Saturday and Sunday were a blur of society meetings and club events where River had to focus all of her energy on avoiding the same few questions about her new scent, and the new partner that was expected to come along with it.

In pockets of time between lending herself to anyone who had asked her for help that weekend, she squeezed in a few pages of required reading. Finishing the chapters she was supposed to have read by Monday kept her up into the early hours of the deadline day.

Come morning, the reasonable hours, she had overslept.

She still had plenty of time to make it to her afternoon lecture, so she dressed in a white top with pleated ruffles over the chest, a chunky cream and blue cardigan, and blue jeans decorated with floral patches, then packed a tote bag with her laptop, sketchpad, pencils, a water bottle, and her phone, and headed out to draw the campus greenery.

She was alone in wanting to enjoy the crisp almost-spring air, everyone else was hurrying with their jackets tucked tight. There was frost on the grass and a sparkle to the leaves that she couldn't capture with just pencil and paper, but she tried. She had to try as hard as the plants were, straining to grow and bloom. She had so much adoration for the sprouts that cracked into the cold first. After the long, dark winter she needed to see spring's arrival as soon as possible. Summer was nice, autumn lovely, but River and winter did not get along. She didn't want to be trapped indoors, she didn't like the trees stripped, and if there was one thing worse than being wet - it was being wet and cold.

The chill of winter was still present, and when her fingers were fumbling with numbness, she packed away her pencils and headed inside for her lecture.

×

Their professor was late, bustling in with arms full of a laptop, a ring of keys, and a stack of papers. River hesitated, letting the rush of students file in before her.

“Didn’t take you for a truant.”

River jumped and spun, hands jerking to her chest like a scandalised lady of a bygone era. Her senses hadn’t caught the approach of an alpha - something her body was supposed to instinctively warn her of - because this particular alpha’s scent had become hers, indistinguishable.

Leaning against the wall a few feet behind her, Elliott looked utterly at ease. A tight black tee stretched over her arms and chest just enough to be a silent brag, hinting at a single flex bursting the seams. Not a bad thing for those with eyes, River could confess inside her head. Gold winked at her from a thin chain around her neck, and River would bet all her brass jewellery it was real. Fitted black trousers, a black belt and black and white trainers sealed Elliott’s monochrome look. River suddenly felt far too colourful in her flower patches and fluffy two-toned cardigan.

Elliott watched her with a dull expression, but intense blue eyes, darker in shade than River had ever seen on another person. They searched her for something, scanning her face, sliding over her body. River blinked back, knowing she didn’t have nearly the same power in her stare.

Elliott finally cracked a smirk. “You’ll wear my scent but you won’t answer me?” she murmured, looming in just a little, just enough to still look amicable. Her voice was deep, a slight huskiness giving her words a threatening edge.

River had never wished to shrink before, she was already small enough, but the urge to scurry away like a mouse overtook her.

“Um-” She swallowed. Her mouth was so dry it could have crackled. “I missed what you said,” she admitted with an awkward laugh. “You surprised me!” She threw a hand out, pretending to smack. The attempt at a teasing tone fell flat, but hopefully only Elliott noticed. Passers-by could still think they were a happy couple having a pleasant conversation between classes, exactly as their scents suggested.

“You didn’t make it to this morning’s lecture,” she said, as though River wasn’t aware. “And you missed Thursday, too.” She tutted at her, but there was a teasing gleam in her eye.

“You noticed?” Two words that fell out of River’s mouth without any pre-approval from her brain.

Elliott’s laugh was more like a single huff of air. “Don’t get the wrong idea.” She looked away, over River’s head and down the corridor. “You’re wearing my scent, I’d be stupid not to keep an eye out.”

“You think I’d date someone while I have your scent mark?” It was River’s turn to huff.

She dropped her eyes to her again. “I think you’re a weak little omega that can’t say no.”

River’s mouth popped open, but before she could gather herself to disagree Elliott had stalked away. She watched her wide back weave through crowds of betas a foot shorter than her. Who was a truant now?

And, more importantly, how dare she call her little? And weak? River pressed her lips together, suppressing her frustration as best she could. Of course, people thought those things about omegas but they didn’t outright say them to their faces. She had been wrong about her. Elliott wasn’t ladylike and classy, she was rude and arrogant. River squeezed the strap of her tote bag tight and pushed off from the wall.

