Price of Silence

It was the third day since my arrival here, and I had my first meeting with Josef Ruse.

Josef had the manner of a docile young master. Fortunately, unlike most of the people I deal with in this line of work — people forced into becoming Omegas against their will — he did not treat me with hostility.

Whether it was an Austrian custom or something particular to the Ruse family, Josef's Omega attendant remained by his side throughout the meeting, serving him. Alpha-Omega attendants are usually married off to lower nobility or wealthy merchants for a substantial sum, so it struck me as peculiar that a family intent on securing its status by having their son become an Omega and marry an Alpha would keep an Omega attendant as a personal servant. It was even more unusual to expose an Omega servant — one who might carelessly let pheromones slip — before an Alpha guest.

Josef's Alpha friend paid a visit, and the three of us had tea in the afternoon. The Alpha who came today is the very person Josef intends to propose to, should this current matter conclude successfully. He has no idea why I am staying at Josef's house. He knows me only as a 'distinguished' young noble from England, touring the continent, and he treats me with appropriate courtesy. I wonder if he would still be willing to share a table with me if he knew my true identity. The mere thought is amusing.

If Josef becomes an Omega, the man will naturally assume Josef has spontaneously manifested and accept the proposal without question. Nothing will change, however guilty I may feel.

The strange thing is this: Erich waited on me the entire afternoon, yet the man seemed to detect nothing of Erich's pheromones at all. Had he sensed them, the two of them would have had no choice but to react to each other's scent immediately. That shouldn't be possible.

At my request, Erich went to the market and purchased some Swiss chocolate. It is one of the few indulgences I occasionally find myself craving.

I had doubted he would manage to find any, but for Erich, who knows the market conditions thoroughly, it apparently presented no difficulty.

We shared the chocolate and talked during his short break.

Erich says he envies how much I have traveled and asks me to tell him stories about other countries whenever he has a spare moment. But the only stories I have to offer are ridiculous tales of the arrogant nobles I have encountered, or amusing incidents born from the cultural differences between nations — since my own travels have consisted of nothing more than moving from one noble's estate to a wealthy merchant's villa, and then on to another noble's house. Even so, Erich listens to each of these stories as though they were utterly captivating.

In those moments, Erich's pheromones — like a rose basking in the May sunlight — are so tender and sweet that they pull a helpless sigh from somewhere inside me. It is a dizzying, intoxicating fragrance unlike anything I have ever encountered from any pheromones before.

Erich.

I have already been intimate with Josef seven times.

A Beta's body, unable to relax elastically enough to receive an Alpha's knotting, cannot endure intimacy at such short intervals. It usually takes several months before the transformation into a full Omega is complete.

Josef is, honestly, the easiest 'client' I have worked with — easier than anyone who came before — since we agreed from the outset to minimize unnecessary contact and finish each time as efficiently and quickly as possible.

And yet, this time is the most painful I have ever endured. More painful than the beginning of this 'business,' when I had not yet learned to shut the window of my emotions and lock myself inside — when I used to vomit, go into shock, even attempt to take my own life.

It is not because of Josef. It is because of Erich.

I cannot close the window of my emotions. I cannot stop the light — so abundant — and the fierce wind and rain from flooding deep into this desolate ruin.

Every time I am with Josef, I know whose face fills my mind. And when it is over, I know whose face sends me spiraling into guilt and sorrow. The true nature of the pain that comes from lying with someone you do not love is something you cannot fully understand until you have someone you do.

The only dreamlike reward I receive after each time with Josef is Erich's tender care — the way he hovers over me when my vision temporarily blurs, his concern for me written plainly across his face.

Though the duration and intensity vary slightly each time, my sight generally hazes for several hours, the edges of everything softening and indistinct. It is not so severe as to prevent me from moving or living my day.

But perhaps because my dimming eyes — growing clouded like the ash left in a cold hearth, like a ghost, as people call me — make the situation appear more serious than it is, Erich always treats it gravely, tending to me with a thoroughness of concern that exceeds what the moment requires.

I hope he can forgive the ugliness of my act and coddling — how I deliberately knock my thigh against the corner of the bed, or lean more heavily into him as he helps me rise, simply because his gentle pity and warmth feel good against me, and I want more of his attention.

Looking into his shining eyes while he speaks of his longing for adventure and far-off places, and receiving from him a genuine solace for my ghost-like existence — a life spent turning Betas into Omegas as part of the 'business' of restoring my household — those moments have been the most fully human happiness I have ever known.

I want to tell him that my pheromones, moving through my blood, are demanding that I live as your Alpha. Not Josef's. Not anyone else's.

Erich was a Beta.

Or perhaps he could not even be accurately called a Beta, given that he possessed pheromones. What was certain was that he had never once experienced a heat, and even when in the same room as Josef's friends or the other Alphas who frequently called at the mansion, he had never detected their pheromones — nor had any of them ever perceived him as an Omega. I am completely unsettled right now.

This evening, Erich was struck and humiliated by the Master.

It was not for any particular failing on Erich's part. The Master was simply taking out his frustrations on whoever was within reach.

Josef's father had, until just a few months ago, been one of the principal voices urging joint intervention with Prussia to prevent Denmark from annexing Schleswig and Holstein. He had enjoyed the Emperor's trust and wielded considerable influence within Austria.

He then joined the faction arguing that war must be waged against Prussia for its violation of the Gastein Convention, and it had seemed almost certain that a victory in this war would secure him a position within an imperial body charged directly with leading unification efforts.

Rumors, however, suggested the situation was not unfolding favorably for Austria.

The head of the Ruse household was often absent, consumed by strategy meetings with his allies. Even on the rare days he did return, the atmosphere was heavy.

When I first arrived here, he treated me with courtesy — inviting me to dinners and concerts, behaving as though I were merely a valuable stud horse on loan. But lately, whenever I heard he had come home and went down to greet him, he would glance at me with an expression of contempt, as though I were something grotesque and repulsive.

The entire household freezes whenever he is home, since no one ever knows when or over what trifling thing he might choose to pick a fight. Today's scapegoat was Erich, for failing to keep Josef's attire in proper order.

I was not present at the time, but news spreads through this mansion swiftly — every corner knows what has happened within thirty minutes.

Erich had come to tidy my room with his usual cheerful air, carrying on as though nothing had occurred, but eventually the tears came.

His tears tore at my chest — and I felt a small, involuntary flicker of something like joy at the thought that he trusted me enough to show me this. And then I felt disgust at myself for feeling even that small joy. My own happiness felt like a sin.

He said that while meeting a kind young master like Josef had been a stroke of fortune, a life in which he could decide nothing for himself, could not leave this city, and had no choice but to remain silent even when treated unjustly, felt utterly bleak — like being dust. He wondered if anyone would ever remember the name of someone as common and forgettable as he was.

It was not really about today. He was sharing what he had kept buried deep within himself — the quiet, aching sentiment of a life half-lived.

I could put my arms around his shoulders. I could wipe away his tears. But I could not say a single word.

Only one person. A Beta whose pheromones only I can sense.

You, who possess a configuration that overlaps with no other being in the world, are — at least to me — something that lies beyond all the world's classifications of Alpha, Omega, and Beta. Something that renders them all meaningless.

I could not tell Erich.