9. Seraphina
9
SERAPHINA
A fter lunch, I bought an iced coffee from the fancy coffee cart outside the dining hall before sending Paige ahead to save me a seat in our Omega Senior Seminar. After locating an empty table in the shade out on the Main Hall’s patio, I called Henri.
“Nope,” he said as soon as he answered.
“You don’t even know what I’m calling about.”
“Yes, I do. You want me to weasel you into another assignment for Jericho when I have strict instructions that you are to be focusing only on school, swim team, and… you know.”
“Making myself presentable for the pack I’ve been sold to?”
He sighed. “I don’t believe any money has actually changed hands, Seraphina. Try to think of this as your parents loving you enough to go to great lengths to keep you off the government roster.”
There was no sense in arguing with Henri—none of this was his fault. “Can you please, for my sanity and because you love me, find me some teensy little thing to do for Jere at work? Or even my brothers? I will wither away in this asylum otherwise.”
“Stop trying to get me fired.”
“Jere won’t let you get fired.”
“He’s not even my actual boss!”
“Dad won’t fire you, either, babe,” I said patiently. “He knows I don’t listen to anyone else.”
He scoffed. “You have Andrew convinced you actually listen to me? No wonder I got a raise this year.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I guess I’ll see what I can find for you to do,” he grumbled.
“Thanks. Love you!”
“Love you, too, as is my cross to bear.”
Chuckling, I ended the call. The patio was quiet, as most students had a two o’clock class, and it was 1:57. Time to get a move on—I had three minutes to get to the top floor of the Main Hall, where the smaller seminar rooms were located.
At 2:01, I slid into my chair next to Paige at the long conference table. There were about a dozen girls seated around it—nice and cozy.
“Oh, thank you for joining us, Miss Bryce,” Professor Polly said with a resigned sigh. Polly Baxter was an omega in her sixties, retired from her child-rearing duties and rich enough that she didn’t have to do any actual cooking or housekeeping for her elderly pack, so she spent her twilight years teaching practical omega skills to the daughters of high society. I’d had her for our extremely cringe-inducing Sex Ed class freshman year.
“Apologies, Professor,” I said. “Had a work call.”
A girl across the table with shiny chocolate waves and perfect contouring made a noise. “Ugh. Can you not bring your weird crap into our class, Seraphina? It’s getting a little embarrassing.”
Her friends snickered.
I smiled sweetly. “What’s that, Bianca?”
She waved a hand at my general state of being. “You put no effort into your appearance, are rude to every Alpha who comes to our courting events, and you flout the fact that you have a job like it’s something you’re proud of. No wonder you have no pack prospects.”
Paige, a good best friend, frowned at her. I smoothed the baggy Against Me! T-shirt that I’d taken the time to knot artfully at my waist so that my purple shorts could also shine, then I cocked my head at Bianca. “You forgot to mention my OmegaFans account. All I have to do is paint my toenails on camera, and I am making bank .”
Paige made a choking noise, and Amber, who was on the swim team with me, snorted. A few others let out horrified gasps because they were gullible turds, and I considered whether actually becoming a foot-fetish camgirl might be a solid way to wash me out of my arranged marriage.
“Ladies—” Professor Polly began.
“It’s not true that she has no prospects, Bianca,” Allison interjected from Bianca’s right. “My mother heard from her cousin up in Fort Wayne that the gossip around their country club is that a pack of Alphas from some of the wealthiest families in the area have agreed to take on our problem child. They probably saw the Bryce name and thought they were getting something… else.” She wrinkled her nose. “They’re in for quite a surprise.”
“Oh, Seraphina, you have a courting pack?” Professor Polly gushed, oblivious to the fact that Allison had insulted me. “That’s so nice.”
“Nope, not courting anyone,” I announced, glaring at Allison. “Sounds like Alli’s mom’s cousin had one too many mimosas at brunch.”
She snickered. “I get why you’re denying it, Seraphina. I heard this pack has a reputation at the North Texas OFS for being real assholes. I also heard they’re deviant freaks, so maybe it’ll be a match made in heaven after all.”
