"You' re right, I live under a rock," she rubbed the tip of her nose. "I'm the kid of a single Omega. So, no big daddy Alphas or Betas for me to look up to. So I'll learn here."
"Ouch sorry." Theo seemed genuinely guilty. "I'll help you out in class." And the subject was changed.
"Save it," she waved her hand, "what should I do if I have a Rut?"
An Alpha's week long sexual fevers, in which they'd have a fervent need to fuck when they were most fertile and begging for pussy. For Omegas, they were cursed with a similar infliction coined a Heat. Rue hadn't had her first despite her age due to malnutrition, which made her worst than an old virgin maid and equivalent to a teenage girl.
But she would be popping in suppressants like candy to prevent its appearance in an Alpha dominated school. She wouldn't want triggering a whole class of men into their Ruts, begging to fuck her although her scentless nature should help in most of the prevention. Rue paled at the thought, closed her eyes, breathing through her nose. She didn't care about the crazed predators, she was much more concerned over expulsion due to her nature.
Still, she might as well know where she should be going to solve her 'Rut'.
"We've got facilities for the unmated," Theo explained, "You can also choose to pair up with an Omega or a Beta from one of the subsidiary schools. But for those with completed packs, their families are given housing within the vicinity. I live over there with my mates." He pointed to a high-rise building. She squinted at it.
"Looks nice."
And fucking expensive. It was quaint; brick and brownstone, the colour of oak, had towers, chimneys and gorgeous carved marble trimming. It was climbing with morning glories, spilling with emerald leaves and draped in the shadows of thick, heavy trees. Situated right beside a park of saplings and rolling grassy hills, the rowhouses were cheerily dressed in the gold of an artificial sun.
She could see it as a family home with mated packs and babies.
"Where do you stay?" Theo asked, dumping a fruit basket at check out. A robot whizzed by scanning his payment. She tried not to stare at the price and the way it tallied up to five figures. She had her guesses, but it seemed that Theo was rolling in credits just like the other doctors that were in her course.
"Louise."
"Louise?" he seemed confused, eyes widening, pausing mid-step. "That's where the cadets stay at."
"Yeah?" she chewed on her lower lip. "It was pretty cheap."
"It's not—It's for military. Generals, fighters, even the royalty." He seemed hesitant as he spoke and appeared perplexed. "Guess they wanted a studying doctor in their ranks just in case. Have some guides in the room for the espers." His eyes swept over her figure, judged the lack of muscle in her arms and she flushed, felt her mind dance over the foreign words.
She should probably study harder.
In fact she should probably start looking at her new thousand-page long textbook.
"Dude, it's probably just a space issue. And royalty? Shouldn't they be in those towering glass panel skyscrapers with a whole floor to themselves?" she smirked, hands on her hips. "They're nobles that can probably afford the hotel."
"They could at home, but not at Hakon where they're studying to subdue space monsters and take down the savage that intend to destroy and conquer planets. They learn to rule as well as end wars." His voice dropped into a whisper, glanced side to side as if someone might be listening. "Seirios stays there." It didn't take a genius to understand that he was speaking of celebrities that she did not know.
"So there is a top dog in this place," she grinned, "your idols, Theo?"
"Everyone's idols," he shook his head at her, increasing his pace. "They're the sons of the seven emperors of the Universe, nobody you should mess with." She whistled at his words and felt for once exactly how much of a big deal it was to study at a school for the elite. She'd be crossing paths with people she only saw on the big screen.
"Fuck, that's good to know."
"Look over there."
He pointed into the distance where a swarm of students stood before tall, looming gates.
The structure was cell-like with white walls of grey, polished stone. It was nothing like the gothic homes she'd seen around the historical campus, with plants crawling over roofs and abstraction in every design.
The sprawling villas on the tips of mountains, the sweep of verdure and the drip of snowy lofty peaks. The homes that stole breaths and quietened crisis. This was all functional, with squared windows, clear repetition of patterns, boring simplicity in design, and a shimmery outline of a barrier all over the vicinity.
It seemed more like a bomb shelter than a school.
But the place Theo wanted her to look at was right at the front, where she could scarcely make out a deep hollow pit. It ate into the ground, shielded by scaffolding and the criss-cross of pillars and beams. There was chaos in its simplicity and she hated the skeletal look of the bleak miserable place.
