It takes me a moment to realize that the confidence is coming from Mavi, through the bond. My beautiful Omega is offering me support from his apartment, giving me the strength I needto keep from freezing. I gently reach down to brush my fingers against the top of the cage, shaking my ankle at the same time before heading into the dining room.
And there he is, sitting across from the empty chair. Elias Moreau.
He’s beautiful and well-dressed in a way that suggests someone helped him pick the outfit, not because he lacks taste but because he was coached. His smile is warm and genuine and slightly nervous. He stands when I enter, which means he’s also been trained, the Moreau family having their own machine, and extends a hand.
“Mr. Hollis. It’s nice to finally meet you properly.”
The word “properly” tells me everything. Elias has been briefed. Previous introductions were attempted or discussed. The Moreau family has been building toward this moment with the same deliberate architecture my family uses.
I shake his hand before taking my seat, noticing there is no paperwork on the table. A small relief, sure, but that only means this isn’t over but ending it here. I attempt to keep the Hollis mask on. I am every inch the golden boy the family built me to be, and sitting across from the Omega they chose for me, I have never felt more like a fraud.
Because Elias is nice. That’s the worst part. Not a villain. Not someone I can dismiss or resent. A person, clearly nervous, doing his best in a situation he did not fully choose either. The kind of Omega our family selected because on paper Elias is perfect: connected family, artistic interests that align with mine, attractive, well-mannered, and the sort of match that makes dynasty-builders nod approvingly.
But I feel nothing. Not dislike. Not attraction. Nothing. Every cell in my body is reaching for honey and citrus and a sharp tongue and paint-stained fingers and a voice that says “pet” like it means everything.
Elias soon pauses as he lowers his fork, his expression shifting from nervousness to something more serious. “You’re mated, aren’t you?”
I could lie. The mask is still in place. I could perform my way through the rest of the evening and deal with the fallout later. I don’t. “Yes.”
Elias sags against the cushioned booth, with relief. The posture change is dramatic, his shoulders dropping, the rigid performance collapsing into something more human and exhausted. He presses his hands over his face for a moment, breathes, then looks at me with eyes that are suddenly, unexpectedly bright. “Please tell me this means it won’t happen. Please.”
I blink. This is not the reaction I prepared for.
Elias leans forward, his voice dropping a little. “Nothing against you, Mr. Hollis, you seem perfectly fine. But I…” He stops and then starts again. “I have someone. Someone I want. Someone my family would never approve of and I can’t, I don’t want this.” He gestures at the table, the restaurant, the arrangement. “I never wanted this.”
Two Omegas caught in the same machine. Mavi walked away from his at twenty and built everything from scratch. Elias is still inside his, unable to leave, hoping someone else will break the lock.
My chest aches with recognition. “Then we’ll mutually agree to end this,” I say. “We’ll tell both families—”
Elias shakes his head. “You have to break it. My family needs this arrangement. They would never let me be the one to step down. If I refuse, the consequences…” He doesn’t finish but he doesn’t have to. I know what family consequences look like.
“Then I’ll break it. Gladly.”
Elias looks at me. The relief in his face is so raw, so naked, that I have to look away. This Omega has been carrying thesame weight I have, the machine’s expectations, the dynasty’s demands, but unlike me, Elias has not found a Mavi to help him carry it.
“Your person,” I say. “The one you want. Fight for them.”
Elias’ smile spreads across his face, though there’s a hint of sadness beneath it. “That’s easy for you to say, Mr. Hollis. You’re a Hollis. I’m a Moreau. We don’t fight. We comply.”
We finish dinner with an understanding between us that neither family will like. Elias holds my hand a beat longer than necessary. “Thank you. And… tell your mate they’re lucky.”
“I’m the lucky one.”
I step out of the restaurant into the night air and for the first time in as long as I can remember my lungs fill completely as I take a breath that goes all the way to the bottom of my chest. There's no tightness and there's no constriction and there's no noise pressing in from the edges of my thoughts.
I pull out my phone, the screen showing a wall of notifications that keep climbing as the family group chat detonates with disbelief and anger and questions flying back and forth. I scroll through the messages because even now I can't help cataloging the exact order in which the reactions arrive. One cousin I barely know sends a single word that says respect and I stare at it for a long moment before I type my own reply into the chaos.
Yes. I'm mated.
I send it and then I remove myself from the chat entirely. The notifications stop at once and the silence that follows feels like the cleanest thing I’ve ever heard because it belongs only to me.
My phone rings immediately, Koda checking in of course because he would never let something like this sit unanswered. I answer while I walk toward my car as his voice comes through the ear piece.
“I'm guessing you saw the chat,” I push out.
“Cousin, the chat exploded. Lyric's message was three words. He's already mated. Alistair followed up with the skull emoji. I'm pretty sure your aunt had a stroke.”
I laugh, the genuine sound startling me because it rises from a place beyond humor from relief so deep it has to escape somewhere. “I broke the arrangement. Elias looked relieved when I told him. The family chat is a fire but I don’t have to watch it burn anymore.”
