Omega On Contract

Chapter One - The Loneliness

I was alone and lonely. Inextricably and so profoundly lonely that there were times I pretended the reflection in the mirror was a friend visiting. The loneliness burrowed so deep into my bones, turned my blood to ice, and my flesh to glass. It hurt, physically and mentally, to be that alone.

I did not care what the new world order suggested, omegas were not made for the perilous embrace of loneliness. We were made to be part of someone, of something. A pack, a home. To serve, love, and be loved. To be protected and cared for. It was in our biology, our hormones craved it, and our bodies and minds demanded it.

I had been on the run for five years, ever since I severed the bond between my alpha and me. I tore away from my pack, the tranquility of the green mountains I called home, the safety of my religion, everything I had known since childhood, and ran in the middle of the night into a future I had not yet fully grasped.

I knew what I had done would never stand in the holy courts if my alpha decided to press charges and reclaim me. We were Kruwish and Kruwish worshippers did not believe in divorce, regardless of what the modern laws of the kingdom allowed. As Kruwish, we lived by the old ways, in complete devotion to the Lord of Saints. No technology, no electricity, handmade clothes that emphasized modesty, no makeup, no perfume, long hours of prayer, early marriage—as soon as an omega experienced their first heat circle, we were married off.

We lived in the southern mountains, miles away from the nearest town, and there, we grew our own vegetables, raised our own animals and built our own homes. Everyone knew everyone, we raised each other's children, ate each other’s food, our lives were so intertwined that there was no sense of privacy. When I decided to escape home—to escape him, I knew I must change my identity.

Five years. Six cities. Four new names.

There was no day that I woke that I did not consider going back home on my knees and begging my alpha to take me back. I could endure, I thought. I could take it all, the beating, the chores, the long nights while he knotted me drunk out of his mind, the sleeping under the rain as punishment for not getting his shoes polished right, the belt to my back when the food was too salty, or not salty enough. Too hot or not hot enough. I could take it all, just to end the loneliness that followed after my escape. Being mated to my worst nightmare was better than being so alone that sometimes I would say random words to myself just to have a conversation.

I read countless self-help books, written by other omegas who had embraced the new world order. They wrote about self-love, finding one’s true purpose, solitude, and things of that sort. And I practiced. Lord, I practiced. I tried hard to not care. To not crave the warm embrace of belonging to someone. Of being marked and claimed and taken. I wanted to be independent of this need, to not be ‘a slave to my biology’, as one of the authors wrote.

But I was. Every morning I was. Every night I was. The loneliness was scrapping my soul and turning it into withering dust. It was a marvel to me each night, when I crawled into my bed, blinked at the ceiling and yet, did not pick up the phone and call the community line back home. It was a great marvel.

The first three years were easy. I still had a normal heat circle, and the suppressants did what they were supposed to do in the body of an omega. I could hold multiple jobs that allowed me to afford a decent apartment, and if I remained out of everyone’s way, no one suspected a thing because my new identity stipulated my s*x as Alpha. But then the fourth year came around and my first flash heat happened. A dangerous heat circle that could not be satiated by the vitamins in suppressants.

Before I severed the bond between my alpha and me, I conducted a thorough research about how omega’s survived heat circles after they were unmarked. The mind-boggling stories about Omegas who died from their heat circles after they were unmarked were commonly talked about amongst the Kruwish. It was said, the body of an omega did not function the same after an unmarking, because omegas could not absorb vitamins the same. But I needed to seek out my own truth, to learn how to survive it.

I used the old maps to find my way to a neighboring town in search of a library unbeknownst to my Alpha. It was the first time I ever encountered another race.

Yes, every now and then, the local sheriff, a vampire, would drive into our town to check on things. But we weren’t allowed to talk to her, let alone look at her. I had never seen another race up close till that day. The librarian was Fae, and with one look at my fashion choice, she knew I had come from the rural mountains and without question gave me all the help I needed with my research.

I came to learn omegas with severed bonds would only last a few years on suppressants without an alpha’s mark and I suppose this is why the divorce rates amongst Werewolves were the lowest in Hazalu. Werewolves mated to bond for life, and for those who suffered a divorce, which generally included an unmarking, necessary settlements were made to make sure omegas could afford the vitamins they needed until they were mated again.

The vitamins weren’t the kind found in synthetic suppressants, unmarked omegas needed the kind of vitamins existing in raw Alpha milk. It was stupidly expensive, I had begun saving up for it as soon as I found a job.

