Robbie's POV

(Flashback)

Born the son of the Chairman of Exquisite Hotels & Resorts Pvt. Ltd., blessed with good looks, top-tier intelligence, and tested as an Alpha early on, my life was tailor-made for success. I was what they called “Elite.” There was nothing I couldn’t have. Girls and guys alike threw themselves at me. I dominated in academics and sports. Desperation was a foreign concept to me. I believed I deserved everything.

That is... until I turned thirteen.

The moment it was confirmed that I was an Alpha, my father shoved me into a grueling grooming process to become his successor. He didn’t ask me what I wanted; he never did. To him, my future had already been signed and sealed. As his son, I would take over the family business.

The training was merciless. After school, I was dragged straight to the office. On top of my regular homework, I had piles of reports, business terminology drills, case studies, and meetings to shadow. I started to resent my friends, who were out enjoying their youth while I was trapped in a boardroom with people twice my age.

Within a year, those friendships crumbled. My dad wasn’t even present half the time; I just existed in the same space he did. The pressure escalated when I was told to start taking part in the actual business decisions.

Then came the recession. The political climate tanked, tourism dried up, and our business, which relied on tourists, was bleeding. My golden life was cut short. I was forced to leave my elite private school and enroll in a local public one. To my pampered, privileged ass, it felt like exile.

How could I have understood then that my pain was just bruised ego? I'd been raised to believe that status was everything. Stripped of that, I thought I was being punished for some invisible sin. 

That school was beneath me, its students beneath me. I was surrounded by unfamiliar noise, unfamiliar rules, and strangers I couldn’t connect with.

I didn’t speak to anyone, and I made sure nobody got close.

The company crisis demanded all of my father’s attention, so my training paused. For the first time in years, I had free time. But what was the point? I had no friends anymore.

That was when I noticed Tony.

It wasn’t because he was popular or striking. It was the way he was always alone, like me. He didn’t seem lonely, just... disconnected. There was something about his silence that drew my eyes.

At first, I couldn’t explain why I kept looking at him. But then I noticed his eyes, large, almond-shaped, always rimmed with exhaustion and a kind of quiet sorrow. They were haunting and… beautiful.

Also…There was his scent.

It was addictive. Every time he walked past, I’d get a whiff of something mouthwatering, something that made my stomach twist with want. At first, I thought it was a perfume, but no cologne could smell that raw.

So I started watching him closely.

I saw how people avoided him like he was contagious. Teachers, classmates, even the cleaning staff, he was a ghost in his own school. And yet... he didn’t seem to care. He wore that isolation like armor. The mystery of it only hooked me more.

The devil finds work for idle hands, right?

I had perfect scores, spotless attendance, and was even being considered for student council, which I declined. I didn’t want to be around people. But with nothing left to challenge me, my thoughts fixated on him, Tony.

He read constantly—novels, newspapers, textbooks. He worked part-time at a nearby store. He was shockingly good at cooking. He missed exactly one week every month like clockwork. And above all, he never noticed me watching.

He avoided Alphas like the plague, including me. It pissed me off at first. Then I understood why.

Tony was an Omega. The only one in the entire school.

No wonder his scent was so intense. No wonder he kept everyone at arm’s length. It made sense. The way people treated Omegas in our society was... horrific. Once they release pheromones, which they have no control over, and an Alpha snapped…it was always the Omega’s fault. They were accused of seducing Alphas, of being sluts, of being gold diggers. No one blamed the Alpha.

It made me question a lot of things. If pheromones were just a part of their biology, how could they stop it? And even if they couldn’t, shouldn’t Alphas be the ones held accountable for their actions?

But I was young and foolish.

I didn’t really get what it meant until the end of our junior year exams. I was watching Tony like usual, when suddenly, he collapsed.

He dropped to his knees, his face flushed, breathing erratic. His ears and neck turned red. Panic gripped me... until I smelled it.

His scent hit me like a truck. It was raw and rich. I’d never experienced anything like it. Every instinct in me screamed to take him. My hands curled into fists, my vision blurred with need. It scared me. I turned and ran. I didn’t look back.

Later, I heard that he’d been surrounded by Betas and taken straight to the infirmary. Suppressants were administered. Nothing... horrific happened.

But the scent of his pheromones, the way they pulled at something primal inside me, I couldn’t forget it.

After that, I stopped thinking of him as a curiosity and started seeing him as an escape. A release from my suffocating world. I wanted to know him. Understand why he lived so quietly, so invisibly, and yet burned so brightly under the surface.

I know how that sounds now. But back then, I was arrogant, entitled, selfish, and emotionally stunted. I didn’t think of the consequences. I only thought of him.

So, on the first day of our sophomore year—

I finally approached him.