Sliding into a seat at the back of the lecture theatre, she realised that this wasn’t even a module she shared with the alpha. Elliott had no reason to be lurking about, waiting to scare and insult her. She scowled at her laptop as she jabbed in her login. The scent would fade, and everything would return to normal soon enough. She'd had her fun at bowling, and that was all she wanted.

Her focus needed to be on her education for the next few hours. Then, it was competition time.

×

Fencing went about as well as River had anticipated.

She was only asked to participate in the foil matches, and she wondered, swishing it around, if it was because it appeared much lighter than the sabre and épée. Yet another omega stereotype: that they were all incapable of lifting heavy things. River was, but she didn’t like that the club captain, Reed, would assume that because of her being an omega. She didn’t complain, Reed had other things to be worrying about with the other clubs filing into the hall.

The protective gear was loose, but River consoled herself that the matches would be over quickly. She was only there to make numbers, and the only instructions she had been given were to jab forwards and duck to the sides. Her opponent had to hit her straight for points. She wasn’t expected to earn any.

Her first opponent, a dominant beta, was visibly startled at the sight of an omega stepping onto the piste, and gave their coach an uncertain look before pulling on their mask. River followed their lead and took a wobbly version of the stance that she had been shown fifteen minutes before.

The coach of a third club acted as referee and signalled them to begin.

Her opponent was hesitant to fight aggressively, which was fine - running down the clock with less prodding for River couldn’t be a bad thing - but still took the first point. River was jerky and unco-ordinated, but not nervous. She wasn’t there to be good, no one was expecting her to win, she just had to participate. There was plenty that she took part in that she had no skill for, sometimes not even any interest in, she just enjoyed the social side and being able to help her friends.

Another point to her opponent. And another. And the timer rang out.

River pulled her mask off and grinned. Her opponent did the same, pink-cheeked. When they stepped forward to shake hands, the beta ducked back as though River were taking another jab.

“Don’t want to get my scent on you,” they choked out.

River was suddenly pink-cheeked, too. “Ah, of course.” A handshake wouldn’t transfer much, it was perfectly acceptable for there to be small points of physical contact between submissives and dominants. It was Elliott’s scent that scared the fencer out of touching her directly.

River had almost forgotten about the alpha fog following her about. The fencing club had been gracious enough to not say anything about it when she arrived.

They shook their gloved hands instead.

Her second and third matches mirrored the first, and she was all too glad to pull her mask off for the final time. She watched the rest of the team compete from the fold-out chairs lining the room and let a submissive beta from another school chatter to her about strategies she was never going to use.

River’s uni won first place. Her position on the table was dead last. She smiled at the leader board.

The three teams staggered to the changing rooms, cheering or jeering, and she slipped into a stall to change into daisy-embroidered shorts and cream sweater. She was glad she’d packed the lighter option for after the matches - she’d gotten surprisingly sweaty for a participant that barely moved.

Weaving through the chatting competitors back out in the hall, she searched for someone to take her used uniform off her hands. She had done her best to fold it, but the padded lining wasn’t easy to crease, and it had turned into more of a bundle in her arms.

“We’re just working out who’s driving who for dinner,” Reed, the captain of River’s university club, told her as she collected the sweaty material. “Would you be comfortable in a car that has a dominant? We haven’t got enough subs to fill one car.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me, I was just going to head home.”

A round of complaints sprung up from the team.

“You have to come, River, you’re practically the guest of honour,” Reed chuckled. “We literally couldn’t have competed without you taking that slot.”

A deep voice called out, “Careful, man, her alpha might not like you getting too pushy.”

River’s red face returned.

Reed's matched. “Oh, sorry, do you need to ask for p-”

“I can go where I like!” River yelped.

Fencers from all three schools were staring at her, concern creasing their features. They looked to Reed, suspicious, calculating how likely it was that he would be hassling an omega.

“Th-thank you for your concern, Reed,” River added, as loudly as her suddenly-dry throat would allow. “I’m perfectly comfortable to ride in a car with a dominant but it’s very considerate of you to check.”

The spectators relaxed, reassured that the omega wasn’t being bothered by a dominant.

“Okay," Reed croaked. "Let’s head out then.”