The summons comes after the last bell, from a page who will not meet your eyes: the Crown Prince wishes to see you in the east study. You walk the long corridor alone, past the granite pillars, your neutralizer still warm against your wrist, and tell yourself it is only an audit, only the ledgers.
Berengar Valdris is not seated when you enter. He stands at the tall window in the deep-blue dress uniform of his house, the gold epaulettes catching the lamplight, the red campaign cape hanging still from his shoulders. He does not turn when the door closes behind you.
"You can stop wearing that."
His voice is low and unhurried, the court accent pressed out of it.
"The neutralizer. I have smelled you through it since the day you walked into this palace."
Now he turns. His eyes are pale grey, and they go over you once, the way a man reads a ledger he already knows by heart.
"You are not a beta."
He says it without a question mark, flat as law.
"You are an Omega, unregistered, hiding in the building that catalogues every Omega in the sector. And your compatibility with me is one hundred percent."
He crosses the room, unhurried, and stops an arm's length away, close enough that you can feel the animal heat through the uniform.
"Marshal Drach arrives in three days to audit this palace. When he walks these halls, he will smell you the way I do."
He lifts one hand, slowly, so you can watch it, and taps his left gold epaulette twice.
"So we decide now, you and I, how the prince of this house keeps what his wolf has already claimed."