"Damn, it's hella hot in here!"

The words hit the room the exact second the math teacher walked through the door. His sharp voice cut across it.

"Jared Rickdorf, please watch your language."

A few people whistled. Others made strange noises. Most didn't pay it much attention, mainly for two reasons: first, they were wrapping up the school year, and that particular year was their last before university. Second, and perhaps more relevantly — the comment had come from Jared Rickdorf, an ultra-dominant alpha who sat at the top of every power ranking that existed.

Jared was eighteen. Six-foot-one, slightly wavy blonde hair, fair skin, honey-colored eyes, built like a seasoned basketball player. Charming in every sense, with a face too boyish for the position he held and the personality that came with it. That was common knowledge at the elite private school he'd attended since elementary, there wasn't a single person who didn't know that name, from the faculty to the student body to the maintenance crew. But if there was anyone who knew every side of him perfectly, it was Leo Candem.

Leo walked into the classroom late. He'd spent the first two periods helping teachers and students set up for the end-of-year event. This year was their class graduation, which meant he'd been wrapped up in the project for a while, though to be precise, he'd been doing similar things since the year before. Sometimes he felt more like part of the school staff than an actual student.

As a model student, Leo had held the highest GPA in the school since freshman year, five consecutive years running. He was class representative, and this last year they'd added him to something called the "Junior Supervisors," which Leo translated as Free student manual labor. But since he was on scholarship and every activity would be certified by the principal to pad his résumé, he decided to overlook the exploitation.

Contrary to what people might assume, Leo wasn't exactly a poster child for political correctness. Nobody cared about his methods though, only his results. He was the only person in the entire school who could handle Jared. If Jared sat at the top of the food chain, then Leo was the kind of supernatural force that contained, surrounded, and kept him in check.

Leo crossed the classroom, dropped into his seat. He glanced at his desk, someone had left a book and a note. He silently swore that if it was another favor someone needed from him, he was going to end up in prison for arson. He was genuinely close to burning that beautiful institution to the ground with his own hands. He ignored the note and opened his notebook. The teacher was already closing a topic Leo was just starting. The hour ended, bringing with it the elegant footsteps of the ethics teacher. She glanced sideways at the noise from the back of the room, took a quiet breath, and fixed her gaze forward.

Her voice recited in a tired tone:

"Page 162, rhetoric according to—"

A crash cut her off.

Leo let out a sigh. Nobody said his name but he didn't need them to. He stood up and turned around. One of the desks had gone over. On the floor was one of their classmates, a beta, if he remembered right, with an ugly bruise forming on his leg. Jared was crouched beside the desk, holding it by one of its legs. Leo felt every pair of eyes in the room land on his back.

"Sorry," Jared murmured, flashing a smile. It was his genuine, almost sweet, way of apologizing when he got caught doing what he considered a prank. The problem was his sense of humor was brutally cruel. Leo sometimes wondered if he did it on purpose, or if it was just one of those dominant alpha traits, the ones that tended to come with a stunning lack of empathy.

He heard the teacher ask Jared to leave. Leo went over to help his classmate up while the teacher sent one of the girls to walk him to the nurse's office. Leo told Jared to come with him. He shrugged and followed without argument.

Out in the hallway, the alpha's voice came with audible relief:

"Ah, I needed that. Wanna go to the courtyard?"

"No," Leo said flatly. Then, clearly annoyed: "You don't have to break someone's leg to get out of class."

Jared laughed.

"I didn't break it. Besides, that was the desk falling on him."

"Great. You can explain that to the principal."

Jared let out an irritated snort.

"How long is this going to take? Ethics ends soon and next period is free."

Leo stopped dead. Jared nearly walked into him.

"Right , they have free period. You have to stay. And so do I." He paused. "Apparently I'm your personal babysitter now."

Jared flashed him a wide smile and gestured for him to relax.

"Come on, lighten up. I was just bored."

Leo put his hand over his face.

He fixed his blue eyes on that honey-colored gaze — and without a word, kicked Jared in the shin. Jared yelped and looked at him with a furrowed brow.

"You get bored. I have to study. I can't afford to miss classes." A brief pause, while Jared straightened up and looked at him with wounded dignity. "Now — walk."

Leo picked up his pace. Behind him, Jared muttered under his breath about his complete lack of sensitivity.

