The Beta Is His Omega

Alpha and Omega

In a high school classroom, during lunch break, a certain group of friends chatted as they sat together on desks arranged haphazardly. Three of the five were from the class section to whom this classroom belonged, but two were from other sections.

It was Ren Ashford’s first time entering this particular classroom. Trespassing wasn’t usually allowed, but there was an informal event at the school today, so the rules were a bit lax. 

He was secretly very nervous. After all, his crush was from this section.

More than that, right now, he was very much aware that his crush was somewhere behind him.

And of course his friends would choose this particular time to bring up the topic of romance. Of course.

“Say,” someone had said, “I’ve always wondered—if you guys were alphas, or heck, even omegas—which alpha from school would you want to date?”

By this point, all of them in this group had lived roughly eighteen years of life as ordinary, unremarkable betas. They were used to “staying in their own lane,” so to speak, and contentedly looked forward to a future where they would settle down with a fellow beta and build ordinary, unremarkable lives with them.

The high-flying, untouchable existence of human alphas, with their superior genes and generational wealth, was not something they should waste too much of their time on. The best thing betas could hope for where alphas were concerned was to someday be able to work under them in some elite company.

As for romance? Pshh, forget about it. In this society, alphas typically married other alphas, and it wasn’t only because omegas were in much shorter supply. 

Even if there was somehow enough omegas to go around for every alpha, it was almost a certainty that they would still be passed over in favor of the valuable family connections that the alphas’ own kind could offer.

Only a few circumstances might compel an alpha to choose an omega as his or her mate: 

One, the omega also came from a powerful family. 

Two, the alpha’s bloodline was failing due to how much harder it was for them to bear children.

Three, there was an unfortunate accident leading to an alpha “marking” an omega’s nape during their heat, claiming them for life as a result.

Four, the alpha and the omega fell in love and formed a bond by mutual accord.

And five, the alpha and the omega were a rare—almost mythical—“fated pair.”

At this point in his life, Ren had never personally met an omega. Outside of the heats that sometimes exposed them for what they were, omegas did not usually announce their second gender to the world, and this was especially so for male omegas.

For their own protection as well, schools that were intended for omegas to attend did not accept alphas as students. Strangely though, there was no opposite rule in place. That is to say, at his or her own risk, an omega could choose to go to a school that alphas attended.

As for betas, of course—as long as they’d been tested beyond a shadow of a doubt to be harmless betas indeed, they could attend any school they wanted, even the ones for omegas. 

And those who wished to benefit from the more advanced education that alphas typically received could also choose to go to school with them, as long as they passed the entrance exam and could thereafter keep up with the curriculum.

Despite being a mere beta, Ren had been blessed with enough smarts to be able to attend this particular elite school. And now, he was only a few months away from graduating.

He supposed this was one of the last few chances he and his friends had to talk about this topic, so he didn’t act like a killjoy and simply went along with it.

“It would have to be Mei Griffiths for me,” he said when it was his turn.

His answer seemed to both surprise and intrigue his companions, and one of them asked bluntly, “For real? Why her?”

“Shhh!” 

The one who’d loudly asked that kind of question was the other outsider in this classroom, aside from Ren. For that reason, perhaps she didn’t know that Mei Griffiths was from this section.

Of course, before he’d stated her name, Ren had already made sure that Mei wasn’t in the classroom, so he wasn’t as worried.

He answered seriously, “Well, for one thing, she’s really beautiful.”

But his friends remained unconvinced by this reasoning. After all, which alpha on earth didn’t have superior looks to go along with their greater intelligence and multiple talents?

Hence, the true deciding factor regarding which alpha is more superior than others was their personality, the unique air they gave off.

Mei Griffiths certainly had “air” all right—in fact, being something of an airhead, she had plenty of that.

“Of all the alphas I’ve seen,” said the friend who’d asked the question, “she’s probably the least alpha-like. What do you see in her?”

Finding her words unnecessarily harsh, Ren ended up going all-out before he even knew it. 

