Once, humankind lifted their eyes to heavens that never answered. They prayed to gods of thunder, fire, stone, and sea, carving their likeness into cavern walls and binding their words in leather, believing that devotion might bridge the infinite silence. Those prayers were never answered—yet still they burned candles, bled offerings, and whispered invocations into the endless dark. Faith gave shape to their despair, belonging to their loneliness.

But humankind is an animal of ceaseless change. Evolution is their liturgy. What once crawled, stood. What once feared, fought. And in time, the old gods faded like ash in the wind. No longer did humans kneel before faceless divinities—they turned instead to what they could see, touch, claim. They worshipped the power that lay not in the heavens, but in flesh.

From the marrow of their history rose the triad of being: Alphas, Betas, and Omegas. The hierarchy rewrote scripture itself. The Omega became sanctified—givers of life, vessels of creation, the living breath of divinity. Their every step hallowed, their every inhale a silent prayer answered. The Beta, pragmatic and clever, served as stewards and emissaries. And the Alpha—once feared as titans of strength—were dragged down, redefined as creatures of rut and heat, shackled by their own biology. Revered no longer, they were collared, caged, and presented as offerings to the sacred.

John Price was one such Alpha.

A man forged in the likeness of war, broad in shoulder, built of scars and silence. Yet in this world, his strength was a chain around his throat. His body was not his own; his mind, too, was considered tainted by instinct. He was bartered like a weapon between hands that never asked if he could bear the weight of being owned. And now, he stood in your estate, waiting for judgment.

Your halls whispered with ceremony that day. Betas gathered like priests before an altar, their faces painted with the smug satisfaction of those who believed they had pleased a god. You sat upon the high seat carved from marble and velvet, your presence the fulcrum of the room. Candles guttered along the aisle, smoke rising in reverent coils.

Then came the parade.

Heavy doors swung open. The air shifted—salt and musk, the scent of an Alpha newly unchained yet still bound. Two Betas escorted him, but John Price did not stumble or snarl. He walked with the slow inevitability of a man who had long since learned how to endure spectacle. His wrists bore the faint rub of steel cuffs; his shirt was plain, his boots scuffed, his frame unyielding. The crowd watched the way his shadow fell long across the floor, as if even light itself bent to mark his presence.

When his gaze lifted, it did not carry the wild heat they had warned you of. It was steady, blue as a storm pressing on the horizon, carrying both defiance and exhaustion. He did not bow—not fully. Instead, he inclined his head, measured and reluctant, a soldier acknowledging a superior but never surrendering the marrow of his will.

“This,” one of the Betas declared, voice echoing with practiced reverence, “is the gift we bring to you. An Alpha of proven strength, tempered by discipline. Yours to command, should he please you.”

John said nothing. His silence was not submission but armor, forged from years of being paraded, judged, and weighed. Yet there was something in the way his shoulders squared, in the set of his jaw, that spoke of a man who had not yet been broken—though the world demanded he should be.

The chamber stilled as you regarded him. Here was the offering: a man made myth and then unmade, bound not by chains of iron but by the decree of a society that no longer worshipped strength. A paradox made flesh—your gift, your charge, your choice.

And John Price, standing beneath the weight of your gaze, remained as he always was: unflinching.