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SHATTER
Rookwood academy was my one chance at the impossible, and I was here to claim it.
The problem was, I was shit at all of this. At the rich people, the academy etiquette, and trying to navigate the sheer amount of omegas and alphas I’d been around in the last few days.
I’d remained quiet the whole time. It was my best option given my social capacity: I was 21-years-old, and four of those years I’d spent hidden away in an Estate, made to hide my nature for how broken I was. The rest of my life before that—it was gone. Memories I didn’t know anything of—except that nothing in my life had lent itself to social graces.
Here, I was passed in the stone hallways by others who had everything I dreamed of. Omegas that lived free, who already had what I wanted: to just be normal. The students here had a happily ever after waiting, with friends and family, a pack to love them. It was everything I’d been told I couldn’t have.
“You aren’t normal, Shatter, not your scent, not your instincts. You have to stay here now, where the world can’t hurt you.”
But Aunty Lauren was wrong—I’d known when I caught the scent of my mates. She’d told me I would never scent match a pack—I was too damaged…
Only I had.
Because I hadseenthem today: my mates.
The ones I’d come for.
I’d dared to get close. They were celebrities here, one of the most prestigious packs in the school. Alpha packs and omega hopefuls doted on them, and I’d been able to get near enough that I’d caught their scent once more. The first had been when they’d visited the Estate, and I’d been told I must have imagined it. Now, I knew I hadn’t, and once again, I caught their scent, and they didn’t catch mine.
Notyet.
I’d hurried through the courtyard and turned the corner around an arch draped with foliage, stopping and leaning against it as I hugged my bag to my chest. Birds chirped, and the scent of earth and flowerbeds tangled with the traces they’d left behind.
Sunflower and sesame seeds.
Passionfruit.
Coconut and plum.
Perfect. Sweet.
Normal. Soothing and calming to all the rough edges that made me wrong. It was the balance I’d never had. The balance I’d been told I would never find.
It was finally safe to let my scent blockers lapse tonight. By the time they wore off, my mates would be waiting to offer me safety for the first time in my life.
Tomorrow was the ball, where Rookwood Academy’s alpha packs chose the omega they would board with for the year.
At last, they would seeme. The whole world would right itself as I claimed my one shot at a normal life.
With a deep breath, I faced the mirror in the tiny dorm room I had been assigned. A cleaner had been in and she’d ruined my peace, straightening everything the way it shouldn’t be straightened. I’d already tried my best to make it right again. My anxiety dialled to ten as I switched all the angles so that I’d be able to catch sleep tonight. I needed to be at my best. Living like this was hard, without alphas to soothe me or drugs to dull my urges.
The early September air warmed my skin, and I tugged off my dress, replacing it with a silken nightgown. It was new, and much nicer than the cotton nightdress I’d had back in the Aster Estate. It had been in the suitcase I’d stolen at the New Oxford Central Station from a well-off-looking beta woman. I’d thought whatever she owned would help me fit in at an elite academy. I think I’d been correct—I’d received a few stares, but I’d mostly fit in.
“Tomorrow, everything will be fixed,” I told myself.
Tomorrow, I’d become theirs.
I breathed deeply, fixing my gaze on my reflection. The person who stared back still didn’t seem quite right. That was why I’d come though: to reclaim some of myself. “They’re your mates. They’regoingto pick you.”
Feeling better, I leaned over my vanity, carefully removing the contact from my right eye. The contacts had been given to me by Aunty Lauren (only for emergencies), and were highly illegal.
Another thing I wouldn’t need soon enough.
My mates would fall for me like I’d fallen for them. They wouldn’t care about my eyes or my scent. They wouldn’t care if I didn’t have social graces, or didn’t know where I came from.
I hated my golden eyes, but I hated sleeping with sore contacts more.
