Page 53 of The Sterling Acquisition (Manufactured Mates #1)

Chapter thirty-seven

The Real History

Orion

Tallulah opened the ancient journal on her lap, pages crackling with age as she turned to what looked like a hand-drawn diagram. “The Primal Triad has three stages. Always has, always will, no matter what the corporations try to tell you.”

Orion leaned forward despite himself, drawn by the certainty in her voice. “What stages?”

“Stage One: The Scent-Sync.” Tallulah’s finger traced over faded ink that looked like intertwining spirals.

“When two people are biologically compatible—truly compatible, not corporate-manufactured compatible—their pheromones start resonating. Creates obsession. Makes it impossible to stop thinking about each other.”

Something cold settled in Orion’s stomach. “That’s just... attraction.”

“Is it?” Tallulah’s eyes glinted with mischief. “Tell me, Dante, when did you first smell Orion? Really smell him? ”

Dante went very still beside him. “My first day in SVI territory. In the courtyard.”

“And?”

“I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” Dante admitted. “His scent was overwhelming.”

“Couldn’t get him out of your head after that, could you?” Tallulah’s smile was knowing. “Even when you should have been focused on your corporate mumbojumbo.”

“That doesn’t prove anything,” Orion said, though his voice lacked conviction.

“Stage Two,” Tallulah continued, ignoring his protest, “is The Mark. The point of no return. Happens when Scent-Synced blood mixes outside the body. Triggers a bonding cascade that can’t be stopped, can’t be reversed.”

The cold feeling in Orion’s stomach turned to ice. “Blood mixing?”

“When did you two first bleed on each other?” Tallulah asked.”Though given the state of you two, you look like you’ve been doing lots of bleeding on each other.”

“Our second assessment,” Dante said with what almost looked like a wistful smile. “You punched me in the mouth and split your knuckles.”

His body had changed after that night. His heat cycles had always been erratic, but his pre-heat started almost immediately after that. At the time, he’d attributed it to stress, to the chaos of his situation.

“That’s when my suppressants and implants stopped working as effectively,” Dante said slowly. “I thought it was stress, mission variables...”

“‘Assessment’,” Tallulah repeated with obvious amusement. “That what you’re calling it?”

“We didn’t know—” Orion started, but she cut him off.

“Of course you didn’t know. That’s the point.

The Triad doesn’t ask permission. It just is.

” She turned another page, revealing more diagrams that looked disturbingly biological.

“From that moment on, your bodies were changing. Preparing. Your heat started going haywire, didn’t it, Orion?

And Dante, I bet your Gensyn handler had a field day trying to figure out what was making their machines go off. ”

He glanced at Dante, noticing how the Alpha’s breathing had changed, how his usual perfect posture had a new tension to it. Whatever was happening, Dante was feeling it too.

“Stage Three,” Tallulah said, her voice taking on an almost ceremonial tone, “is the Soul-Bite. The Sovereign’s Mark. The moment when the Omega completes the claiming by introducing the Sovereign Catalyst into the Alpha’s Dominance Anchor.”

“In English,” Orion snapped, frustration bleeding through his confusion. His hand moved unconsciously to his mouth, remembering the overwhelming instinct that had driven him to bite Dante in that moment of perfect pleasure. How right it had felt. How necessary.

“You bit him on the neck during sex and your saliva contained an enzyme that rewrote his biology,” Tallulah said bluntly. “Congratulations, you own him now.”

Orion frowned, a sudden realization hitting him. “Wait. We’ve bitten each other before... during other... encounters. Why didn’t this so-called ‘Sovereign’s Mark’ happen then?”

Tallulah’s eyebrows shot up, her lips twitching with poorly suppressed amusement. “Because, boy, it needs to happen during proper sex at climax. That’s when your body produces the enzyme. Can’t fake that part.”

Her phrasing sent a shock wave through his system that was equal parts embarrassment at Tallulah’s frankness and something darker, more primitive—a surge of possessive satisfaction that both thrilled and terrified him.

“I don’t own anyone,” Orion said, though the denial felt hollow. Something inside him—something primal and fierce—disagreed vehemently with that statement. The part of him that had felt like a circuit completed when his teeth had sunk into Dante’s flesh.

“Don’t you?” Tallulah’s eyes were sharp, assessing. “How did you feel when I suggested separating you two earlier?”

The panic. The immediate, bone-deep terror at the thought of being away from Dante even for a few minutes. The instinctive, visceral no that had escaped him before he could even think about it.

“That doesn’t mean—”

“And you, Dante,” Tallulah continued relentlessly. “How’s that corporate conditioning holding up? Still feeling the urge to report back to your handlers? Still thinking of Orion as an asset?”

Dante’s silence was answer enough.

“The Primal Triad isn’t ownership like the corporations understand it,” Tallulah said, her voice gentling. “It’s... partnership. True partnership. The Omega chooses, and in choosing, binds them both. Can’t have one without the other anymore.”

Orion’s throat felt tight. “This is insane.”

“Is it?” Tallulah gestured between them. “Look at yourselves. Really look. When’s the last time either of you felt like you do right now?”

The word hit home because it was true. Orion felt more settled than he had in years. Like something that had been broken inside him had healed.

“Why doesn’t anyone know about this?” Dante asked. “Why hide it?”

“Because it destroys their entire system,” Tallulah said simply.

“Can’t have corporate ownership when Omegas hold the real power.

