Chapter 1 – Shiloh
Chapter One
Shiloh
“ I heard that you’re so desperate, you’d let any old alpha knot you.” A voice whispers from the seats behind me before something tugs at my shirt collar. A sweet smell surrounds me and it sticks to my tongue, cloying in my throat. Omega.
I suppress a shiver, refusing to let them see even a sliver of weakness. Letting their words roll off me, I pull my textbooks out of my satchel, letting them land on the desk with a heavy thud. This lecture theater isn’t one of my favorites on campus, because there aren’t individual seats, just curved rows, which means we’re all sat far too close for my liking.
There’s a small chuckle to my left. “How did Millie end up with a pathetic beta like you for a brother?”
Millie.
Of course.
Blocking out the words, I focus on the clock above the whiteboard, but it’s like time has frozen as the omegas surrounding me let me know exactly where my place is in the food chain.
At the fucking bottom.
As if I could ever forget.
The sickly suffocating sweetness, like dying flowers, continues to wrap around me, clinging to my clothes. Another trip to the launderette wasn’t on my radar for tonight, but I didn’t want it permeating the apartment either. It was hard enough living with Bell, but at least their perfume didn’t make me gag. Maybe it’s because I liked them?
A pen lid is flicked against my cheek, and I flinch at the quick, sharp sting. “You know what’s worse than a slutty beta? A slutty, stuck-up beta who thinks they’re better than everyone else.”
They laugh, the tinkling noises sound like jagged metal on stone to my ears, but I’m sure to the alphas in the room, watching hungrily it’s nothing short of an angelic choir.
Looking through rose-tinted glasses doesn’t quite cover it, when it comes to the Omega population, it’s like the rest of the world is deliberately ignorant. By nature, they’re designed to charm, to entice, to seduce, and while everyone marvels over how demure and gentle they are, they are blind to the claws hidden behind fluttering eyelashes and coy smiles. Omega’s can be cruel and territorial if they feel like someone doesn’t belong. And I don’t.
Rolling my eyes, I swallow back a snort. I never once said I was better than anyone else. In fact, I am painfully aware of just how lacking I am.
I was plain looking, with no social skills or special talents, and I hate being around people. Being trapped inside my mind, second guessing every interaction, had gotten tiring pretty quick, and so I’d learned to tune out everyone else and just do what I wanted. It meant making friends was almost an impossibility for me, especially since I’d ended up in the same college as my twin, Millie.
Not that it was her fault.
Oakley University was the prestigious Ivy League school that our parents had chosen. It was an inevitability, since it was where they’d met as fresh-faced youths and it was somewhat of a family legacy to attend. With our father also on the board, they were only too happy to pay the extortionate fees and grease whatever palms needed to be slicked up to ensure we were enrolled.
At least dear old mom and pops had allowed us to move out, otherwise we’d all still be living together at home and Millie had outgrown me back in third grade.
She was everything I wasn’t. Beautiful, brave, bold. If being confronted each morning in the mirror by my plainness wasn’t enough, I’d grown up seeing those same features echoed in my twin. Our dark curls and pale porcelain skin looked perfect on her, but messy and like some sort of sickly Victorian child on me. We shared the same green eyes, but where hers were a bright emerald color, mine were murky, like pond water. I wasn’t in denial about who I was. I knew I was a pale imitation of Romilly. Almost like a copy, but one where the toner has dried out or a counterfeit, where the quality is obviously questionable. Everyone was drawn to Millie, like moths to a flame, and she burned bright enough for the both of us.
While people loved her easily, they were wary of me. I made them uncomfortable. Pushing my glasses back up the bridge of my nose, I try to shut out their petty whispers. I didn’t even need them. They were just another tool in my arsenal for hiding. Another guard in place to block out the rest of the world.
The gaggle of nasty omegas sitting behind me are only acting this way because Millie isn’t in this class. If she was, they’d be ignoring me like usual. Pretending I don’t exist. I’m a non-entity when she’s in the room, and I liked it like that. No one bothers me.
“How many knots can you take at once in that gaping hole of yours, Shiloh? Two? Three?” Sadie, an Omega with long glossy red hair, asks, lowering her voice so that she’s not overheard by the lecturer, who’s just entered and is setting up ready for our class.
Oakley University had introduced mixed secondary gender classes a few decades ago and while I was glad it meant I wasn’t surrounded solely by Omega’s, there were a few too many alphas on my business management module for my liking. All that posturing. All that arrogance. Who had time for that?
“That’s enough.” A cold voice cuts through the taunts and snickers. The authority lacing the words is undeniable. Alpha. A tiny part of my brain whispers ‘ submit ’, making me bristle.
Fuck him.
Zale Blackwood had no right issuing commands, even if it was on my behalf.
“Mmmmm, I had no idea you were such a hero, Zale.” Sadie chuckles, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she flutters her lashes up at him as he stands at the end of the row. “Do you have a soft spot for Shiloh because you’re with Millie?”
