Page 2

Della

The girls’ dorms are in a pastel pink cottage, nestled among tall oaks, a lavender garden, and sculpted bushes.

The boy's dorm, located in a pastel blue cottage, is closer to the teachers' and is probably identical inside. There are only a handful of male omegas since they’re rarer than female omegas.

Each of its four wings houses ten to twenty girls. There’s a communal bathroom, restrooms, and a reading room with leather armchairs and a large table for us to study the meaningless crap these teachers are determined to spoon-feed us.

At the end of each bed is a white, vintage-looking trunk where we can store our most personal things. We each have a dresser and closet, but those are farther away, and I have things, namely extortionately expensive perfume I need to keep a close eye on.

“Do you want one alpha or a pack, Delilah?” River asks me at the end of a long day.

Sweet omega scents permeate nearly every part of Haven Academy, particularly in the dorms. I bought out a fragrance store's supply of cherry and praline perfume, the closest scent I could find to omega pheromones, so I’m adding my own sugary mix to the room.

I am fast running out of supplies with the way I’ve been spraying the stuff all over my clothes, hair, and skin, because everyone knows betas don’t smell of anything.

Maybe I don’t need to go so heavy with the fragrance, but it’ll take one person to notice my underlying smell of nothing, and they’ll drag me out of here so fast my head will spin.

I have a map of Haven Academy spread out in front of me to plot more destruction as I lie flat on my belly and kick my feet. “Uh, whatever. Don’t mind.”

Alphas and omegas have passionate love affairs.

In movies, it’s always a delicate, beautiful omega who falls for the big, powerful alpha.

I do not foresee an epic love affair in my future, and that’s okay.

I don’t need that to be happy with my life, but it would be nice to be a guy’s obsession instead of a forgettable beta.

“A pack of alphas,” Cheyenne says firmly from the next bed over as she brushes a vintage-looking gold comb through her silky, chestnut brown hair. “I’d get double, triple, or quadruple the amount of spoiling.”

Almost all the girls come from money. They don’t dress over the top fancy, but everything they wear is expensive. It’s the kind of no-label, perfectly tailored, tasteful outfits worn by people used to dressing well.

I dress like them, too, courtesy of the credit card that Everleigh let me borrow. From a distance, I might look like them, but the clothes don’t feel right. Maybe because I’ve never stopped feeling like a fraud since I stepped foot on campus.

“Everleigh Ashe has three alphas. That’s what I want,” says Kimber with a soft sigh of pleasure. “She’s so lucky.”

If they knew what my sister went through to get her happy ever after with a pack of alphas who adore her, they wouldn’t be calling her lucky. They’d be saying it was a miracle she found happiness at all, given how many times she nearly died.

Ever and I have different parents. My mom raised and then sold her, which is why I cut her out of my life; we look so different that no one would know we’re related.

I make a non-committal sound and refocus on my map of the school.

Wearing a cream silk nightdress, River perches on the edge of my bed. “Are you still getting lost?”

My excuse for spending my evenings and any spare time I have poring over the Haven Academy map has been a terrible sense of direction.

“I think I’m starting to figure out where everything is now,” I say.

I’ve hit the science building, the wellness center, and the dining hall. The admissions building, which houses the nurse’s office, is a no-go area. Someone is always in there working, and it feels wrong to target the nurse who seems nice.

Where next?

I hesitate to hit the library. The thought of ruining books is enough to make me feel queasy. So the library is out of bounds.

For now.

It’s getting late, and I’m exhausted, though not because classes are hard. It’s draining to go from class to class where the teachers spend every minute molding you into a more submissive version for wealthy alphas to scoop you up at the end-of-year ball.

The ball is weeks away, and I’m no closer to convincing the omegas to flee their gilded cage before a spoiled alpha makes their lives a misery.

“My sister, Juniper, mated with a pack,” River says, crossing her legs.

If she weren’t so nice, I’d tell her that now isn’t the time. I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to wreak untold devastation on Haven Academy, and I am failing at my task.

Since I arrived, River has taken me under her wing, so I stop ‘accidentally’ getting lost. She’s shown me around multiple times and has been kind and sweet. A bonus is that she hasn’t once attempted to snoop through my trunk at the end of my bed.

“Is she happy?” I ask River, lifting my eyes from the map.

She blinks at me as if surprised by my question. “The teachers told my parents that June was lucky to have Pack Wells choose her. There were lots of girls during her graduation, but they all wanted her.”

That doesn’t actually answer my question.

“But is she happy ?” I repeat.

When River looks down at her lap, I can guess the answer. Juniper, like any other omega here, had no choice.

I’d planned to wait until everyone was asleep before creating more chaos, but how can I sit here and do nothing when I could be doing something?

I stand up and walk over to my trunk, leaving River on my bed while the other girls read their books, do their nails, or partner up to practice the footwork for our dance lessons.

It’s almost nine o’clock. After dinner in the dining hall, we had free time to relax in the sauna or pool at the wellness center, or read in the library before returning to our rooms.

