Chapter Text
The beanie itches.
It’s the first thing I think every morning, before I open my eyes, before I remember where I am—Redwood Academy, mile-high and isolated, a Gothic cathedral of learning perched in mountains that have no mercy. The wool is suffocating. Beneath it, my horns throb, tender and new, still pushing through the skin at my temples like they’re trying to escape my skull. Pearl-smooth. Curved slightly back. *Wrong*, according to every textbook I’ve ever stolen from the library after hours.
I bind my wings before I get out of bed. It’s a ritual of pain I’ve perfected over eighteen years—leather straps crisscrossing my chest, pinning the leathery folds tight against my shoulder blades. They’re fully grown now, strong and dark like my father’s, but I keep them folded so small they ache. A Bloodhound’s wings are supposed to be delicate, translucent, easily tucked. Mine are Alpha-heavy, Alpha-*wrong*, and if anyone sees them spread, I’m finished.
The bathroom mirror shows me a liar. Dark curls falling past my shoulders—*Mom’s hair*—hiding the subtle bumps beneath the beanie I pull lower. My eyes are gold-flecked amber, neither the crimson of a Bloodhound in estrus nor the burning gold of an Alpha in rut. Just... warm. Human-looking, if you don’t know what to search for. I’ve learned to hunch my shoulders, to make myself small, to let my pulse flutter when an Alpha passes by in the halls even though my heart stays stubbornly steady.
I’m not supposed to exist. Betas died out a thousand years ago, hunted to extinction because we’re aberrations. Free agents. Capable of choosing any role, any partner, any *nothing*—just existing without the biological chains that bind the rest of our kind. The Academy would hand me over to the Consortium for “study” before I could scream. I’d be poked, prodded, dissected to understand why I’m not hungry for a host, why I don’t submit, why I don’t fit.
I dress in layers. Always layers. The uniform blazer hides the wing bindings. The beanie hides the horns. I’m a ghost of a boy walking through stone corridors that smell like old paper and dominance.
The classroom is overheated, as usual—Alphas run hot, and there are thirty of us packed into Advanced Physiology. I take my usual seat in the back corner, where the shadows are thickest, and pull out my notebook. My pen shakes. It’s the third week of senior year, and I’m already exhausted from the performance.
Then the door opens.
He walks in like he owns the air itself—tall, sharp-cheekboned, with hair the color of winter smoke and eyes that scan the room once, dismiss most of it, and land on me. Hard. I freeze, pen pressed into paper hard enough to tear.
“Class,” Professor Vane says, sounding annoyed. “This is Jinx Caldwell, transferring from the Northern Territories. He’s an Alpha, obviously, so let’s try not to embarrass ourselves with territorial displays.”
Jinx doesn’t look at Vane. He’s still looking at me. There’s something predatory in the set of his shoulders, something that should make my stomach clench with the instinct to submit, to bare my throat, to *yield*. But I don’t feel that. I’ve never felt that. Instead, I feel... seen. Like he’s looking past the beanie, past the layers, past the act.
He takes the empty seat beside me. The desk groans as he settles into it, all long limbs and coiled energy. I keep my eyes on my notebook, but I can smell him—cedar and cold air and something electric that makes my mouth dry.
“You’re Micha,” he says. Not a question.
I nod, still not looking up. “You’re in my light.”
It’s a stupid thing to say. There’s no light. We’re in the back corner.
He laughs, low and surprised. “You don’t smell like anything.”
My blood turns to ice. “Excuse me?”
“Everyone smells like something. Alpha, Bloodhound, whatever. You smell like...” He leans in, just slightly, and I stop breathing. His nose almost brushes my temple, near the edge of my beanie. “Snow. Just snow.”
I jerk away, heart hammering now for an entirely different reason. “Maybe you’re broken.”
“Maybe,” he agrees, and there’s a smile in his voice. “Or maybe you’re hiding something, Micha-with-the-gold-eyes.”
Professor Vane starts lecturing about hormonal responses during the breeding cycle, and I try to focus, I really do, but Jinx is a furnace beside me, radiating heat and curiosity. Ten minutes in, his knee bumps mine under the desk. An accident. A test.
I should pull away. I should run. I should transfer schools, change my name, disappear into the fog like my fathers taught me.
I don’t move.
Neither does he.
Our knees stay pressed together, bone against bone, a line of heat that burns through the fabric of our uniforms. When I finally risk a glance at him, he’s already watching me, and his expression isn’t hungry. It’s confused. Hungry would be easy—I could handle hungry. Hungry is expected.
This is something else. Something dangerous in an entirely new way.
After class, I practically sprint to my dorm room and lock the door. My hands shake as I dial the familiar number—untraceable, encrypted, Regect’s paranoia keeping us safe even now.
“Micha.” Ze’s voice is warm, immediate, worried. “You sound breathless.”
“I’m fine,” I lie, sitting on the edge of my narrow bed and pulling my knees up, hiding my face in the phone. “Just... senior year stuff. Lots of homework.”
Regect’s voice rumbles in the background, then closer. “You’re lying.”
Of course I am. They always know. “There’s a new student. An Alpha.”
Silence. Then Ze: “Has he triggered anything? Do you need us to come get you?”
“No. No, it’s not...” I press my palm against my chest, where my heart is still beating too fast. “He said I smell like snow. Nothing else. Just snow.”
Another silence, heavier this time. I can hear them breathing, communicating in that wordless way they’ve perfected over fifteen years.
“Betas emit different pheromones,” Regect says quietly, and I can picture him—sitting in our kitchen, probably, wings half-furled, eyes ancient and worried. “Not dominance. Not submission. Just... choice. The potential for yes or no. It’s intoxicating to Alphas who’ve spent their lives responding to biological imperatives. You’re offering something they’ve never had.”
“Freedom,” Ze adds softly. “You smell like freedom, little one.”
“I’m not little,” I mumble, but it’s automatic, comfortingly familiar.
“Be careful,” Regect says, and I hear the fear he’s trying to hide. “The Academy does medical screenings in October. Three weeks away. If they find the horns—”
“I know.” I close my eyes. The weight of the beanie feels heavier. “I’ll figure it out. I always do.”
“Come home if you need to,” Ze says fiercely. “We’ll find another way. There are networks, Micha. Others like you. You don’t have to hide alone.”
But I do. I have to hide because if I don’t, I become a specimen. A miracle turned commodity. The first Beta in a thousand years, locked in a lab instead of living.
“I love you,” I say instead of promising. “Both of you.”
“Love you, little one,” they chorus, and I hang up before I can cry.
I sit in the dark until my roommate comes back, until the weight on my chest loosens enough to let me breathe. I think about Jinx’s knee against mine. About the way he looked at me like I was a puzzle he needed to solve.
I think about the word *freedom* and wonder if I’ll ever taste it without.