In a way, these were even more forbidden. Neither Da nor the old alpha had tolerated the ugly, the useless, or the worthless. Jess filled the remaining space in his box with romances and fantasies.

Arms straining to hold the full box, Jess surveyed the room. In the time he’d spent absorbed in books, more people had arrived. No one he knew. Most of them clustered around the tables, some quiet as he was, others talking about their finds. There were plenty of seats left, including, remarkably, the one Jess would call the best in the room. A fluffy couch right underneath the stained glass window, big enough for him and Thomas with room to spare. Surprising that one wasn’t already taken.

When he hauled his books over and flopped down on it, the reason for that became obvious. Whoever last sat on it had terrible scent control, leaving a stink of stale wine and chocolate. There was the catch. There was always a catch.

Jess’s neck itched as his scent glands kicked into production, responding to instincts that urged him to hurry up and mark his territory. He took a deep, slow breath, grabbed the first book from his box that came to hand, and stretched out on the couch, using the armrest as a pillow. The itch would go away. It always did. Reading would help.

He got as far as the title, Rose Red, Sea Blue, written in a loopy font that promised romance, before a shadow fell over him, and an impossibly good-looking omega in a suit that oozed rich asshole said, “That’s my seat. Get up.” Dark eyes glared at him from a perfectly bronzed face framed by immaculate waves of black hair.

Jess rolled his eyes, stretched out his legs as far as they would go, and replied, “Sorry, man. Couch is camped. Try someplace else.”

The rich brat’s glossy lips drew back in a snarl. “No. I don’t share. Get out of my seat.” He grabbed Jess by the shoulders and threw him to the floor.

It was a clumsy move, all anger and no skill, and it only worked because it caught Jess off guard. The instant he hit the floor, he was moving, swinging his legs around to swipe the other omega’s legs out from under him. The pretty rich boy wobbled, smug face dissolving in surprise, and fell. He would have landed on Jess, but Jess was already rolling, flipping both of them over.

Straddling the other omega, Jess seized him by the collar of his fancy shirt and said, “Let’s try this again. That’s my seat. I was sitting there. You can pick a different one.”

Hands too soft to have ever so much as washed a dish wrapped around Jess’s wrists with an unexpectedly firm grip. The scent of wine and chocolate, bitter with anger, filled the air. “No, you listen-”

“Dario!” The voice was soft, not even a hint of a growl, but the authority in it made Jess’s head snap up to see what had to be the world’s smallest alpha hurrying toward them. Khalila, Thomas’s friend - Jess remembered her purple dress and headscarf. Seeing her up close, Jess thought he might have at least a couple inches on her. She was no less intimidating for it.

It seemed she had the same effect on Dario. His hands dropped from Jess’s wrists even as Jess loosened his grip on Dario’s shirt. Looking up at Khalila, Dario said, “As you can see, lovely flower, he is on me. ”

Everyone spoke at once.

Already halfway to his feet, Jess protested, “He started-”

At the same time, Khalila said, “And how did that-?”

And loudest of all was Thomas, carefully pushing through the cluster of students by the door to catch up with Khalila. “Jess! Are you ok?”

“Yeah,” Jess said, scratching the back of his neck. The hairs there stood on end, refusing to be smoothed down. His scent glands itched, too. Stupid omega body. This wasn’t a fight for his place in some pack he didn’t even want, just an idiot rich boy making trouble.

“We saw the whole thing,” Khalila said, glaring down at Dario, who remained on the floor, half sitting and looking a little stunned. “What were you thinking?”

Dario lowered his head. “Apologies, lovely flower. I wanted only to secure the best seat in the room for you.”

“I see two perfectly good chairs,” Khalila said, indicating a pair of nearby armchairs with a sweep of her hand.

“Yes, of course. Wouldn’t want to sit on that couch anyway, now that this scrubber’s gone and stank it up.” Scrambling to his feet, Dario shoved past Thomas to claim the further of the two chairs.