Each day, I feel like a hamster on a wheel. I'm getting fitter with workouts, dance lessons, and salads, but still feel trapped.

“How do the teachers decide what omega goes with what alpha?” I ask River, wanting to distract her before she can ask me where I’m going.

“They have meetings with prospective alphas who tell them what they’re looking for in an omega. And a perfumer comes to work out our colors,” River explains.

I stop riffling through the contents of my trunk. “ Perfumer ?”

“Yeah. So our dress for the end-of-year ball matches our pheromones,” Kimber explains.

“What?” I scrunch up my face as I try to envision someone sniffing me, then deciding… blue. Her dress must be blue.

I shake my head. What a stupid idea.

“It’s so we look our best for the alphas at the ball,” Kimber emphasizes.

I need to be gone before that perfumer's visit. One sniff and they would know the scent I practically bathe in came from a bottle. “Oh?”

“That’s next week, right?” Cheyenne asks before I can disappear into the bathroom for my nightly spritz of perfume.

The towel-wrapped bottle slips from my hands and thumps to the ground, narrowly missing my toe. But that crack? Not a good sign.

I snatch up another peach-colored towel and double-wrap my precious bundle as the cherry and praline scent permeates the room.

Shit. That was my last big bottle. I have a small one left, and it needs to last.

River dissolves into sneezes, rubbing her nose. “Delilah, are you okay?” She peers up at me, concerned.

A suddenly overpowering smell from an omega usually means one thing: heat.

Her temperature rises, and she gives off a heavily sweet and erotic perfume that drives an alpha wild. An omega in heat and an alpha will go at each other anytime, anyplace, in a jam-packed room even. The urge to fuck is just that strong.

Luckily, an omega’s heat happens about every three months, and not only is it when she’s most fertile, but it lasts nearly a week. It’s why heat clinics—safe, air-controlled spaces—exist, so they don’t trigger every alpha within a five-mile radius.

That is absolutely not what is happening to me.

Everyone is looking at me, their noses twitching as the perfume soaks through the towels I’m cradling against my chest.

I sneeze three times as I back up. "Uh, just heading to the nest pods. Be right back."

The nest pods, glamping-style cabins, where omegas can ride out their heat in comfort and relaxation, sit next to the lake on campus, a few feet away from the tennis courts.

You can get suppressants from the nurse, but she rarely dishes them out. Haven Academy wants their omegas drug-free, obedient, and primed for their alpha.

“But I—” The door slams shut between us, cutting River off.

I sprint from the cottage as if my life depends on it, because it does. It’s not a crime to pretend to be an omega. At least, I don’t think it is. But it sure as heck is a crime for me to create a fake ID and get myself enrolled in a college reserved for omegas.

I cling to the shadows of the buildings as the scent of perfume intensifies. The best place to dispose of evidence that I don’t belong is the kitchen in the dining hall, where they have an incinerator for waste.

If I leave this broken perfume bottle anywhere else, a cleaner is liable to find it, wonder about it, and maybe even take it to Ms. Arkwright, the head of school. Then I’d have serious problems.

I duck past the clock tower and slam to a halt feet from the dining hall as a man emerges from the wellness center. He’s buttoning up a white shirt that clings to strong, muscled shoulders, and he did not spend nearly enough time drying off before dressing.

His short, dark hair is damp, and his shirt is slightly see-through.

“It’s like the beginning of a sex dream,” I whisper.

His head jerks up. Steel-gray eyes lance me on the spot.

For one long second, he stares at me.

Then his nostrils flare, those wolf-like gray eyes narrow, and he prowls toward me.

Now would be a good time to run .

But do I?

I cling to my towel like it’s the only thing keeping me on my feet as Mr. Sex On Legs stalks toward me.

At the last possible second, I back up, bumping against the wall.

Then he’s there, a rumbling growl vibrating from his chest as he presses his nose to my throat.

He smells of raspberry and dark chocolate, a little sharp, slightly sweet, and utterly gorgeous. I’m not an omega to be so sensitive to alpha pheromones, but damn if this guy doesn’t smell sexy as hell.

I squeak as he clasps my right hip with one large hand and drags my body flush against his harder one.

“ Omega ,” he growls with such desperate hunger that I lock my knees together as my muscles soften and my insides turn liquid with need.

What. Is. Happening ?

A door creaks open somewhere to the right, and the alpha lifts his head slightly.

I take advantage, slipping around him as I stutter, “Uh, I h-have to go. Heat. My perfume is… perfuming.”

Without waiting for a response, I take off at a sprint.

I’d hoped to dispose of my secret in the kitchen incinerator.

That won’t happen now. I need to get as far away from this alpha before his touch fries my brain again.

Sprinting past the wellness center, I duck around the back. And, after making sure the alpha isn’t in hot pursuit, I fling my towel-wrapped perfume bottle in the lake. When it doesn’t immediately sink, I stamp until it disappears under the surface.

Wheeling around, I dash to the other side of the building and back to the dorms, desperate to know who the alpha was sniffing me with such desperate hunger.