“Alpha.”
The word echoed through Rain’s mind.
This world recognized far more than the old binary of man and woman: Alpha, Beta, and Omega. The law forbade forced matches and denied anyone the right to use pheromones as an excuse to steal another person’s choices. Yet equality on paper had never erased prejudice.
Alphas were still presumed powerful and born to command. Omegas were protected, watched, and overdefined. Betas like Rain were treated as ordinary—as people not worth explaining.
Until tonight, that hierarchy had felt distant. Now she discovered that the friend she trusted stood at its most privileged summit.
She remembered her sister complaining about the Alpha scent on her clothes. She remembered the strength in Celestina’s arms when they cycled and the silences that discouraged questions. She remembered struggling to breathe tonight despite smelling nothing. None of it had been imagined.
And Valdieri meant more than Alpha.
A handful of technology groups controlled the city’s transportation systems, funded the equipment of elite universities, built its most popular immersive games, and designed the increasingly unforgiving AI that screened job applicants. Rain knew little about the family, but its name appeared behind news stories, advertisements, and charity galas. Its power influenced the lives and choices of countless people.
She had believed the name an abstract emblem. Now she might be sitting opposite its heir.
“Are you frightened?” Celestina asked over the rim of her glass.
Rain forced a smile. “Wow. Really? This is the first time you’ve even introduced your surname.”
“And Andis—the person who contacted me. From what he said, you two were…close?”
“We dated.” Celestina’s gaze darkened on Rain’s wine-wet lips. “What did he tell you?”
“He said he was your toy.”
Rain hated how young and gullible she sounded beside Celestina’s composure.
Celestina leaned closer and brushed loose hair from Rain’s cheek. “That is his description.”
“What is yours?” Rain caught her wrist. “What do you call it?”
Celestina looked at the hand around her wrist. Rain released her as if burned, but Celestina’s gaze remained on the place.
“Everything between us happened while we were sober and consenting. I never forced him to do anything he disliked. I gave him many things he deserved—and some he did not. Later, he wanted something I had never offered.”
“He has always known what he wants, including now.”
“So you lied to me, Celestina Valdieri.” Rain folded her arms and bit down on the cumbersome surname, almost biting her tongue instead. “What kind of ridiculous name is that? European? German?”
“Italian.”
Celestina was not offended. Rain’s awkward effort to reduce the gulf between them only made her remember the warmth of Rain’s hand.
“Then why?” Rain stood abruptly.
Celestina blinked, rare uncertainty crossing her face. “Why what?”
“You and me. Why?” Rain pointed at Celestina’s chest, then herself. “You’re an Alpha—a very powerful Alpha. Why hide all this to become my friend?”
Perhaps their friendship had been fate, perhaps only a rich woman’s whim. Either way, Rain saw no reason to continue while its meaning remained obscured.
Celestina faced her across the table. Behind her ocean-blue eyes, an invisible storm broke. She took in the curves beneath the green qipao, Rain’s strong thighs and honey skin, and the flush anger had brought to her cheeks.
“I don’t know,” Celestina said.
Rain stared at her. Celestina touched the place over her heart where Rain’s finger had rested.
“This decided by itself.”
Her lashes lowered over mesmerizing blue.
Rain drew a sharp breath and retreated one step. Then she seized her purse and headed for the door.
“Rain.”
She stopped and looked back.
Light caught the edges of Celestina’s gold hair. Her restraint had produced a strange, sacred calm, like a Madonna carved for a church.
“Saturday is fine,” she said. “Come at two. I’ll prepare Rongrong and all his things.”
She paused. “If you don’t want to see me, I can have someone else hand him over. He is your cat, after all.”
The last words trembled faintly in the quiet room. Rain looked across the elegant table—the silverware cold, the wine clinging to crystal, every detail too perfect to be real.
“See you Saturday.”
Her composure sounded false even to herself.
Rain left. Celestina collected her coat and followed, maintaining a proper distance along the dark carpet. Warm wall lamps made the corridor feel like an expensive cage. Rain quickened her steps. Celestina neither fell behind nor came closer.
At the elevator, she pressed the button and withdrew half a step. Her tall Alpha shadow swallowed Rain’s smaller Beta silhouette, though in reality she carefully preserved the comfortable gap.
The elevator chimed. Rain darted inside. Celestina did not follow.
Just before the doors met, Celestina raised her eyes. Her smile and habitual warmth had vanished, leaving only the stillness of deep water.
“Rain. I did lie to you.”
The doors moved inward.
“But I never meant to toy with you.”
The last words were sliced thin by the closing seam.
Rain leaned against the empty elevator wall. Beneath her ragged breathing, a deeper sound rose into focus.
Thump. Thump.
Her own disordered heartbeat.
Outside, Celestina watched the floor numbers descend. A waiter stopped at the far end of the corridor, unwilling to approach. Everyone could sense that Miss Valdieri was displeased, even without anger on her face.
She opened her conversation with Rain. The cursor blinked twice. She wrote nothing.
Instead, she opened a city map: Orfeo-Aureate’s pilot coordinated safety network, integrating public cameras, traffic monitoring, emergency medical response, and incident alerts across parts of New York.
Its reassuring slogan promised: A safer city, where everyone gets home on time.
The public camera outside the restaurant was one insignificant node. Celestina entered the restaurant’s code, and an image appeared.
Rain emerged through the lobby doors in her emerald qipao and stood at the curb ordering a car. Night wind tossed her black curls and pressed the green skirt against her thighs.
Celestina watched for several seconds, then closed the feed.
The system had been created to find missing people and detect danger. In her hands tonight, its only purpose was to confirm the location of a woman who had just walked away from her.
Not too fast.
Do not frighten her.
Do not let her discover it.
Celestina’s thumb pressed the cold metal edge of her phone. The darkness she had restrained finally surfaced in her eyes.
Saturday was two days away. Good. At least Rain would return for Rongrong.
She closed her eyes, but the image continued: honey-colored skin, curling black hair, innocent dark eyes.
“Mia pioggia,” she breathed.
My rain.
She held the words on her tongue, swallowed them with restraint, and still could not prevent the faint sigh that escaped.