The thing about Jared was that he didn't need to try at anything. He sat at the top as an ultra-dominant alpha, part of 0.1% of the population. His entire family was the same lineage, same subgender, same characteristics. They held an excellent position in society, built on money and power. Nothing about Jared's future was ever at risk which made him, by general consensus, untouchable. Except, of course, when it came to Leo.

They'd met in fifth grade, when neither of them had a defined subgender yet, no awakening of any kind. Even then, Jared had always known how to take up space. His presence carried a weight that could be overwhelming, which made a strange contrast with a face that sometimes looked almost delicate. Leo, on the other hand, had always stood out academically. He was impartial, fair and had a terrible temper. Dark hair framed a face with strong, well-proportioned features: deep blue almond-shaped eyes set beneath thick, curling lashes. His hair was straight, kept in clean cuts that gave him a serious look. He could hold his own in any conversation with adults. With his classmates, he was, as they put it, the devil. He didn't do bonds. Maybe that was why he and Jared had clicked so fast. Leo's theory was simpler: his power came from the strength of his right hook, which had done an excellent job of taming the beast.

The walk to the office was short. Leo had Jared sit at a desk in one of the far corners, away from everything else. He set up some notebooks, left a heavy old textbook and a sheet of questions.

Jared looked at the book.

"Leo, I already read this one."

He said it the way a child announces they've just discovered how clever they are.

Leo looked at him, shook his head slowly. Of course he'd already read it. On top of everything else, Jared had an extraordinary memory.

"Jared, I care—" he glanced around and lowered his voice "...very little. Possibly nothing. Answer the questions. Write a synopsis. Then you can go back to class."

Jared ran a hand through his hair with a conflicted expression, picked up a pen, and started writing. Leo left the office with a satisfied look on his face and one single thought:

Please, no more incidents.

He'd clearly forgotten, for a moment, exactly who he was dealing with.

#

It was 1 PM — fifth years' turn for the cafeteria. Leo was late again, having detoured to the lab for something he needed in chemistry. By the time he got there, most of his classmates had already finished. He went to the counter, checked the menu, and barely held back a smile. Chicken with potatoes. One of the maybe three decent meals the cafeteria served, and they only put it on once every two months.

The woman in the catering uniform loaded his plate generously. Leo gave her a wide smile, which was unusual enough to be notable. He found a spot near the windows, away from the crowd gathering in the center, where he could watch the back courtyard in peace.

He was halfway through cutting his chicken when the low murmur he'd been ignoring exploded into shouting and the crash of something metal. Someone came sprinting to his table and grabbed his arm. Leo took a breath — a deliberate one — so he wouldn't throw a punch. He looked up into the brown eyes of a third-year student.

"Leo, quick! Jared's fighting Adrian."

Leo set down his fork. Stood up. Turned around.

Adrian was another of the school's alphas, wealthy family, problematic personality, and profoundly, reliably stupid. He apparently hadn't grasped that fighting Jared once a week wasn't going to change the outcome.

The crowd looked small from a distance. Up close it was twenty people packed tight, circled around two figures on the floor. Leo checked his watch, didn't stop moving, and pushed through. At the center he found Adrian on top of Jared, forearm pressed into his throat. Jared was pale but Leo could read him, and Jared was having the time of his life. Leo grabbed Adrian by the shirt and pulled him off like a sack of potatoes, one sharp pull back, then a shove sideways. The crowd had started to scatter. Adrian went to lunge again. Jared stepped in front of him and blocked him without breaking a sweat, though judging by the look on Leo's face, this wasn't close to over. His voice dropped low.

"I told you I'd smash your face if you interrupted my lunch again."

Jared tried to smile. His lower lip ended up between his teeth instead, a habit he couldn't shake, mostly because he never noticed he was doing it.

"Sorry," he said quietly.

Leo grabbed him by the arm and pulled him up. For the second time that day, he found himself walking Jared to the principal's office.

The situation with Adrian was always the same. A fourth-year omega had dated him briefly, ended it, and since then Jared — along with a handful of other alphas — had made it their business to follow her around and corner her whenever they got the chance. That alone was bad enough. But she'd also filed complaints about several of them, Jared included, for using their pheromones in public, which was completely prohibited on school grounds. Moments like these were when alphas genuinely struck Leo as something closer to animals. The thought that his own subgender might turn out to be that, a being ruled entirely by the need to dominate, quietly terrified him.

cont. part 2