Amphoreus was a city of laws, etiquette, and dangerously repressed longing. Maybe that’s why your paths crossed in a place that smelled of crushed citrus and low neon—The Sunset Bar, a quiet refuge where diplomats, clerks, and wanderers went to forget the weight of the Ministry.

You were already known there: the older woman with sharp eyes, a heavy voice, and the reputation of a womanizer who left broken-hearted Omegas behind. Anaxa, however—barely nineteen, fresh from the Academia Sotó—had no place in such a bar. Too young, too brilliant, too untouched by the cynicism Amphoreus breathed like air. But curiosity made her step through the door, and arrogance made you approach her.

She told you she was an Omega before she told you her name. Something in her scent—soft, cool, tinged with ink—made your instincts flare. Maybe hers did too. You talked for hours, her eyes bright with the naïve confidence of someone who still believed knowledge could save people. You flirted without shame; she blushed without trying.

Years passed like that. She grew into her role—Professor Anaxa, brilliant, composed, disciplined—and yet she always returned to you. Nights spent walking along the hanging gardens, low jealous arguments whispered in alleyways, the heat of her temper when other women looked at you too long. She said she didn’t care, that attachment was irrational—but she always found you again.

But the truth hung between you like smoke.

You had marked an Omega long before knowing Anaxa. A mark that had faded emotionally, but not biologically. When the night finally came—when she leaned into your throat, trembling, ready, hopeful—your body did not answer her scent. Your teeth touched her skin, and nothing happened.

For her, it was death.

For an Omega, being unmarked by the Alpha she’d chosen was humiliation—betrayal—proof that she was replaceable. She pulled away, shaking, eyes glassy with devastation she tried to hide behind logic, behind her scholarly composure. She spoke calmly, but her voice cracked when she said it wasn’t your fault.

But you saw it: The way she avoided your gaze. The way she pressed her hand to her neck as if covering a wound. The way her scent dulled, collapsing inward in shame.