Jess tensed. In his experience, that kind of disrespect from an omega could send an alpha into a terrifying rage. Thomas, though, only raised an eyebrow as he watched an equally calm Khalila follow Dario. Turning to Jess and the couch, he wrinkled his nose and said in a hushed voice, “It smells like he’s the one who stank it up. Does it bother you? I have deodorizing spray. Somewhere. I think. Hmm.” He patted the pockets of his cargo pants, frowning.

“It’s fine, really,” Jess said, still watching Khalila and Dario out of the corner of his eye. All she was doing was whispering at him, too quiet for Jess to hear but definitely angry. Impressive control these trained alphas had.

Before Jess could prove his point by sitting back down, a petite omega wearing a red tank top, a black leather skirt, and a very noticeable ankle monitor came up to them, holding out a spray can. “Sorry, couldn’t help overhearing. And smelling. Want to borrow this?”

Thomas took the can. “Thanks! Um, I’m Thomas, and this is Jess.”

“I’m Anit, and that’s Katja over there.” She indicated an alpha at the nearest table with a jab of her thumb over her shoulder. Lowering her voice, she added, “Ve’s not as scary as ve looks.”

Katja certainly looked scary enough. Ve had a lean, muscular build, sleek and powerful as a mountain lion, with pale coloring that made ver dark tattoos stand out, the most striking of them a snake that coiled around ver head as if slithering through the short-sheared blond grass of ver hair. It ended just behind one ear, its mouth open as if threatening a bite.

To his embarrassment, Jess realized he wouldn’t at all mind being bitten. Katja looked like exactly the kind of danger Brendan would have loved. The kind of danger part of Jess missed far more than he wanted to.

It was a very welcome distraction when Anit spoke again. “But you wouldn’t mind scary, would you? It’s Brightwell, right? You look like your big brother. Good to have family here.”

Jess blinked, his mind stumbling over itself as it tried to make sense of these pieces of his old life thrown into his new one. It had been years since anyone said anything to him about Liam. Hardly anyone even knew about Liam. Jess’s family didn’t talk about Liam. But she’d said she was family. They couldn’t be, not in the conventional sense. He was far too white to be related to someone with her dark coloring. That meant her claim of relation had to have a lot more to do with the monitor on her ankle.

Anit tugged meaningfully on her red tank top, and the pieces snapped into place. Red. Red Ibrahim, the black market gun dealer. That kind of family. Now that he thought about it, Anit did look familiar. Jess had never met her, but he’d seen her older brothers once or twice. The resemblance was there. And he remembered overhearing their fathers talking, Da complaining about having three children present as omegas, while Red Ibrahim boasted…

“I thought your father only had alphas,” Jess said, and felt like an idiot, because obviously Anit wasn’t an alpha. Her cinnamony, metallic scent was entirely omega.

“So did my father,” Anit said. Her tone was light, but there was something sharp and bitter in her eyes.

“Oh. That sounds rough.” Jess wasn’t sure what else to say. He couldn’t begin to imagine what it would be like. He could imagine, though, how Da would have reacted. He wondered if he would have had the courage to be himself with his father and his body both trying to tell him to be an alpha.

Anit shrugged in a way that very much indicated she didn’t want to talk about it and looked pointedly over at the couch, where Thomas held a throw pillow up to his nose. “Is that stuff working?”

Thomas returned the pillow to the couch and the spray can to Anit. “I think so. Thanks again. Would you like to sit with us?”

She did, of course. It was, after all, the best seat in the room. Thomas sat to one end of the couch, compressing himself into a surprisingly small space for someone so large, and Jess sat beside him. Not too close; he didn’t want to be clingy like some of the other omegas who seemed attached to their alphas’ sides. Anit sat on his other side and waved Katja over to join them. 

Katja dropped a box of battered paperbacks on the seat next to Anit and perched on the arm of the couch. Now that Jess had a better view of ver, he could see that ve, too, had a monitor fastened to one ankle. That probably made ver family.

Nothing wrong with kissing cousins, Brendan whispered in the back of his mind.