“If you really must know,” he said, his tone a little sharp, “I like her because she doesn’t seem to be a stick-in-the-mud alpha who still acts like they have something to prove all the time despite having it all already. She doesn’t follow some formula of how to behave just because she’s born a certain way. She’s a 'beat of her own drum' kind of person, and I dig that.”

He looked pointedly at his female friend, then continued, “I also don’t see her as someone who’d talk bad about others behind their back. Isn’t there a quote like that? ‘Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, and small minds discuss people.’” To help soften the harsh blow that he himself had just given, Ren chuckled. “Welp, guess what that makes us, guys?”

One of the others laughed along and said, “Speak for yourselves. I didn’t say anything.”

With some feathers now ruffled, they naturally moved on to other topics after that, then parted when the lunch break ended.

On his way back to his own classroom, Ren felt regret.

He regretted how he couldn’t look behind him even once to catch a glimpse of his crush.

That is, his real one. The actual answer he would have given to his friend’s question, if it wouldn’t have been frowned upon.

After all, male omegas partnering with male alphas was one thing. But a male beta pining after not only an alpha but a male one at that? 

In this world where some men could also give birth and some women could also impregnate both genders, same-sex pairings were of course not frowned upon.

In a case like Ren’s, however, it was a matter of practicality. 

See, while male betas could impregnate, they could not get pregnant themselves. They could thus technically pair with a female alpha, if any would have them, but as for male alphas… 

What use would they have for a partner who would never be able to give them children?

Thus, male alpha and beta pairings were one of the rarest in the world, perhaps even more mythical than those so-called fated alpha and omega pairs, which really only had near-perfect genetic compatibility with each other. 

Or so the studies that Ren had read about it said.

On the other hand, if you asked those fated mates about it themselves, they’d spew out enough sweet sentiments about the phenomenon to give you a toothache. 

For instance, how there was this instant, irresistible pull between them almost as soon as they’d met—or, more commonly, as soon as they detected the scent of each other’s pheromones. 

They might tell you how there was this automatic certainty they felt, leading them to believe without any doubts at all: this person was “the one” for them.

You might also hear of how, from then on, they knew, there could never be anyone else for them in this lifetime.

But even to such seemingly blessed individuals, tragedy could also strike. Every culture was filled with legends of fated pairs who’d found each other too late, where either one or both of them were already bonded with someone else.

The “bond” between an alpha and an omega was such a powerful and mysterious thing, after all. As long as his or her bonded omega was still alive, an alpha would not be able to physically respond to the pheromones of another omega. Even if another omega went into heat in front of a bonded alpha, they’d be safe—the alpha would not enter into his or her own rut.

It was the same for a bonded omega. Once an alpha had “marked” them by biting the back of their neck during their heat, they would no longer affect others with their pheromones, and their bodies would reject the touch of anyone else who was not their bonded mate.

Even their fated mate was no match for this bond. In some of the old stories, the star-crossed lovers would either live their entire lives separated from each other, just pining away until they died, or they would choose to go together in death if they could not be with one another in life.

In some of the rarer, more extreme legends, the fated pairs would still insist on being with each other, until they were both driven insane with physical pain and despair—

Or until they eventually choose the even darker path of killing the mates they were already bonded to, often being punished by the gods with eternal separation from their fated one as a result.

But what else could such individuals have done to avoid those outcomes? This phenomenon was so rare that no one could say with absolute certainty that it would happen to them. Were they just supposed to wait around forever for something that might not come? 

Most alphas might be able to, but omegas did not have that luxury. They lived in danger of getting assaulted by any random alpha during their heat, so it was in their best interest to find an alpha they could bond and settle down with as soon as possible. If they didn’t, they only risked having the choice of a mate taken from them altogether.

And yet, even with all of this, the eighteen-year-old Ren found himself thinking back on the question his friend had posed, and he considered what it would have been like if he were born an omega instead.

Lovesick youth that he was, all he could think of at this time was—if being an omega would give him a real chance to be with Rhys Holcroft, then he didn't see what could be so bad about it.