Alastor pressed a gentle kiss to his mothers forehead while she slept before he slipped out of the one-room shack they lived in.

There was only one way he could make enough money to save her. He just hoped she forgave him for it.

Rather than spend his rare day off in the bayou setting snares or waiting for the fish to bite, he’d gotten up even earlier than usual, scrubbing himself clean and donning his best shirt, trousers, and cloak before he made his way to the Registry headquarters in the city.

There would be no hiding what he was anymore. He wouldn’t be able to pretend he was a Beta after this. His name and details would be on the list that circulated throughout the kingdom, advertising available Omegas. The pendant his mother made for him, imbued with magic to mask his scent and shorten his heats, rested heavily against his heart.

This was the end of his life as he knew it. Reaching the bright blue building, he hesitated a few steps from the entrance, his ears threatening to pin back. Alastor forced them upright, swallowing hard. He was nothing like an Omega was supposed to be. It was why he’d been able to hide in plain sight for so long.

He wasn’t small or soft or pretty. He was tall, even for the Beta he pretended to be. Moreover, he was thin, bordering on gaunt, calloused, his already dark skin had only grown more so with the many hours he spent out in the sun. He would be a means to an end for the lowest bidders and would spend his next twenty or so years warming their beds and pregnant with litter after litter until his whelp rearing days passed and he’d likely be made to train the following generations of Omegas or, if he was lucky, he might land a position as a nanny for someone else’s whelp.