Asa
I barely made it thirty minutes before calling in sick and speeding down the street for relief. Whether it was the idea that I finally had something to give me relief or my body was just failing me, I needed something now.
The first step into Vesper House, I realize it smells of nothing. In a city like Redbrook, where the air is a constant soup of ozone, exhaust, and the sharp, metallic tang of failing suppression nodes, the vacuum of the intake lobby is almost violent.
“Welcome to Vesper House,” a voice says, smooth and entirely too calm. “Do you have an appointment?”
The receptionist is an Alpha, but he’s behind a thick pane of glass and clearly under heavy suppressants. He looks at me with the detached professional interest of a man checking in a library book. I try to swallow, but it’s nearly impossible, my anxiety getting the best of me.
“Asa Renwick,” I rasp. I try for my ‘professor voice,’ the one that commands respect in a lecture hall of three hundred students, but it comes out thin and jagged. “I have a four pm slot.”
He taps something into a tablet. “Ah, yes. You’re a little early, aren’t you?
” A small smile spreads across his face as I open my mouth to explain.
“It’ll be fine. We always have an influx of Alphas and Espers and not enough Omegas or Guides for the compatibility matches.
Please, take a seat. A nurse will be with you shortly for the intake draw and consent verification. ”
I don’t sit. If I sit, I might never get back up.
I pace the small perimeter of the rug, my mind frantically calculating the variables of my own stupidity.
The probability of this being a mistake is hovering around ninety-eight percent.
I am an F-Class Guide. My power is a rounding error in the ESA’s database.
Why would a clinic like this even have a match for someone with a signature as weak as mine? Usually, Omegas like me are given a double dose of synthetics and told to sleep it off. Or they send me to a regular center with regular Alphas, but that’s never done it for me.
A door at the back clicks open. A nurse in crisp, pale blue scrubs beckons me forward. “This way, Mr. Renwick,” she says. “We’ll just need a quick blood sample to confirm the biometric match before we move to the neutralization chamber.”
I follow her into a small, sterile room that smells faintly of isopropyl alcohol.
It’s a relief, honestly, a smell I can categorize.
She works quickly, her hands steady as she ties the tourniquet around my arm.
I watch the dark red blood fill the vial, thinking about how that fluid contains the blueprint of my failure. F-Class. Inactive. Useless.
“Wait here,” she says, labeling the vial. “I’ll be back in five minutes with the final match report and the liability waivers.”
The five minutes feel like fifty. I stare at a poster on the wall detailing the importance of ‘safe and consensual rut management,’ featuring a smiling couple that looks like they’ve never experienced a day of desperation in their lives.
When the nurse returns, she isn’t smiling. She’s holding a tablet and a thick stack of papers. She looks at me, then back at the screen, her brow furrowed in a way that makes my heart lurch into a frantic, uneven rhythm.
“There’s a situation with the match,” she says, her voice losing some of its clinical sheen. “Your blood compatibility with our available client is... unprecedented. We ran the algorithm three times. It’s a ninety-nine-point-eight percent synchronization.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” I ask, though the numbers feel wrong. “The higher the match, the safer the session?”
“Usually, yes,” she says, stepping closer and lowering her voice.
“But the client in question is an S-Class Alpha. He’s in a state of extreme rut-accelerated power volatility.
We’ve had to initiate secondary containment protocols in the suite.
An F-Class Guide matching with an S-Class Esper...
it shouldn't happen. The power-gap alone usually causes a rejection.”
I feel a cold ripple of fear, but beneath it, a deep, visceral hum runs through me.
S-Class. The kind of power that can level a city block.
The kind of power that burns normal Guides to ash.
I should say no. I should walk away right now.
The ESA has spent fifteen years telling me I’m a guttering candle; why would I step into a furnace?
“There are extra consent forms,” she continues, sliding a digital stylus toward me.
“The risk of sensory overload is high. We cannot guarantee that he will be able to maintain total physical restraint once the connection is established. Because of the class disparity, the liability for any power-burn or energetic trauma falls on the participant.”
I look at the screen. S-Class. Volatile.
Risk of injury. I think about my empty condo.