“Shut up, Allison,” Paige huffed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Paige knew my parents were trying to set me up with a pack from up north, but I hadn’t really given her details like the pack name or the supposed binding contractual nature of it all. That pack was nothing to me, and I’d deal with my own shit. I didn’t want her to worry about me.
“All right, that’s enough,” Professor Polly said, forcing a smile. “Let’s focus on what we’re here to learn this semester. With any luck, you will all be well on your way to bonding with your Alphas right after graduation, if you aren’t halfway there already.” She gave us a saucy wink.
Bianca preened. “The Walls Pack and I made our courtship official over the summer. Look!” She thrust her hand out over the table, and a giant diamond ring weighed down her tiny finger.
Everyone oohed and aahed for a solid twenty seconds before Polly regained control. “How perfect, Bianca,” she cooed. “To make your courtship with your Alphas official is such a magical moment—second only to when it comes time to bond.” She lovingly stroked one of the silvery crescent scars that marked the base of her neck—bonding marks from her Alphas that were still clear as day even after forty years. “And it is my goal in this class to ensure you are prepared to be the best omega for your pack. You will be the center of their world, so you’ll want to take superb care of them—and, of course, your future babies.”
Half the class sighed wistfully. It was nice for them that this idyllic little picture filled them with joy—certainly my mother and my sister were blissfully happy in their pampered domestic omegahood—but the fact that there was no room for us to aspire to anything else made me feel like someone was trying to stuff me into a tiny box with no air holes.
Professor Polly sat down on the stool positioned next to the whiteboard, smoothing her lavender summer dress before she continued. “Let’s take a moment to remember how lucky we are, us omega women. Out there in the rest of the world, Alpha and beta women struggle to successfully carry even one child to term. I’ve had six wonderful children—four Alpha boys and two omega girls—and they’ve all joined beautiful packs and made me a grandmother ten times over. Without us , our population would dwindle to nothing. We’d have no leaders, no innovators, no soldiers to keep us safe. We are the cog around which the wheel of this great country turns.”
Everyone nodded sagely. I couldn’t do it. As much as I felt for any person wishing to get pregnant but couldn’t, I didn’t buy that it was my duty to birth six kids to make up for it.
Did I want kids someday? I had no idea—I’d have to find a partner or partners worth a shit before I could even fathom it. I had a life to live first, and that life did not involve bonding with a pack my parents shoved at me after graduation and getting knocked up the first time I let myself have a heat.
And I had no plans for that bullshit either. I’d been stashing away extra OFS-issued heat blockers for the entire time I’d been a student here, and I had a nice stockpile that would last me years.
“Now,” Polly continued, “your first reading assignment is a classic—a must for all refined omega women. Happy Home, Happy Pack by Eloise McDavis. You may remember that Eloise taught here at this very institution for thirty years before she retired to spend more time with her fifteen grandchildren and growing brood of great-grandchildren.”
She set a stack of sparkly pink paperbacks on the table, and the girls passed them around.
“Ooh,” Bianca gushed, caressing the book’s cover with a manicured hand. “Candi Jenkins was just talking about this book on her channel. She says it’s required reading for any woman who wants to be the ideal mate or spouse.”
The class oohed some more, as if this tidbit made our assignment suddenly much more interesting.
“At the risk of asking questions I don’t want to know the answers to,” I stage-whispered to Paige, “who the hell is Candi Jenkins?”
Allison tossed her platinum-blonde hair over her shoulder with a little sniff of derision. “Of course you don’t know. Candi is a former Miss Texas, and she started a very successful cosmetics company. Now she has one of the biggest homemaking accounts on ClockTok.”
A tiny dark-haired omega with a doll face bounced excitedly in her seat a few chairs down from me. “Ooh, I just watched her make bubblegum from scratch for her niece yesterday! It was so fun, and her kitchen is gorgeous .”
Allison giggled. “Last week, she interviewed a sex therapist to give us tips for—” She gave her friends a coy little look. “—pleasing a man.”
