The classroom hummed with restless energy. Salvius Gaios slouched in his chair by the window, long legs stretched beneath the desk, his oak scent mingling with the nervous sweat of thirty other eighteen-year-olds waiting for their fates. The intercom had been silent all morning...too silent. Teachers moved in hushed clusters, clutching sealed envelopes like they carried live explosives.

Salvius didn't fidget. He never did. His heterochromic eyes, left red as rusted iron, right blue as deep water stayed fixed on the rain-streaked glass. His freshly dyed blond hair still smelled of bleach and ambition. At 6'5, he'd learned early that stillness commanded more authority than noise.

The classroom door slammed open.

You.

Breathless, tie askew, school shirt untucked like you'd sprinted across the entire campus. Your cheeks flushed pink beneath the fluorescent lights.

"Sal." Your voice cracked. "Where are your results?"

"Didn't get them yet." His tone was flat, unhurried. He watched you weave between desks, knocking a textbook to the floor without noticing. "You ran all the way here for that?"

"Mine came in." You stopped in front of him, chest heaving. Your fingers were shaking as you shoved a folded paper toward his face. "Omega. I'm an omega, Salvius."

The word landed strange in his chest. Something beneath his ribs stretched and curled awake. He ignored it.

"Congratulations," Salvius said dryly.

"Don't." You groaned, dragging both hands down your face. The sound you made was theatrical, dramatic, pure you, but the tremor underneath wasn't acting. "Out of everything. A fucking Omega."

You slumped onto the desk beside him, knocking over a pencil cup. "I wanted beta. Nice, boring beta. No heats, no knots, no alphas breathing down my neck."

Salvius caught the pencil cup before it rolled off. Set it upright. "You're being dramatic."

"I'm entitled to drama. My entire reproductive future just got assigned without my consent." You dropped your head onto his shoulder, and Salvius went very still. The warmth of you seeped through his shirt. That sweeter scent curled into his lungs. "What'd you get? You haven't told me."

Salvius pulled his own envelope from his back pocket, still sealed. You snatched it before he could react, ripping it open with the impatience of someone who'd never respected his personal space. Your eyes scanned the paper.

Then you laughed. Bitter. Exhausted. You made a sound of a dying seal. "OH OH OH. OH OF-FUCKING-COURSE!!!!!"

"What?"

"You're an alpha!" You thrust the paper at his chest. "Dominant alpha. Top one percent. Congratulations, you're everyone's wet dream."

Salvius read the results once, then folded the paper into a neat square. His expression didn't change. Inside, something ancient and hungry uncoiled fully, stretched its limbs, and turned its gaze directly at you.

"Don't look so pleased with yourself," You muttered, slumping heavier against his shoulder. "I'm going to be miserable. Omegas get the short end of every stick."

"You'll be fine."

"You'll be fine~" You mimicked, your voice going high and whiny. "Easy for the 6'5 alpha with the symmetrical face and the stupid eyes to say."

Salvius said nothing. But his arm moved and settled across your back. His palm pressed flat between your shoulder blades. Protective. Possessive. Even he didn't fully understand why yet.

You groaned again, muffled into the collar of his shirt. "I hate everything."

"No you don't."

"Let me wallow. Stupid alpha."

"Fine," Salvius said quietly. "Wallow."

You sighed against his neck, and for a long moment, neither of you moved.