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*

She had no luck with any school.

And maybe, just maybe, it was because of Hal and Val. She had a feeling it was because none of the Universities in her galaxy were willing to accept her as their student despite the incredible, life-changing score. Their reasons were cryptic and made no sense, and her appeals had resulted in firm rejection.

It was a catastrophe.

It was maddening with her stellar records: a grade set for stardom, a clean track record, and a couple of leadership roles (she'd spent a year in a tuition club teaching kids) should seal the deal. An Alpha with all that should be the cream of the crop. The schools should've fought like dogs, going wild for her to be their student. And yet they gave her the treatment of a student that had gotten a failure for every goddamn subject, and a criminal record to her name.

They were goddamn delusional, and it was fucking insane.

Too quickly a year crawled by, time seeping from her fingers and her dreams steadily dashed. Desperate, she'd been sent into a crazed rush of fear, applying for every school she could get her hands on, combing through the galaxy to no avail.

There was no way in hell that she could be rejected. She'd proven that by going back to high school and begging for referrals which her teachers had eagerly provided just because her presence in their resume was liquid gold. It quickly grew clear from the same repeated messages that there was something or someone out there with a grudge on her.

She'd gone as far as storming into the admin offices of different universities just to demand (politely of course) for answers. They'd assured her that she would be allowed in once they'd seen her grades, and yet rejected her again hours later with another stupid excuse and a dumb fucking reason that made no sense.

'We're full, try again next year.'

They continued to host talks that welcomed prospective students.

'You're not what we're looking for, we're a creative school.'

Nothing in the degree said that they needed a goddamn art portfolio.

'We've got better candidates.'

There were people out there that didn't want her surviving.

Each day the lizard Alpha's eyes lingered on her frame as she scooped slop into her bowl, her hands trembled with fear to take more. She couldn't and he knew that, and so she'd slinked away with barely anything on her plate. Her breath tight in her throat, and her stomach curling into a ball of despair.

He wanted her as his girls, he wanted her out of reception, wanted her with her legs open due to her species as half-human. Mama tried to keep her out, had tried her best by working more hours, sleeping with more men. She wasn't the best mother, but she was a decent one. One that believed that Rue could get, at the very least, an office job serving tea and cakes to Alphas and didn't have to use her pussy to survive.

Some nights Rue wondered if she should have taken Hal's offer on a million credits just for a good fuck, other times she'd punched her pillow and screamed into her bed with anger swearing Valentino's name. It didn't take long for calamity to strike; her mother growing sick with fever and falling unconscious mid-fuck.

She'd caught an illness equivalent to the pack Alpha's, with boils within and sleek dripping free—an incurable STD. Bed rest had been demanded by the doctors, and for that the Alpha lost one of his best assets. Her mother was held back by the price of needed medicine which costed her thousands of credits each day just to stay sane.

Still despite her illness and the pain in her pussy, she continued to work with painful bleach-like salves to burn the virus and thick condoms that made fucking painful. It grew obvious in the pallor of her skin that Mama needed out before she worked her way to an early grave.

'You want a hundred million credits?' Rue had shrieked one night, unable to stand the motherfucker of a boss that she had. 'My mother's sick from all that work, she can't make any more without treatment, and proper rest.' But the Alpha had sneered and toyed with the weak slop of his moustache.

'I didn't want to keep you. She did. Your room and board, they had costs. Fees that she paid, but now they're increasing because of medical debt.' He smiled, shifted on his seat, and burped. 'She kept you out of the trade, but now she can't. She lost.'

'I am ugly and have no smell.' Rue had snorted, but her pits were sweating, and her body grew colder. 'No one would have wanted me omega or not.'

'Oh, but they do now.' He taunted, tongue slobbering over thick lips. 'Have you looked at yourself Rue? You're changing, you're growing tits. Before you know it, you'll have your first Heat.'

'Only because I have more to eat from the money I've earned with my own hands!' She'd snarled. 'And now you're asking for an interest rate so high that there's no way anyone can ever escape your den.'

'That's right, Rue. Omegas? They're prisoners of their own inertia. They don't know the truth. They're not smart, and they don't understand a thing about the world.' He laughed, his scales glittering in the fire, and she had the urge to rip them off his skin one by one until he was a corpse, naked and bleeding. 'They would sign papers that'd gift me eternal hold over their bodies, and they don't even know that. She'll always be with me, and if you want her free, you'd sign that contract too.'

She wanted to scream, but she kept her mouth shut. 'You don't just want money to get her out, you want me.'

''Give the money to me and we'll talk about ending the contract but remember the more time you spend the more it piles up!' He let loose a bark of laughter, shaking his head. 'Omegas. They're always so stupid. You're mine Rue. You, and your mother. Mine since the day you were born. And even if she tries to keep you out of the trade she can't. One day you'll be part of my collection of humans. Mark my words.'

It sucked, but she couldn't deny him. And she'd spent that night at a club, fingers curled over cheap vodka her ass on the stool. She'd drank an entire bottle by herself to the thumping music and the scent of sweat perfuming the air. The lights swung wildly over the dance floor, her ears burning with the sound. She promised a quick drink and a spending of no more than twenty credits.

She needed it to stay sane.

Her eyes had strayed over the aliens that rocked on the floor, trailed to the singular most captivating Alpha at the centre. His face was shielded by a veil of silk that hid his identity but it was enough to reveal his beauty—a being so exquisite that he had no business partying in a shit hole like her planet.

She couldn't smell him; she couldn't smell anyone. It'd grown to become a habit to stuff her nose so full of blockers that the pheromones of fucking couldn't influence her no more. But he must be electric because the omegas swarmed around him like a school of fish that darted left and right with each sway of a predator's hands.

They smiled when he did, laughed when he laughed, copied his movement, and simpered when he gave them a gentle smile. And God, his dance moves, they radiated out of him in the sway of his hips, his thumbs hooked in the bands of his pants as he gyrated to a song that made him look like sex incarnate. Rue had to look away to end the steady thump of her pussy, tried to quell the heat that rose.

She'd taken another swig mourning the world and how she wasn't actually an Alpha. And had somehow managed to manifest his presence because the magenta alien sauntered close. She noticed now that he was an Eros but with a feathery tail, hidden behind angel wings that grew out of his back from mixed blood. She was reminded of her nudist and for a moment she felt a tinge of sadness missing the blue haired Eros.

He seemed just as cherubic too, with a jaw cut from an angel's, eyes that grew foxy with seduction and lips that swelled juicy and begging for a kiss. She noted a hint of crooked teeth on the blinding smile he shot her way beneath the veil of stars, magenta hair sweeping into his eyes. How he'd managed to shake the others off him, she didn't know but he plopped down beside her, alone and free of drama with the sweetest smile.

Her drink sloshed in her cup as her hands shook. He was infuriatingly beautiful and no matter how quiet and non-existent her Omega could be, right now it whimpered under the aura of a specimen so gorgeous he deserved the front cover of a magazine and more.

"What are you doing here, looking so pretty and alone?" he'd flirted with a smooth call for his own drink. His voice was sugar unlike his appearance, caramel Frappuccino and diabetically sweet. And she'd furrowed her brows, wondering why he'd bothered to crawl to her side, especially with her grimy, oily work-stained presence.

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