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PART ONE:

INHALE

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RAINE

PRESENT DAY, 85 YEARS AFTER THE SWITCH

Grand Prairie Compound

Days Since Last Attack: 82

Ismell him from where I sit at my desk before his hand can even rise to knock on my closed door. Each rap of his fist increases the tempo of my pounding heart. Even from here, his earthy scent wraps around me, spilling over my skin in a bath of warm tea splashed with citrus. Goose flesh rises in its wake.

“Come in,” I say, thighs already clenching.

The door opens to reveal Ferris, my brother’s best friend and packmate, standing in the threshold. He won’t come in—it’s one of many unspoken rules between us, but just seeing his imposing frame leaning against the door jamb is nearly enough to undo me.

I had been around alphas for almost three years when I met Ferris, yet there was something about him that spoke to something in me that had yet to wake. I felt changed that first time I locked eyes with him, and he smiled, revealing a gap between his front teeth framed perfectly by the sharp, elongated canines that marked him as alpha.

Now, he takes up nearly the entirety of my doorway, strong shoulders stretching a T-shirt so worn that the warm olive of his skin is visible through the weave. His strong hands are fisted, shoved into the pockets of his cargo pants, like he can’t trust them to be free at his side. His amber eyes glow with an intensity that he hides from everyone else, but never from me. They’re nearly covered by his rich brown curls that have grown so long they kiss his eyelashes.

I usually cut his hair for him, but he hasn’t asked me to in a while. Not since he caught me sneaking some of his hair clippings into my pockets.

His nostrils flare above his black mustache that matches the beard he only recently started wearing. I hate how much I love it. I hate how much I love everything about Ferris. I hate that it thrills me when I catch him secretly inhaling my scent at dinner. I hate that we have so many secrets, and so many rules, between us.

More than anything, I hate that he makes me hate River—my big brother. The man who’s ensured our survival for eight years. The man who almost single-handedly runs the Grand Prairie Compound with Ferris by his side.

River didn’t know what Ferris was to me when he brought Ferris home from his first meeting with the Midland Council six years ago. He didn’t even know it when he and Ferris officially became packmates. But I did, and maybe Ferris did too, deep down. Maybe that’s why he didn’t argue about becoming pack, didn’t question it when my mother died nine months ago, and I became the responsibility of my brother’s pack. He went along with anything that made me inaccessible.

Ferris likes these lines between us, these fences that keep his life neatly organized.

We both know the truth.

Ferris might be pack with my brother, but he belongs to me. Mother always said scents don’t lie, even when people do, and the truth of our situation now pulses in the air between us. He is my scent-match, someone who is my perfect biological complement. Our connection makes our instincts crave each other in a way neither of us will likely ever feel with another person. I thought scent-matches were a fable told to comfort terrified little omegas, yet here I hold fate’s greatest gift, and I can’t have him.

I close my journal and turn fully toward Ferris. “What is it?” I ask.

His lush lips flatten into a harsh line, and his rich tea scent sours into something bitter and oversteeped. He’s angry. “River and I were just meeting with the assembly. I left early because I didn’t want you blindsided.”

The Grand Prairie Compound is part of a greater system of trade loosely governed by the Midland Council, a group made up of leading alphas that meet and organize trade routes and other alliances across the Prairie Parkland. However, within our compound, there is a ruling assembly of five people, including my brother, that make the important decisions about our lives.

Based on Ferris’s aggressively angry pheromones, I can guess what the meeting was about today.

While alphas receive the royal treatment in our compound, omegas are treated as nothing more than a resource. River has told me that our compound assembly matches omegas in an effort to keep order. Omegas are rare; alphas are less rare; betas are plentiful. To keep the alphas happy and the omegas safe from harm, the assembly matches them together. Alphas get omegas, period. Usually, they form packs so more alphas have access to an omega. In most cases, betas are prohibited from having relationships with omegas, unless they are part of a pack.

This system has always disturbed me, but I’ve been told by my best friend, Vale, that omegas have it better here than in the bunker compound her family escaped from out west. It’s not comforting to know that other omegas have it worse and there’s not a damn thing that can be done about it.

There’s only one thing the assembly could have said that would have angered Ferris this much. Something we’ve both been ignoring for three years. I take a deep breath and guess, “I’m going to be matched.”

Ferris’s body jolts like he’s taken a bullet and a low snarl climbs his throat. “Yes,” he hisses. “The assembly pressured River into agreeing.” He opens his mouth to say more, but the slamming of the front door alerts us to River’s arrival.

“Raine,” River yells out, “pack meeting in the kitchen!”

Ferris disappears from my doorway, and I scramble to stand on unsteady legs. I knew this day would come despite my vehement pleading with the universe to spare me. No omega goes unmatched when there are so few of us, and I’m far too old by community standards to be single. Yet it feels like I’m walking into a horde of Biters as I drag my body to the small kitchen table where Ferris and River sit.

I take my allocated spot opposite Ferris. Mother’s empty chair next to me is haunting. I wish she were here.