Shut up, Scraps, Jess thought in return.

“I got you all the zombie stuff,” Katja said, grinning at Anit.

On closer examination, there did seem to be an unusually high number of painted blood splatters on the book covers in the box. Anit, looking positively gleeful, rummaged through the book, muttering titles Jess didn’t recognize. He’d never been much for horror. That was Brendan’s thing.

But these were Brendan’s kind of people. He had always been more comfortable with their criminal upbringing than Jess. Where Jess felt guilt at running drugs that got people killed and hated stealing to add to the old alpha’s collections, Brendan armored himself in indifference. A job was a job, Brendan kept saying. He even took pride in doing it well, especially when he could sneak in a little something for himself on the side. They had to look after themselves, Brendan would say, slipping a diamond earring or a gold watch into his pocket. Had to buy their own way out.

Maybe it would have worked if he hadn’t gotten cocky. 

Gotten caught.

Jess’s stomach clenched with the memory of hunger. Blood and bruises. Brendan, shaking with fever, reaching for him through cage bars.

“You have to make it, Jess. You have to-”

But the hand that grasped his was too big to be Brendan’s, and there was no cage. Only a soft couch and Thomas, looking at Jess with a silent question that Jess didn’t know how to answer.

What would be more embarrassing, taking a hit of alpha scent right here in front of the whole class? Or falling apart?

Katja saved him from having to choose. “Heads up. Oink oink,” ve said in a low murmur that might have been intended only for Anit.

Jess looked up, too, and froze, all the useless adrenaline from his near-panic attack finding its purpose. There, coming into the lounge, was a tall alpha in the black and gold uniform of school security. Don’t let the pigs catch you. Da had beaten that into him from the time he was old enough to run. 

The cops weren’t looking for him. Not now. No one knew what the old alpha had really used his valuable pair of omega twins for. Jess had to keep it that way. He couldn’t let this cop see his fear. Snuggling up to Thomas, Jess forced himself to inhale deeply. 

Vanilla and engine grease. Surprisingly soothing.

Thomas hesitated only a second before wrapping an arm around Jess to pull him closer. Jess could feel his body relaxing. His hackles went down, his heart quit racing. He kept his eyes on the cop, who was still by the door, leaning against the wall and reading something on a tablet.

At least until another man entered the lounge. This one, Jess knew. Christopher Wolfe, the teacher who had come to the hospital for him. Still every bit as intimidating as before, Wolfe strode into the room like he owned it.

When Wolfe passed the cop, the cop moved. Stood a little straighter, lowered the tablet, looked right at Wolfe like Wolfe was the only one in the world that mattered. Like Wolfe was the alpha, not the other way around.

In the cop’s defense, pretty much everyone else was watching Wolfe, too. Even the alphas. Wolfe, for his part, seemed unbothered, accepting the deference as his due. He stopped in the middle of the ring of chairs and couches and turned in a slow circle, sweeping his gaze over all of them. Frowning.

“For those of you who do not already know, I am Dr. Christopher Wolfe,” he said. “I will also answer to ‘Professor,’ as I will be instructing you in computer science in addition to serving as advisor to the omega portion of the class. I should warn you now that I have no intention of going easy on any of you. Alphas, I expect you already know this. Omegas…”

Wolfe paused, turning again to survey the room. Thomas squeezed Jess’s hand.

“I am, of course, aware of the various traumas you have survived,” Wolfe continued. “That, class, is the key point. You have survived. You have enrolled in this school because you have sufficiently recovered to move forward now. Past is past. From now on, you will be expected to move forward. To that end, you will be treated as the capable young people you are. You will be responsible for your own rooms and belongings. Your academic goals will be set based on your current level of ability, but those goals will be ambitious. I would especially like to emphasize that your peer counselors are not here to do your work for you. If you would prefer to be coddled, I recommend that you speak promptly with Principal Murasaki about transferring to a facility that will do so. Are there any questions?”

Well, Jess thought, this was shaping up to be very much unlike what he had expected.