The flash heat made it difficult for me to keep my first identity. They came abruptly and fiercely, and soon my co-workers were taking notice of a change in my scent despite the masking perfume I used to hide my pheromones. I relocated to a second city and bought a new identity with half the money I had saved. And then there was another move and another, always escaping before I could settle. I couldn’t risk being discovered as an omega, my fingerprints would not hold against the screening, and if they found out I was illegally unmarked, I would’ve been returned to my Alpha.

It was in the fifth year I decided to move to the capital city of Bisari. The city of Dreamers, they called it. The only city with winter dust and skyscrapers so high they scratched the clouds. Since childhood, I heard stories about the massive capital where all creatures lived neck to neck. Succubi and Incubi, Vampires and Werewolves, Humans and Fae. Mages and Merpeople.

I was so very terrified of a city that vast, that complex, that busy. A city that seemed to carry the entire world in its grasp. But I needed a place I could disappear into, a place that was large enough to swallow me. I had only ever known little towns and small cities where everyone knew everyone, and with the increasing risk of being discovered, The City of Dreams seemed a viable option.

The night I arrived by train, all those stories crawled out of the barriers of fiction and became a wild vivid reality. Bisari was The City of Dreams, not just because it was where everyone came to pursue their dreams of becoming the next big star, but also because it looked dreamy, almost impossible to comprehend for a girl who grew up on a farm.

Buildings were tall enough to pierce the clouds, there were sky trains on top of sky trains, holographic billboards that stretched on and on. Mountains with waterfalls. Flying cars like I had never seen. Trees—some pink, some purple—sprouted along every major road. Large open parks, swan lakes, flamingo parks.

Day after day, as I haunted for jobs, I would walk and walk and walk and get lost in the beautiful craziness of it all. The city was combusting with passion, culture, and beauty. Different creatures from different walks of life coming together to share food, music, fashion. I was enthralled and captivated, wanting to stretch every conversation, hold every scent in my lungs, taste every food, and walk every street.

I eventually came to learn that Bisari, like every other city I had been to, was not without its hierarchies. Energy creatures—succubi and incubi—were at the bottom of the food chain. This had been so in most parts of the country since Vampires overthrew the energy republic thousands of years ago and made Hazalu a vampiric democratic monarchy.

I could relate more with energy creatures, than with the Werewolves of the city. Once I became familiarized with Werewolf culture in Bisari, I quickly became irritated by their superiority complex and how much emphasis they gave to physical strength. Omegas were ostracized in Bisari amongst werewolves, many of them stayed in the closet about their s*x.

Alpha’s mostly married alphas so they could reproduce more alphas which meant I rarely ever saw same-s*x werewolf couples because the next thing werewolves cared about after their physical strength was having an ‘alpha heir’. Even the local newspaperman who barely had a single Kanari to his name, thought he was worthy of calling his children ‘heirs’.

It made no sense to me. Back home, Omegas were a crucial part of society. Alpha’s mostly married Omegas and there was no shortage of same-s*x mating. For all the faults that my Kruwish community had, my value was never dismissed as a functioning member of the pack, but here I was considered next to nothing as an Omega by fellow Werewolves.

The longer I went without a job in the city, the lonelier I became. The available jobs were either at bars or clubs, but environments like that were too overwhelming. I might have escaped home, but I was still Kruwish and still held the same values. I wanted a decent enough job to pay for a comfortable apartment, food, bills, and of course, suppressants and milk. I had blown through most of my servings, and everything was ten times the price in Bisari.

“There is an opening at Vantrope Industries.” Ricky, an Incubus I had met at Gamebox, who worked as a delivery guy in the city slipped me a card. “It’s not much. They need a new person on the post team, call my friend and she will hook you right up, I already vouched for you, no need to interview.”

Ricky’s friend was Rosa, a young ninety-five-year-old vampire who managed the post system for Vantrope Industries. She wore too many greens, had a boisterous laugh, and loved to dance during lunch.

Rosa and I made up the entire post team, which meant our work was unending. I spent most of my days traveling up and down the hundred-and-seventy-floor skyscraper of Vantrope headquarters, seeing that all posts went where they were supposed to. The job was more physically tasking than I thought it to be but I was grateful to finally be working. I could start saving again, start planning for my future, however, it was then that the loneliness became more daunting than it had ever been.