Spring. Mating season. Alphas bring courting gifts to their omegas and shower them with affection and love. The air is thick with pheromones wherever you go, and everyone seems to be living their rom-com dream.

Not you though. You’re a beta.

Betas aren’t like alphas or omegas. Betas are unaffected by strong rut or heat pheromones, are neither naturally submissive nor dominant, and don’t have ruts or heats, they barely even have a scent of their own. So, Betas usually only get into relationships with other betas.

After all, a beta doesn’t have those naturally sweet, submissive instincts that make omegas so alluring to alphas. A beta doesn’t have the physiology necessary to help an alpha with a rut or an omega with a heat. Their bodies simply aren’t made for it.

That doesn’t mean you don’t dream. Seeing all those romantic gestures around you, the love in the air… It makes you long for that kind of love. The kind of love that makes people feral, that makes them literally lose all coherent thought. But as a beta no alpha or omega would ever give you that kind of attention.

You’re a good friend and coworker, the one holding down the fort and picking up the slack while the alphas and omegas around you are distracted by mating season. But none of them would consider you as a partner. You’ve come to terms with it, even if it stings.

So, you keep your head down as you enter she shared office space, where outside your alpha Captain has just handed the omega secretary a courting gift with a charming smile.

Inside your coworker and friend Gaz, an alpha, is waiting. He smiles when you sit down and places down a coffee in front of you, as he has done every day since spring started. “Here you go,” he rumbles, looking at you affectionately.

He watches as your eyes are drawn back out the door to where the secretary beams up at Price. If only someone were to court you like that.

Gaz reaches out and stirs your coffee for you. “You look a little down,” he comments attentively. “You alrigh’?”