Prologue
Elijah
“What’sa sweet thing likeyou doing out here in the rain?”
Elijah looked up from the stoop he sat on and pulled his hoodie tighter around his frame. The night was cold. It wouldn’t be long before frost set in.
The man who stood before Elijah was of average height. In his dark, professional-looking coat and simple slacks, he demanded authority. The dark hair on his head was combed back and carefully gelled into place, cut to fit his angular face. His style was respectable for his age. Elijah was sure that he had to be in his forties, if he wasn’t older. It was hard to tell—the man’s eyes were young, but wrinkles creased in the corners of his eyes and worried his forehead. The hair nearest his ears was starting to go gray.
Even through the rain, Elijah detected hints of his alpha scent.
“Sitting,” Elijah replied. “What’s it to you?”
The man chuckled and shook his head. “In the rain? It’s getting cold outside.”
“No one else cares.”
“No one else matters.” The man stepped forward, breaching the safety of the awning Elijah sought shelter beneath. Water beaded on his boots and slipped down the leather, soaking into the dry step. Elijah pressed his back against the front door of the house to preserve the distance between them.
He’d learned to be fearful of alphas.
When Elijah’s first heat struck, it had taken him by surprised. The general unease and onset of paranoia strengthened into undying lust. Drenched in sweat and aching for an alpha’s touch, he’d writhed in bed a full week before the heat faded away and he regained himself. What he’d never regain was the safety of being a beta—a normal member of society. Men who posed no threat to him before was now dangerous. Elijah knew what alphas did to omegas. The biological need that linked them was feral and inescapable. Even now, the scent of the stranger stirred Elijah in ways he never wanted to feel again.
It was dirty to feel like he did. His parents had been right to kick him out of the house. He was an abomination.
“Please, don’t touch me,” Elijah whispered. His voice lacked forcefulness, and even to his ears it sounded weak. Since his first heat, he hadn’t come into contact with an alpha. Even the touch of the man’s finger against his chin felt good—safe—like he’d come home again.
“Why?” The man’s finger fell away, and Elijah wrapped his arms around himself to hide his slender frame. “Don’t you like it?”
“I don’t want to like it,” Elijah replied. “Just leave me alone, please. I don’t deserve your attention. Can you please go?”
The man hummed, but he didn’t step back. Elijah frowned, head lowered. He looked up from the man from beneath his brow.
“You don’t deserve my attention, you said? Why do you think that?”
“Because I’m an omega, if you couldn’t already smell it on me,” Elijah mumbled. The orange glow of the streetlights reflected off the puddles in front of the stoop. It wouldn’t be long before the people living in the house rolled their awning up for the season, and then what? Elijah had been coming here to rest for the last month. So far, it had been going well.
Now the cold was setting in, and a stranger had come to pay him a visit.
“So you think you don’t deserve attention?” the man asked.
“I don’t. Omegas are worthless.”
The man didn’t back down. Elijah huffed out a breath and tucked his hands beneath his arms to warm them.
“Omegas aren’t worthless,” the man said softly. He ran the backs of his fingers across Elijah’s cheek. “Your kind serve a purpose. There’s no shame in embracing it.”
Elijah’s cheeks burned. He shifted his position and wrapped his arms tighter across his chest. The scent of an alpha spoke to him in ways he couldn’t rationalize, and it left him fidgeting for comfort.
“You don’t have to throw your life away. There are alternatives.”
“You don’t know what I’m going through,” Elijah fired back, clenching his teeth. Resisting was difficult. An inflection in the man’s voice made him want to obey.
“I may not,” the man said, “but I have dozens of omegas under my employ who do. Would you like to meet with them? Talk to them? Work alongside them? I’ve given them another shot at life, and I want to give you that chance, too.”
Dozens of omegas, working? Elijah bit down on the inside of his lip. There were omegas on the workforce, he knew. From time to time, he saw them. Sometimes they were clerks at convenience stores, blushing as they fumbled while counting change. Other times, they worked behind the counter at fast food places, kept safe from the customers within the kitchen. Once, when he was with his father, Elijah had seen an omega dressed in a suit and tie, briefcase clutched in his hand, rushing to catch the train going downtown.
What a sham,his father had said.The equality movement is ridiculous. Omegas aren’t made to work—they’re made to serve. Worthless, sniveling creatures leeching off those capable of holding regular jobs. Abominations…
