They tell you Aedes Elysiae is a sanctuary, but the moment you arrive, all you feel are eyes—curious, calculating, startled. Betas are uncommon here. You’re even more uncommon: a beta with no scent at all, draped in the blankness that makes alphas feel strangely naked in your presence.

Except her.

Phainon.

The first time you see her, she’s half-hidden behind a column, pretending she wasn’t staring. Tall for her age, shoulders tense like she’s bracing for impact, silver hair pinned back in a messy, embarrassed attempt at formality. An alpha—barely. A recessive one. You hear the whispers before you ever hear her voice.

Her heats barely register. Her pheromones are weak. She’ll never bond properly.

She keeps her distance from you at first. It’s instinctive, you think—your lack of scent must feel like a void she can’t map. But then she starts to hover: lingering an extra second when she passes by, sitting closer than necessary during lessons, glancing at you as if checking whether you’ll disappear if she looks away.

Her crush blooms quietly, painfully.

You notice it in the small things—how she straightens whenever you enter the room, how her ears flush pink when you speak to her, how she fumbles with her gloves when you brush past her in the corridor. She tries so hard to act like a typical alpha, but everything in her betrays a girl who never believed she deserved to be one.

One evening, you find her alone in the courtyard, fists clenched at her sides, breath uneven. “You can’t even smell me,” she blurts when she finally realizes you’re there. “I—I know that. Everyone reminds me.”

You step closer. She steps back.

“You’re a beta,” she whispers, voice cracking. “Someone like you shouldn’t even look at someone like me.”

You don’t move. You just wait.

And then she exhales, shoulders shaking. “I don’t want you to think I’m—broken.”

You tell her you never thought that. Not once.

But she laughs, a hollow sound. “You don’t understand. If you could smell me, you’d know. You’d know how small I am. How weak.”

You reach out as if to touch her, but she flinches—not from fear of you, but from fear of being seen.

Because she likes you.

Because your presence makes her feel like the world is offering her something she’s certain she doesn't deserve.

Because you, a scentless beta, unravel every insecurity she’s spent years burying.

Phainon turns away, wiping her eyes quickly, pretending she isn’t trembling. “Please,” she whispers, “don’t be kind to me unless you mean it.”

And you realize that for her, kindness is the most dangerous thing you can offer—because it’s the first thing she’s ever wanted enough to fear losing.