Prologue
Prologue
{grantaires pov}
I always knew the risks of being an unbonded omega living alone, outside the realms of society. I just had to outrun them.
Out here there were no alphas to sniff me out and attack me, no government officials to imprison me and no betas to hold grudges because they weren't 'special'. Betas were always jealous of alphas and omegas, god knows why- they had the best luck of all of us. They didn't have to submit and bend over to a complete stranger whenever they wanted them to. As for alphas, screw them, the goddamned lot of them.
I ran away to the fringe of the city aged fourteen, two years before I was due to present my gender. I had accepted by then that I was going to present as an omega, and the government would keep a close eye on me as an omega, and a male one at that. I couldn't deal with them knowing everything about me and forcibly matching me to any number of alphas as soon as I was old enough. I tried to fly under the radar, but news of a male omega travelled fast and I found myself circling the city fringe, outrunning alphas trying to knot anything with a scent.
My problems took off when I met Les Amis De L'Omegas.
I hadn't heard of Les Amis De L'Omegas before I met them persay, but I had heard rumours and advice to keep my head down from more well-meaning betas I had met, ones who didn't want to see a young kid stolen. Les Amis were a government organised group that 'saved' (abducted) vulnerable omegas and kept them locked away until they were mated to keep omega numbers up. Only 13% of society were omegas, it would look bad on the government if we died out, hunted to extinction like animals. Current talk was that omega security was going up get worse as time went on- omegas being 'adopted' by the government from an earlier age and kept under lock and key no matter where they were from.
Before my mother was killed by a group of drunk alphas, she used to tell me about times when omegas were prized, but free. When they didn't have officials breathing down their necks, when they could roam outside without fear of attack. When they could be treated like normal people.
Ever since my mother's death, my eighteenth birthday had seemed more terrifying. Being bonded to a dominating man (I was assuming a man) who could fuck me whenever he please and pretty much do whatever he wanted scared me. On my birthday, he would find my name tattooed on his body somewhere in my handwriting, and then would track me down. A male omega isn't hard to find when you have the government's help, and then I wouldn't be able to object to a lifetime of sex, abuse, pups.. oh god, if there were pups...
I loved pups, my omega chemistry meant it was hardwired into me as much as running away from scary things and submitting to an alpha. But the likelihood of me carrying omega pups was almost certain- there hadn't been an alpha in my family that I knew of that hadn't been bonded in, and betas were few and far in between. I didn't want to bring omegas into a world like this; a world where they would be hunted because of their gender and stolen from me by the government.
I had to face the music soon- I was going to be bonded to a male alpha I had never met, be bonded, bedded and pupped.
I was running from Les Amis, it was only a matter of time before they found me.