The Beta Is His Omega

Inside a cozy little coffee shop, a young man sat on a table by himself, watching the heavy monsoon rain outside beating against the clear glass of the window beside him.  The man had black, slightly wavy hair that framed his pleasantly sculpted face. His broad shoulders and chest—covered in a mint-green sweater—complemented the large plant decors behind him. Thus, he made quite a nice picture that drew a bit of attention inside the shop, especially as he seemed to be thinking about something deep at the moment. He wouldn’t quite call his own thoughts deep. Like many other people, Ren Ashford simply had a complicated relationship with the rainy season, and it wasn’t just because of the low mood it could inspire, or the damned inconvenience it could cause if you wanted to get anywhere in the middle of it. Even now, though Ren only appeared absent-minded as he sipped at his latte, his own personal reason for not liking the rain was actually making a jumbled mess of his insides. Literally.  And no, it wasn’t because he needed to use the restroom. Or rather… he did, but it wasn’t for the obvious reasons. ‘God, if I could just be thick-skinned enough to lock myself in there and…’ Before he could complete the thought, the door of the coffee shop opened, briefly allowing the sound of the rain outside to stream in.  A quick glance told Ren that the newcomer wasn’t the person he was waiting for. Instead, it was some poor woman who was currently struggling to close her dripping umbrella while trying not to drop the other items she was holding.  Ren found himself watching her, and he absently mused that, really, people’s usual reasons for hating the rain were bad enough by themselves. Just as he was about to stand up to offer the woman his help, she finally managed to close her umbrella. Then, she looked up. Almost at the same moment as Ren saw and recognized her face, a certain scent hit him where he sat near the door. It was faint—so much so that in any other circumstance, Ren would have dismissed it as just his imagination.  But even if, by some slim chance, it wasn’t actually Mei Griffiths across the room right now and just an eerie lookalike, there was still the fact that his body, which was already aching to be touched and filled up moments ago, was now responding even more to that faint scent. ‘s**t,’ Ren thought as he struggled to get his body under control. ‘Oh, s**t, why is this happening?’ Alas, he couldn’t even get himself to stand up. Try as he might, his skin was starting to flush, his throbbing hole was becoming slick, and from his very pores, another scent was blasting out, filling the four corners of this small coffee shop within a short span of time. “Oh no…” Mei said in horror. The moment she detected that scent, she dropped the rest of what she was carrying in order to hold one hand over her nose while digging with the other hand in her bag.  As an alpha, she was quickly becoming affected by what was happening to Ren.  “F*ck!" another person shouted. "Someone’s in heat!”  There was a commotion as the handful of staff members—all of them betas, thankfully—loudly called for any alpha among the other patrons to please quickly evacuate through the back room. “Ma’am,” a staff said while urgently approaching Mei. “Ma’am, are you an alpha?” Already too muddle-headed to think clearly, Mei continued to dig through her bag as she nodded. It didn’t seem to have occurred to her that she could just head back out the front door, which was still only a few feet away from her. Seeing her state, the staff approached her with more caution. “Ma’am, please, come with me this way…” Meanwhile, following protocol, the other beta staff members had donned masks before approaching Ren, who was slumped over his table. “Sir?” one of them called, careful not to touch him. “Sir, can you hear me? I’m so sorry, but I’m going to have to look inside your bag for your inhibitor.” If he could have replied past the immense, unbelievable pain he was in, Ren would have told them not to bother. After all, he carried no such thing with him.  And why should he?  Before today, he was just another beta that would go into a low-grade omega-like heat a few times a year.  That’s right, he wasn’t an actual omega. He was just some freak mutation of a beta that could somehow also pass physically for an alpha.  So why? Why on God’s green earth was this full-blown omega heat happening to him now? With all his might, Ren struggled to open his mouth to instruct the staff to get his phone. Seeing as they had planned to meet today, he knew that Kade Harker should already be on his way here to pick him up.  He also knew that calling him wouldn’t make Kade arrive any earlier, especially if he was stuck in traffic somewhere, but Ren didn’t know what else he could do at this moment. He badly needed someone—anyone—to take him by the ass and rail him hard, and his friend Kade was the only one he knew who could do that for him. In fact, he’d already done so many times before. “Call…” Ren finally managed to utter. But just then, quite clearly, he heard Mei say in a panic, “But I can’t leave here—! My boyfriend—he should be coming in any minute, and he’s—he’s also an alpha…” At those words, Ren forgot all about what he needed to say. Her boyfriend…? Could…  Could it be the same one as before…? No, what was he thinking? Of course it was the same one. Why else would his pheromones be hanging around her otherwise? And s**t, that man was coming to this place? Like, f*cking now…? Ren had no idea where he suddenly got the strength, but in the next moment, he managed to push himself off the table. At the same time, he spit out, “Someone get me out of here—” Just when he thought he could follow that up by getting to his feet and walking out by himself, the crippling pain of unfulfilled desire hit him again, and his whole body crumpled. “s**t… s**t…” he gritted out, feeling his conscious mind slowly slipping away as instincts took over him. “I need…” he panted while gyrating his hips desperately. “I need… someone… anyone… fill me up… please… get me… get me pregnant…” As he said that, the sound of rain reached his increasingly insensible ears once more. The front door had been opened.  But before Ren could make out—by sight or by scent—whoever it was that had now come in, someone stabbed him in the thigh with an inhibitor pen, and somehow, he knew nothing more after that. *** Five years ago…