I think about the way the city is screaming outside.
I think about how I have spent my whole life being told I am nothing, and yet, here is a machine saying I am the only thing that fits a man who has too much of everything.
“Unfortunately, that’s the only compatible match of the night.
” She swallows carefully and the lack of nervousness in her expression strangely gives me some relief.
“The staff is trained to step in if there are any excess energy surges and there are panic buttons around them. You can sign here,” she says.
“Or we can call a transport to take you home.”
Anticipation swells in my chest at the idea of a man like the one they’re offering me taking me apart.
I take the stylus and scrawl my name across the bottom of four different pages.
I’m signing away my safety for the chance to not be empty for an hour.
It’s the most irrational thing I’ve ever done, and for the first time all day, the math finally feels right.
“Very well,” the nurse says, her tone turning somber. “Please step into the neutralization chamber. Once your scent is stabilized, you’ll be escorted to Suite 404.”
The walk to Suite 404 is a blur of gray corridors and muffled silence.
I feel like a condemned man, or maybe a sacrifice.
The neutralization spray was cold and smelled of ozone, stripping away my personal scent and leaving me a blank slate.
By the time the nurse stops in front of a heavy, reinforced steel door, I can barely breathe.
“He’s already inside,” she whispers. “There is a panic button in every corner and on the table by the door. We’ve never had an issue with compatibility matches so you shouldn’t need it.”
I frown, thoroughly confused. “This doesn’t make sense. I’m F-Class. I don’t... how...”
The woman smiles. “Mr. Renwick, our blood tests reveal nothing more than a sexual compatibility over a few hours. You are not here to guide anyone and you as sure aren’t going to be mating anyone tonight. Good luck, Mr. Renwick.”
The lock chirps, a high, digital sound that seems to vibrate through my teeth.
The door slides open with a heavy thud, and I step through, still thoroughly confused but also a little wired.
The air in the room hits me all at once, thick with the scent of black cedar, whiskey, and something dark and electric that makes the hair on my arms stand up.
The lights are dimmed to a low, amber glow, casting long, jagged shadows against the soundproofed walls.
That’s when I see him, the Alpha standing by the far wall, his back to me, his shoulders so broad they seem to swallow the light.
He’s stripped to the waist, his skin glistening with sweat, and I can see the muscles in his back twitching with a tension that looks like it’s about to snap his bones.
Even from here, I can feel the current coming off him, a low, thrumming vibration that makes my own blood feel like it’s beginning to boil.
The door slides shut behind me and locks with a final, echoing clunk.
He turns slowly. His eyes aren't normal. They’re dark, the pupils blown wide, ringed with a flickering corona of violent energy that I recognize from the news reports on S-Class flares.
He looks less like a man and more like a disaster that hasn't happened yet.
His face is all sharp angles and desperate restraint, his jaw locked so tight I can hear his teeth grinding together from across the room.
The only thing that doesn’t seem to fit is the bright orange hair sticking out in all angles across his head.
“You,” he rasps. The word comes out as a growl, a low, tectonic sound that vibrates in my chest. “You’re the match?”
“Asa,” I manage to say. I’m staring at him, at the raw power radiating from his skin. “I’m... I’m here for the session.”
He takes a step toward me, and the air between us crackles.
I can feel the static crawling over my skin, a thousand tiny needles of energy.
He stops five feet away, his chest heaving, his hands fisted at his sides.
He smells like the woods after a fire—charred, wild, and intoxicating.
Every instinct I have is screaming at me to run, but my feet are rooted to the floor.
My Omega side is singing, a high, clear note of recognition that drowns out the panic.
He sniffs at the air and then tilts his head to the side. “You’re an F-Class,” he says, his voice thick with disbelief and a hunger so sharp I can almost taste it. “They sent an F-Class to handle this? You’ll burn. You’ll break before I even touch you.”
“The machine said we match,” I say, finding a sudden, stubborn spark of defiance.
“Ninety-nine percent. I don’t care what my classification is.
I can handle it.” I need it. That simmering heat in my stomach drops lower, my cock throbbing with desire.
I tilt forward, a gush of slick coating my underwear as I try to keep my face neutral.