Cool blue eyes glance my way, lingering for a moment on my face as if he’s mentally cataloguing the differences between me and my twin.
“No, I just don’t think he’s worth the fuss.” Zale finally scoffs as he throws his bag down and slides on the bench beside another alpha who cozies up to Sadie and tosses a large arm around her shoulder.
I can feel Zale’s gaze on me a few minutes later, as he watches me for a moment when he thinks I don’t notice.
I’m not really sure when Zale came on the scene. All I know is that he’s my sister's current love interest. That’s the only reason he pays me the tiniest morsel of attention, if you can even call it that. After all, it wouldn’t be a wise move to potentially insult your future brother-in-law. I’d managed to exist without meeting him until this year, and now not only was he dating my sister, but he was also in my business management module.
Blackwood is a typical jock in every way—from the football to the short golden hair, and broad muscular body that looks like he could squash a watermelon between his thighs.
I could use his red flags to sew a king size quilt.
Of course I’m not ‘worth the fuss’.
Not to him. Not to any of them.
It’s partially my own fault, for putting myself on their radar to begin with. I’d managed to get through the last three years without drawing any attention to myself, clinging to the outskirts of my cohort. The only reason they were even showing me a lick of attention as we entered our final year is because I’d been an idiot at the beginning of term.
If I hadn’t gone to that party…if I hadn’t given into that little voice inside my head then I would still be a wallflower, wilting in the shadows. What ifs were no use now.
My friend Campbell, more affectionately known as Bell, had begged me to come with them to a party. It wasn’t usually my scene, in fact I actively avoided social situations like that but Bell wanted to find out if their alpha boyfriend was cheating and they didn’t want to go alone. News flash, he was.
And so, a night of tears and tequila followed. The dangerous combination meant there were gaping holes in my memory of what happened but the last thing I remember clearly was Bell convincing me to dance on the patio outside with them. I can picture their laughing face, and the scent of something earthy. After that it was a blur of skin, teeth and hot and heavy feelings until I woke up alone a few hours later mostly naked, with the traces of a bite on the side of my neck and cum leaking out of my ass.
I thought at first maybe I’d drunkenly crossed a line with Bell, but when I checked my phone, I found a text that let me know they were leaving the party with someone. A one-night stand with a stranger was bad enough, especially since the stranger was long gone when I woke up, but the walk of shame to leave meant I was seen by pretty much everyone. And those who didn’t witness it firsthand got to see it on PikSnap. Fucking social media.
If I thought the remarks and rumors would die down, I was wrong. Despite being in our third year, most people hadn’t realized I was Romilly’s twin. They loved comparing me to her, using her as a paragon of virtue while I was the disgraced beta whore. Imagine if they knew the truth…it would be even worse.
In the weeks since the party, there’d been all sorts of rumors about who I’d hooked up with, ranging from the local weed dealer and the janitor to someone’s dad. One whispered tale that made its way back to Bell was that I’d banged the whole swim team. Talk about school spirit.
I have no idea who I’d ended up in bed with, but as the bite mark started to fade, I’d been relieved. The last thing I needed to do was draw even more attention to myself with a Claiming when these sharks were always circling, trying to make my life a misery.
The lecture drags, the tutor talking low and slow which makes my mind wander. While I try to concentrate on my notes, there’s a burning sensation like eyes boring into the back of my neck and self-consciously, I try to pull my turtle neck up higher.
Since the biting incident, I’d taken to wearing either a turtleneck with a shirt or a scarf. I’d wear a collar or a nape guard if I didn’t think it would raise more questions. I don’t know why—the chances of me running into whoever gave me the mark was extremely low given how large the student population was. The party had been hosted off campus and was open to anyone. Hell, it could even be the stale old lecturer taking the class—I couldn’t remember. The bite had started fading, so there was no way to tell.
Sometimes, late at night when I wake alone in a cold sweat, I swear I can smell burning wood and leather and I just know it’s him. I don’t know how I know. I get flashes of calloused hands and the lingering smell of smoke and in the recesses of my mind, I just know. Then when the murky morning light sneaks past my curtains, I take my suppressants, go for a run and forget all about it.
I didn’t choose to be born an omega, and I refuse to live like one. I deserve more than that. The medication dulls my senses so that everything is bland—taste, touch, smell.
But I prefer it that way. I like my life in shades of gray. It keeps me safe from being Claimed.
Omegas are expected to give up everything when they mate, their jobs, their lives, their families so that they can have babies and serve their alpha. Society has supposedly moved on from these historic outdated ideals in most parts of the world, and omegas have more freedom. They can go to college, have jobs, and choose not to marry.
In theory.
In reality, omegas are still slaves to their natures as they’re forced to submit to their alpha counterparts, despite the laws in place supposedly to protect them. Us.
Sadie and the other perfect, gorgeous omegas in Millie’s group of friends are happy to be eye candy, filling their days until they meet their other half—but not me. And if I need to take suppressants and pretend I'm a beta to get by out of the spotlight, that’s what I’ll do. I was never any good at being a docile little omega anyway.