Can’t have Alpha dominance when the bond only completes with Omega consent.

Can’t sell contracts and suppressants and bio-markers when people are capable of bonding naturally. ”

“But how do they prevent it?” Orion asked, his mind racing through the implications. “If it’s biological, if it’s built into the virus...”

“Control,” Tallulah said, her voice hardening. “Gensyn pumps everyone full of suppressants and blockers, matches people based on their version of ‘compatibility’—which conveniently never includes anyone who might trigger a real Scent-Sync.”

She gestured between them. “You two never should have met. But SVI doesn’t use Gensyn’s pharmaceutical approach—they prefer brute force and ownership contracts.”

“No suppressants, no scent management,” Dante said, working through the logic.

“Which created the perfect conditions for a natural Scent-Sync to occur,” Tallulah finished for him.

“And once that happened, the rest was just a matter of time. Especially with you two fighting all the damn time.” Her eyes gleamed with amusement.

“Nothing gets blood mixing faster than two people trying to kill each other.”

“And Elysian?” Dante asked. “What’s their approach to stop it?”

Tallulah’s expression darkened. “Let’s just say they have their own methods. Ones we don’t discuss.”

She closed the journal with a soft thud.

“The point is, the Primal Triad can’t exist in corporate society because it’s fundamentally incompatible with their control systems. When people bond naturally, they make decisions based on wants and needs instead of profitability and corporate usefulness.

They challenge authority. They prioritize each other over corporate directives. ”

Her gaze moved between them, assessing. “Which is what you two have done. You’ve broken out of their system .”

“So they buried it,” Orion said, the enormity of the deception dawning on him. “Scrubbed it from the records, eliminated anyone who knew the truth, replaced it with their versions. Made everyone forget that Omegas were ever anything but victims to be claimed.”

“Some of us keep the old knowledge alive.” Tallulah’s expression was fierce. “And some of us wait for the day when someone like you two proves that their lies can’t hold forever.”

Lilac cleared her throat from her corner. “Granny Lu, maybe we should let them process this over dinner? The community’s already talking about wanting to meet them .”

“Dinner,” Tallulah agreed, her stern expression melting into something warmer. “Good idea. Nothing like a family meal to help reality sink in.”

She maneuvered her wheelchair toward the door, then paused. “Oh, and boys? You might want to prepare yourselves. Word’s already gotten around about what you are. You’re about to be the most popular dinner guests this settlement’s had in decades.”

As she wheeled out, Orion was left staring at the closed journal, his mind reeling with implications he wasn’t ready to process. He felt Dante’s gaze on him, heavy with unasked questions.

“Wait,” Dante called after her. “You’re younger than the Adjustment. How do you know all this? Where did that journal come from?”

Tallulah paused in the doorway, glancing back with that infuriating smile. “Now that’s an interesting question. Maybe we’ll talk about that over dinner.”

And then she was gone, leaving them alone with more questions than answers .

Orion ran a hand through his hair, feeling like his entire world had been turned upside down.

All his life, he’d defined himself by his resistance—his refusal to be claimed, to be owned, to be reduced to his designation.

He’d viewed his Omega status as a burden, a biological prison he had to fight against every day.

And what did it mean for him and Dante? If what Tallulah said was true, if he had somehow claimed the Alpha through this natural biological process...

He stole a glance at Dante, finding him looking equally shell-shocked. The bite mark on his neck stood out against his skin, a visible symbol of everything they’d just learned. Orion felt a fresh wave of possessiveness at the sight, followed by immediate guilt. He didn’t want to own Dante.

But the thought of being separated from him was physically painful, a visceral reaction that went beyond conscious thought. Was that the bond? Or something else, something deeper?

“This is fucked up,” Orion said, the words inadequate for the magnitude of what they’d just learned.

“Thoroughly,” Dante agreed, though he didn’t sound as shaken as Orion felt. More... analytical. Like he was already trying to fit this new information into some kind of framework. “But it explains a lot.”

“Does it? Because I feel more confused than ever.” Orion ran his hands over his face, trying to organize his thoughts. “If what she’s saying is true, then everything I’ve been told about what I am, what my place is in the world... it’s all been a lie.”

“Not a lie,” Dante said. “A deliberate perversion of the truth. Which is worse.”

Orion looked up, struck by the clarity in Dante’s voice. “You believe her? Just like that? ”

“The evidence is compelling.” Dante’s hand moved to the bite mark on his neck, fingers tracing the edges with something like wonder. “My bio-monitor was malfunctioning when we got up. My body feels... different. More responsive. More mine, somehow.”

His gaze met Orion’s, steady and unflinching. “And I’m starting not to give two flying fucks about what Gensyn wants from me anymore.”

The implications of that settled heavily between them. If Dante—meticulous, corporate-conditioned Dante—was experiencing that level of detachment from his training, something profound had happened.

“Do you regret it?” Dante asked suddenly. “What happened between us?”

The question caught Orion off guard. He looked at Dante—really looked. Saw the uncertainty there, the careful way Dante was holding himself, like he was preparing for rejection. The vulnerability in his expression made Orion’s chest hurt.

“No,” he said simply, surprised by how much he meant it. “Do you?”

“No.” Dante’s answer was immediate and certain, his eyes never leaving Orion’s. “Whatever this is, whatever it means... no.”

Orion nodded. They might not understand what had happened to them, or know what it meant for their future, but at least they were in it together.