Chapter Text
I’m halfway through cramming my life into a beat-up duffel bag when I find the old hoodie I used to live in at seventeen. It still smells faintly like that first rut. That weekend.
Yeah. That weekend.
The one where everything changed.
See, back in middle school and most of high school, I was diagnosed as a Beta. Totally average. No rut, no heat, no scent—nothing. I never thought much about all that second-gender stuff. My dad raised me to treat people like people, not walking scent profiles. Gender was second, always.
But then I saw him.
He was live-streaming from a hotel room. His second ever heat, apparently. Camera aimed low. There was this cloth mask over the bottom half of his face, just enough to hide his identity, but you could still see the flushed cheeks, the ruined eyes, the long chestnut hair all frizzed and curling at the ends. He had these floppy ears and this dumb little wispy tail that wagged every time he touched himself.
I wasn’t even looking for it. I just… stumbled on it. Curiosity clicked, and then—bam. Done. Gone. Wrecked.
I didn’t leave my room for three days.
I went into rut. Full-blown, primal, shaking, sweating, howling into a pillow rut. My first one. At seventeen. I didn’t even know that was possible for someone like me. My body felt like it was on fire, like something ancient and buried just woke up all at once. And it didn’t stop until Tuesday.
The same day he signed off. “Thanks for watching,” he’d said, like he hadn’t just altered my entire existence.
Afterwards, I sat my dad down, mortified, and we had The Talk. The other talk. He took me in to get re-diagnosed, and sure enough—turns out I wasn’t a Beta after all.
Recessive Alpha.
Great.
Except it didn’t feel great. It felt like obsession. Because I couldn’t stop thinking about him. That boy behind the mask. The way he sounded when he moaned. The soft way he smiled during the pre-heat chats. The way he looked at the camera like he could see me.
I didn’t even know his name.
All I had was a username: OmeBoy19.
But after that first stream, my body started syncing with him. Every single heat he had? Boom—there went my rut. Like clockwork. Like fate.
I think the moment it really clicked—that I’d do anything for him—was when he mentioned, kind of offhand in the chat, that he used the donations to cover school stuff. Food. Heat supplies. The hotel.
He said his dorm wasn’t safe during heats. That was the word he used—safe. Said the walls were thin and there were too many Alphas around who didn’t respect boundaries. His scent was peaches, and apparently, that was enough of a magnet to make his heats a liability. So every cycle, he’d save up enough to rent a hotel room for the weekend. Just to have a door he could lock. Just to feel safe in his own skin.
And that wrecked me.
Here I was—an Alpha, just freshly diagnosed, and the world suddenly rolled out a red carpet for me. Scholarships, internships, handouts. My application to college barely cleared the system before I got acceptance letters. Everyone wanted me. Just for being what I was.
And meanwhile, he was working himself raw, dodging creeps, and baring himself online just to stay afloat. Just to keep his spot in school. Just to have somewhere to ride out a heat without getting mauled.
So yeah, I took two jobs. Bagging groceries during the day and dishwashing at night. Every cent I didn’t absolutely need? I sent to him.
My friends thought I was insane.
“He’s just using you, man.”
“You don’t even know him.”
“For all you know, he’s not even in college.”
But they didn’t get it. Not like I did.
I did know him. Maybe not by name or face, but I knew his heart. I knew the way his voice cracked a little when he laughed. I knew the way his eyes fluttered when he got flustered. I knew the way he always greeted me when I was first in the chat. Like it mattered.
He wasn’t marked. I could tell. And the way he talked to me—during those pre-heat lives, when no one else was there but me? That was real. He never shared much. Said it wasn’t safe. And I understood that. The world isn’t exactly kind to Omegas—especially ones who turn to streaming just to survive.
Still, over time, I picked up the little details. I learned that he liked sports but didn’t really play. That he didn’t have many close friends. That he was currently in college, somewhere, somehow. And that his scent was peaches.
God, peaches.
He always went live an hour before his heat, and it was almost always just the two of us. I’d be in the chat, asking soft questions, hyping him up, making him laugh. And sometimes, just sometimes, he’d answer with this warm little smile, and it felt like the whole world was just him and me for a minute.
He never asked me for money. Never even hinted. I gave it freely—wanted to. Because I couldn’t stand the thought of him out there alone, barely scraping by, while the world kept handing me gold for nothing.
It felt like my duty. Like something in me needed to help him.
I mean, what kind of Alpha would I be if I didn’t protect my mate?
Even if he doesn’t know he’s my mate...yet
Now, two years later, I’m nineteen. Packing for college.
And yeah, maybe it’s stupid. Maybe I’ve built him up too much in my head. But I believe it. I believe he’s real. That he’s out there.
My mate.
I don’t know what school he goes to. I don’t know what he studies. I don’t know his name. But I do know he exists. And I do know that everything in me shifted that night for a reason.
My friends still think I’m being an idiot. That he’s scamming me. That I’ll never meet him. They’ve asked to see his page, but I always say no.
Like I’d let them ogle my future husband?
Not a chance in hell.