The class tittered, pink-tinged cheeks betraying the girls who were saving themselves for their Alphas and had never laid eyes on a penis, while others whispered to each other conspiratorially.
“Settle down, everyone,” Polly said with an amused sigh. “I am certainly happy to hear your popular internet personalities are giving Eloise’s book the praise it deserves.”
Bianca nodded with authority. “Candi and other influencers like her have done wonders to promote a return to traditional values for women of all designations. She’s a beta, and even she understands that there’s no higher calling than caring for your home and family. So many of us have lost sight of that.” She gave me a scolding little glare as most of the class sounded their agreement, including Professor Polly.
I returned her glare with a look that said she was the world’s dumbest bitch and that I was sorry for her before I darted an incredulous glance around the room. “You guys are joking, right?”
Silence. Bianca scoffed and rolled her eyes.
“Seriously,” I went on. “Y’all are going to sit there and let a former cosmetics magnate who probably makes six figures a month monetizing her social media tell you that you should have no calling other than domestic labor and sucking dick?”
“Seraphina, language,” Polly said wearily.
Amber laughed because she was actually cool, while others took a moment to exchange confused looks.
“Whatever,” Bianca huffed. “This is why everyone else in this room is either officially courting a pack or has several attractive prospects, while your parents had to bribe some random pack from up north just to talk to you, Seraphina. Real Alphas don’t want a crass weirdo who cares more about working in a job with a bunch of men than she does being what an omega is supposed to be.”
“I would argue, Bianca,” I countered, “that there isn’t any one thing an omega is supposed to be. If the life you want is one that prioritizes the home and child-rearing, then that’s wonderful for you. I’d even argue that everyone in this room who wants this is probably headed for a lovely, charmed life as the mate of wealthy Alphas who can afford housekeepers, nannies, and all the things that will take the bulk of the drudgery of domestic labor off your plate. Many of the omegas out there”—I waved a hand at the window, where the view framed the downtown skyline glittering in the distance—“do not have those luxuries. Or even the luxury of maturing past their teenage years and spending years finding a pack they fit with before bonding. Instead, they are forced at whichever pack’s number is up in the government lottery, immediately bonded, and then bred without even a chance to discover whether they might want something else for themselves.”
“Now, Seraphina—” Polly began.
“There should be room for omegas—and all women—to aspire to be whatever they want to be, including everyone sitting in this room,” I went on. “Believe it or not, there are Alphas out there that do value a partner with ambition beyond the home. My brothers are mated to an omega who has killed scumbag men and rescued girls from an omega trafficking ring, and there aren’t men on this planet who could love their omega more than they love her.”
“Unnatural,” Allison muttered.
“Barbaric,” Bianca agreed.
I rolled my eyes. “You’re all still butthurt my brothers didn’t choose an OFS girl. It’s been over two years—get the hell over it.”
“That’s quite enough,” Polly snapped, and I almost winced. She was usually so unflappable, but I broke even the most even-keeled people eventually. “Seraphina, while you make an impassioned argument, and while you are certainly entitled to your personal feelings and desires, this class is about omega etiquette as it pertains to being the best omega one can be for one’s Alphas. And that involves, in my opinion and that of the majority of omegas who have lived for decades happily mated with their packs, prioritizing your home, your Alphas, and your children above anything else. We are moving onto the lesson.”
Bianca shot me a triumphant grin, and I flipped her off the second Polly turned to scribble on the whiteboard.
Amber rolled her eyes and huffed a laugh at me in a way that said, Can you believe these bitches? But her humor quickly slipped away, and her expression turned contemplative. Amber was the best swimmer on our team by far, and our coach thought she had a shot at swimming professionally—almost unheard of for an omega. Would whichever pack she chose be okay with something like that?
I just wished she didn’t even have to ask that fucking question.
Paige gave my thigh a conciliatory pat under the table. “It’s hard to be a square peg in a round hole,” she whispered. “I still love you.”
I squeezed her hand. “Love you too. I’ll visit you and snuggle your future babies in between my jaunts doing barbaric murders.”
She chuckled, because she didn’t know I actually did kill people for a living. “Sounds like a plan.”