I wasn’t supposed to come in today. But the stronghold spans miles, so it can take a while to reach the infirmary, and another one of General Agard’s rules is that a healer should always be on site. Since most of my colleagues are currently attending the expansion efforts by the south tower, I volunteered to go into the field.

And then I remembered what today is.

I better not get caught, or I’m screwed.

“Something on your mind, kid?” Ulf asks.

I don’t bother telling him that at twenty-two, I haven’t been a kid for a while. “No, no. I always get distracted when Highs go on so long.”

He snorts. “Don’t I know it. And it’s getting worse. My mother said that when she was born, the water wouldn’t even reach the peak of the east tower. These days, it submerges the south tower by several feet. Then again, my mother also kept insisting that unsubmerged dry land still existed. Other continents, she called them. Deep in the south. Lots of odd notions in that woman’s head.”

I hold back an eye-roll. I had this very argument with Lennart last week, and his reaction was as condescending as Ulf’s.

“It’s not that odd. Some even think that there might be other strongholds like ours, with even more people than in this one.” I gently remove the army-blue Kevlar cuisse from his thigh, setting it to the side and uncovering the thin engineering suit underneath. “Isn’t it nice, the idea that we might not be alone?” That if we’re not happy here, in this stronghold, there might be another place where we could be?

“Hard to believe, with Highs like these… The last one rose so suddenly, it destroyed lots of the expansion progress we made during the previous Low.” He sighs, then points at the gash in his leg, just under where his cuisse ended. “And now I’m injured, wasting precious time.”

“You’re doing great,” I reassure him. “I can coat your wound in collagen, but first I’ll need to use acid disinfectant on it. We are so low on anesthetic, we’ve been ordered to ration it for major surgery until we can collect more raw materials during the next Low. The other option is less painful, and it involves tape suturing your cut, but it’ll take much longer to heal⁠—”

“I’ll take the collagen. I can handle it.”

I bow my head to hide a smile. I’ve been taking care of the engineering soldiers for nearly ten years, first as an apprentice, then as a healer. Not one has ever selected the second option. “Okay, then. I’m going to restrain you, just to make sure that you don’t accidentally move during treatment. That’ll minimize the scar tissue, and⁠—”

“No need, no need.”

Oh, no. He’s one of those. “Sir, I would prefer if⁠—”

“I’m not new here, kid. I’ve had way worse wounds. I need no restraints.”

I swallow a sigh at the predictable stubbornness of old Alphas. Normally, I would push back and force a harness on him. But none of my colleagues are around, and I know better than to pick a fight with an Alpha when we’re alone. “Very well,” I say, leaning forward to see to his injury.

He flinches back before I even touch him, eyes abruptly widening in shock. I pretend not to notice because this is a recurring experience for me—an Alpha getting a whiff of my scent and realizing that I’m an Omega.

It’s the reason I avoid getting close to people I don’t know well as much as possible. Everything about me screams Beta, and I’m happy to let them keep assuming that’s what I am. After all, I’m tall, and my muscles are wiry. My smell is faint. I don’t exude the kind of soft, sensual appeal that elicits an Alpha’s protective instinct. Simply put, I’m not like an Omega should be.

And there’s a reason for that.

Unfortunately, I can pinpoint the exact moment Ulf realizes the nature of my condition, because his face fills with something that looks too much like pity for my taste, and he no longer meets my eyes.

I hate it. So much so, I hide it with a quick smile. “Ready?” I ask, digging into the back of my brown cotton uniform pants. I find my pocketknife and use it to further cut open the fabric of his trousers. “I’m going to pour the disinfectant. It’s going to hurt.”

“You said that already. And as I told you⁠—”

It all happens really fast, and for the most part, I’m proud of how I react. Ulf may have had way worse, but the second the acid pools inside the wound, he screams as though I’m squeezing his bowels out of his body. His leg reflexively extends into a kick, but I fully expected it and easily dodge the hit.

What I did not expect is the punch. His fist makes contact with my eye with so much force, I drop backward, first onto my ass, then belly up, the cold stone floor hard against the back of my head.

Well, I think, mortified. That was a first.

“I am sorry— Healer? Healer? I don’t know what came over me! I didn’t mean to⁠—”

“It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt,” I lie, deeply annoyed at myself for allowing it to happen.

The man’s apologies continue, but I ignore him in favor of lying there for a minute, taking stock of my life. When I finally open my eyes, a familiar face is scowling down at me.

“Oh. Hey.”

“Sof,” says Lara Larsen. My closest friend. My soon-to-be sister-in-law. “What the hell are you doing on a welding site, today of all days?”

“I’m okay. Thanks for asking, though.”

“Please. I beg you. Tell me you’re not going to show up to your own mating ceremony with a black eye.”

I can’t tell her that. So I stare up at the ceiling and choose silence.

Chapter 3

THE JITTERS Sofia

The elevator speeds quickly toward the residential floors—so fast, I give up trying to get a glimpse through the portholes.

Lara buries her face in her hands. “My brother is going to kill me.”

I pat her shoulder. “Lennart is too lazy for murder, or you’d be long dead.”

“He told me. Yesterday. Last week. He said, ‘Don’t let her go to work on the day of the ceremony.’ And I said, ‘Pfft.’”

“Pfft?”

“Yes. Pfft. As in, pfft, she’s not going to work. Pfft, why would you even think that?”

Say what you want about my relationship with Lennart, but he does know me very well. “It was an unpremeditated crime. And a routine shift. If the guy hadn’t⁠—”

“Oh, shut up. This is going to swell.” She lurches closer to poke at my still-pounding cheekbone, and I jump backward with a pained yelp, cradling the side of my face.

“It’s fine.”

“It’s already bruising. Lovely. Just lovely.”

“It’s just a mating ceremony, Lara.”

“It’s your mating ceremony, and it’s in three hours, Sof. Lennart is going to be so pissed. Mom will never speak to me again. Dad won’t either, but that’s already the case.”

I doubt Lennart would care if I showed up with kelp smeared on my teeth. As for Lady Sienna Larsen, Lara’s Omega mother, she may belong to the kind of family that prizes composure and appearances above most things, but she’s never asked me to be anything more than what I am. As lacking as that may be.

The elevator shifts and begins to move horizontally, transporting us to the upper floor of the eastern wing, where House Larsen’s quarters are located. Nobles get the prized upper floors, and the common born take what’s left—the poorer they are, the lower. Sunlight is precious and sought after, and it never filters below Level Fifteen, not even during the deepest of Lows.

My mother, a Beta daughter of House Kellen, was raised on the highest floor of the south wing. She would have happily stayed there, I’m sure, if she hadn’t met and fallen in love with my father, who was an engineering soldier. After her parents disowned her for the crime against her lineage, she moved to one of the middle levels with Dad and lived there until her premature death. I grew up in those same quarters and always felt grateful for my circumstances. It wasn’t until the first time Lennart visited me, back when we were teens, that it occurred to me to be self-conscious about my origins. I remember him squinting at my small room, taking in the stacks of holos and the way the bed was not quite long enough for my legs. He let out a small laugh, then asked, “No, really. Where do you live?”