A metal gate of sharp steel was all that stood between the public and what could not be seen within the valley. And on the gate like mosquito after blood were people clinging to the railing and shrieking out their cheers as if they were looking at celebrities.
She squinted and then raised a brow when she spotted females in the crowd. The people screamed for someone beyond those walls, and cheers rose as explosions rumbled from the vicinity. Rue blinked, felt the déjà vu, and swore she'd seen the same thing in a club with a masked figure that controlled women and men like they were sheep.
"They're watching Seirios practice within the compounds of Louise."
She gawked at the tiny bouncing figures. "There are Omegas and Betas in that crowd, how did they get in here?"
"They're the mated. They'd do anything for Seirios, even leave their own packs." His expression grew dark, and Rue sensed something more, but she didn't want to ask not wanting to spill open a new can of worms. "Alphas, Betas and Omegas alike."
"Leave?" she raised a brow. "Shouldn't they be recruiting a member of Seirios?"
"Seirios's an all-Alpha pack of seven. They're uniting the entire galaxy. The seven realms will merge into one once they mate properly and officially."
"Fuck," she hissed. It was unheard of, seven Alphas within a pack. Three was usually the maximum, and even then, it featured a weaker Alpha. She doubted that any of the emperor's sons could be weak. "That's too many Alphas in one space, they'll blow each other's heads off. But they like each other?"
"Soulmates, verified by a seer within the group," he confirmed. "They could be a good case study for us if our lecturers had the balls to put them in the material. But they're looking for another, always looking. Based on theory alone, they need Omegas and Betas. They need the balance, that's why you see these people there at the gates, so greedy for more when they already have a pack. But even Alphas try, it doesn't hurt."
"Clearly," she snorted, feigned a coy look. "They're trying to be the different ones in the crowd so that they'll notice."
"It's not a joke Rue." Theo turned to look at her then, his eyes growing solemn. "They've killed potential mates, went on rampages in the battlefield. When they're closer to their Ruts, anyone that pisses them off may get their limbs snapped by their powers. Professionals with our qualifications die trying to calm them down. They're SSS-ranked espers."
More words she didn't know. Rue feigned a small gasp just for the theatrics, but she supposed it must mean that they were extremely powerful and potentially crazy. Theo shook his head as he spoke trying to be polite as he chose his words.
"Rue, you have to be careful especially since your species isn't the strongest…"
She winced, but he was right. As a human she didn't have the abilities that some aliens did like putting others to sleep, reading emotions or great strength to hold a patient down. She was just fleshy meat on weak bones. Her sperm donor might not have been human, but she'd long theorized that he must be a lesser aquatic species considering her scent.
Nonetheless, strength had seemed necessary when she'd read the name of her degree— the Bachelor of the Omegaverse. A five-year curriculum that exposed students to the many facets of Omegaverse healthcare, providing an interdisciplinary holistic learning experience to create powerful healers of the future.
Powerful.
All Rue had was her brain and her aura which others claimed had a calming quality (she was sure it was mostly due to her Omega nature). But she assumed from the brief and Air's words that her job scope could always lean towards research and development.
It didn't matter as long as Rue was earning a ton of credits.
"So, they're just a hot-headed bunch of violent abusive Alphas that can't find an ass that can withstand their dicks," she laughed, felt the urge to lighten the mood. "If they aren't future emperors, they'd be shipped to a goddamn prison cell. How the fuck are they still allowed to be with people?"
"Rue!" He hushed her quickly with a clawed hand to her wrist, gesturing for her to be quiet with a finger to the lip. But she gave him a funny look, glanced at the kilometre of distance between them and the Alphas sparring behind walls and gates of concrete and stone.
"And we're whispering because?" she raised a brow but allowed her voice to go quiet as he leaned in close.
"They've got spies all over the place, people that'd kill those that do them harm," he hissed. "Wrong Seirios and you might as well just die. There's nowhere in the universe where they do not rule, even staying on an uncultured planet of dust and rock will not be able to save you."
"Goddamn," she whistled, "then why the fuck am I in Louise?"
"Could be a move for diversity." He perked up then, released his grip on her arm. "You should be fine, I'm sure the school will place you as far away from Seirios as possible."
"No reason for someone like me to interact with them?"
"They wouldn't allow just anyone close, especially not a random freshman."
-
Read 5 chapters ahead on Patreon patreon.com/tinyeyecat