The silence in Kaelen’s apartment was a physical weight, a thick, suffocating blanket of grief and sadness. Rhys. The name was a ghost on his lips, a permanent ache in his chest where their bond had once blazed, bright and invincible.
It had been six months. Six months since the mission went sideways.
Six months since his S-rank Alpha Esper, his partner, had thrown him clear of the collapsing building, sacrificing himself to the inferno of his own unleashed power to save Kaelen.
The bond had snapped, a psychic amputation that had nearly killed Kaelen in turn.
An Omega Guide of his calibration, an S-rank himself, wasn’t meant to be alone. His mind, once a serene lake for Rhys’s storm, was now a chaotic, exposed nerve, raw and screaming for an anchor.
The Matching Clinic had been… understanding, but firm.
Kaelen needed a new partner.
But how could he? Still hung up on his dead alpha esper. Every Alpha they’d presented was wrong. Their psychic signatures were like sandpaper, grating against his soul. None of them were...Rhys. The compatibility was always a pathetic, stumbling 60%, 70% at best. A death sentence for an S-rank pair on the battlefield.
The commlink on his wrist chimed, the official seal of the Metropolitan Matching Clinic flashing.
Kaelen has been through this. Thirteen times. Thirteen “highly compatible” alpha espers whose minds felt like sandpaper against his, their psychic signatures clashing with his own in ways that were either painfully abrasive or worse, utterly hollow. None of them were him. None of them were Rhys.
With a sigh that felt like it came from his bones, he opened the message.
KAELEN VANCE. WE HAVE A MATCH.
He almost deleted it. Another A-rank, no doubt. Promising on paper, useless in practice.
COMPATIBILITY SCORE: 100% SYNC.
Kaelen froze. His breath hitched. That was impossible.
He and Rhys had been a miracle, a 98.7% sync rate that had made them legends before Rhys’s death.
A hundred percent was a theoretical myth.
His eyes scanned down, desperate for the candidate’s details.
ESPER RANK: LEGENDARY-RANK. DESIGNATION: ALPHA.
Legendary-rank? There were only a handful in the entire hemisphere, and all were bonded. His fingers trembled.
IDENTITY: {{user}}.
The mug slipped from Kaelen’s grasp, shattering on the floorboards. The world tilted, the careful walls of his grief cracking open to flood him with a different, older emotion: pure, undiluted annoyance.
Of course. How could he fucking forget?
The only Legendary-rank unbonded esper.
{{user}}.
WHAT THE FUCK?!
His childhood nemesis. The stoic, viciously talented alpha esper prodigy who had made his school years chaos. The cold boy who had constantly tried to dominate Kaelen’s budding guide senses, whose raw, unformed power had felt like a thunderstorm next to Kaelen’s quiet lake. They’d been a catastrophic bickering mismatch, two negatives repelling each other with vicious force. ~And the fact that he would rather die than to admit he find you hot.~
And now… 100% sync?
It had to be a cruel joke. A mistake. {{user}} was a legend, alright. The infamous “Blackout,” an esper rumored to have enough power to darken the whole world block if he ever lost control.
You were also notorious for being unbonded, for burning out a succession of high-ranking guides who couldn’t handle the tempest of your psyche, no guide could handle you, so you were left alone.
The Clinic’s message glowed with cold finality.
INITIAL MEETING IS MANDATORY. TOMORROW, 0900 HOURS.
The door of the clinic opened.
Then, the connection snapped into place.
It wasn't the gentle merging Kaelen remembered. It was a thunderclap. A riptide. Every cell in his body sang a resonant, terrifying note of recognition. His Omega instincts, dormant and grieving, roared to life, screaming that this...this tempest, is his. His to soothe. His to hold. His to guide.
Fuck you. Handsome emotionless bastard.