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Hands trembling, heart jumping in my chest, I finish with my round about the house and immediately start up on another one, as though I could have possibly missed a lock. As though one of them might have magically come undone in the ten minutes it took me to check the first time.

Through it all, I keep catching hints of the alpha’s hormones. They drift like a ghost around my house, moving with the air. Hard to hold onto, and spine-chilling each time it crosses over me.

Sharp, cold. Almost like spearmint. Not a scent that speaks to my body in any way, and thank the gods for that. It’s never happened to me before, but I’ve heard that if your body particularly likes the scent of an alpha, it can send you into a heat right then and there.

After my fourth round about the house, I have to stop myself.

“Nothing will stop them,” I whisper under my breath, which sounds terrifying out loud but actually helps to calm me down. If nothing will stop an alpha from breaking into my house to hurt me, then there’s no reason I shouldn’t just quit pacing and get in bed. Thinking of something I used to hear my dad say, I repeat that, too: “Accept what you can’t change.”

Accept what you can’t change, Mylah. You are an Omega. Weak. Hunted. That is just the way the world works, and complaining about it isn’t going to change anything.

He’s right. Checking the locks on my windows again isn’t going to change anything, either. Still, for good measure before I go to bed, I take a can of scent-drowning spray I found at a thrift store and douse it around the front door. It’s probably just snake oil, but it almost makes me feel better. Plus, I spent the five bucks on it—I might as well use it.

Finally, after more than two hours of anxious pacing and a vibrant argument with myself about whether or not it would be worth it to peek out the window, just to see, I get into the bathroom, brush my teeth, and tuck myself into bed.

I’m wearing the most god-awful scratchy pink nightgown, one I found in my mother’s closet after my father passed.

And, as I fall asleep, I’m able to chuckle at the thought that if the locks and spray don’t stop a potential rutted alpha from coming in here and going after me, maybe the ugly flowers on the front of his nightgown will.

***

The dream comes to me, like it always does. At this point, it should be a nightmare, especially considering the fact that I know just how it ends.

In the dream, it’s late. New Year’s Eve.

My father has just died, and I’ve snuck into Kault territory, blending myself in among several other omega girls.

While the laws around when and where omegas can go are strict, they tend to be more lax on holidays. Everyone just wants to have a good time. Even a drunk beta can send a smile our way instead of wrinkling his nose at our “stink.”

The club is small, cramped. I’ve just finished the online school my father allowed me to attend, passing all my exams. The winter solstice celebration for the moon goddesses stretches all the way to the celebration of the new year. This is the night that we will all party the hardest.

And it’s the night that I’ll meet him.

Standing in the center of a crowded dance floor, feeling like a child. Feeling caught in a tractor beam. Lights flashing, music rumbling up through the floorboards and into my bones, rocking along with my pounding heart. Just staring at him from across the room, heads and bodies bobbing between us and passing like ships on water.

Tall. Muscular. An alpha, obviously—anyone with eyes and half a second to look would know it from a single glance. But more than an alpha, somehow. More than just the biology of leadership, the stance of it. This man, across the room from me, has a stature like a king.

And I start to drift closer to him without thinking, bumping into the other dancers. Some of them sneer at me, some waft their beer and champagne breath in my direction, but it doesn’t matter because I’m getting closer to him.

“What are you doing here?” I hear myself ask.

He turns, sees me. Something flickers through his gaze. Familiarity. A knowing, just like what I felt across the room a minute ago.

Reaching for me, he wraps his hand around my bicep. A shiver starts at the point of contact and winds its way down my spine, all the way to the tips of each toe.

This has to be it.

Standing here, looking at him, feeling his warm hand on my skin, is the first time in my life I realize the idea of a fated mate might actually be true. That it’s not some hocus pocus made up by omegas to feel better about our place in the world.

I know it instantly, the way you feel awake in the morning, or the sudden yank of the floor falling out from under you. It’s a state of being, like submersion in water.

This man is my mate.

And my mate is leading me through the club by my wrist.

As he does, I turn my head and look around. I’ve been in this dream—this memory—enough that I can take in the tiniest of details. The shimmer on a girl’s skirt as she twirls, eyes lighting up at the sight of my mate, him completely ignoring her fluttering lashes. A blinking light to our right.

My mate leads me through the club, up a set of stairs, and onto a private balcony overlooking the rest of the building. We have to duck under a chain and sign that reads closed to the public to get in, but he moves like he belongs here. Like this might actually be his club, after all.