Chapter Text
Rey is not my fiancée. She’s not my girlfriend, family, or friend—at least not in any primary sense. We had no formal relationship until about a year and a half ago, and yet, in that short span, she’s come to consume my thoughts. Next to my studies and career advancement, she is my most urgent consideration.
Rey is my Hometown Charge.
It’s an old-fashioned term for a modern arrangement—a holdover from the days when unmated omegas were rarely permitted to live alone. The tradition’s been rebranded now, of course, under the Omega Autonomy Initiative. The idea is to support young omegas pursuing higher education by pairing them with vetted hometown alphas—someone known to the family, someone accountable. It’s meant to preserve omega independence while ensuring safety. It also keeps all sorts of rude behavior at bay. The arrangement makes good use of an alpha’s possessive, protective, and occasionally excessive nature. And not being able to start fights at sporting events—because you’ll get expelled and lose your standing to protect your paired omega—has kept more than a few hot-headed alphas in line. A win-win.
There are about a dozen of us on campus—alphas serving in a protective capacity for omegas from their regions. We’re sometimes called charge pairs, a phrase that tries too hard to sound progressive. Some arrangements are sibling-like. Others are a little too obviously pre-bond flirtations waiting to happen.
Rey and I… well, it’s complicated.
Not because I don’t like her—I do. Not because I resent the responsibility—I don’t, not at all. I take it seriously. Maybe more than I should. It was almost alarming how naturally I stepped into the role of protector for Rey. How at home I felt considering her care, ensuring her well-being.
The truth is, I hadn’t intended to accept the role at all. My coursework was demanding, my research schedule relentless, and the last thing I needed was to be responsible for an omega’s welfare.
But then Leia called. She said she’d heard—through her vast network of busybodies—that Rey was slated to be paired with Jason’s boy, some jittery business-school junior. Still in undergrad, and an alpha she’d never liked the smell of.
Leia had learned that Rey didn’t have much in the way of family—not anyone close enough to advocate for her the way an omega deserved. And once my mother heard that, it was over. She decided the Solos would step in.
“She’s the prettiest, sweetest little omega this town has ever had,” Leia said, “and it wouldn’t be right for her to be paired with some nitwit who could barely make JV.”
I love my mother—but Leia can be such a snob. Still, she meant well, and she wasn’t wrong about Rey deserving better. Leia always has a plan, a vision for improvement, and a thinly veiled hatred of wasted potential.
I went to the meeting expecting a formality.
And then Rey walked in.
Sweet. Composed. Bright-eyed in a way that made me instinctively double-check her file—eighteen, freshly admitted, still too young for the way the room seemed to shift around her. An unmated omega, barely grown, about to step onto a campus filled with restless alphas.
She had that kind of presence—attention followed her, even when she didn’t seek it. She wasn’t flirting or posturing, just… luminous. There was a clarity to her expression, a steadiness that made you want to stand a little taller.
And then there was her scent. Gods, her scent—warm honey with something clean beneath it, like paper left to dry in sunlight. It hit me before she even spoke, and I knew, right then, I wasn’t walking out of that room without agreeing to take the position.
With the way things are on this campus—the lack of boundaries, the way some alphas still think a designation grants them rights—I couldn’t, in good conscience, leave her to someone else’s care.
Which is how I ended up here now, standing in her dorm room, staring down at two pill bottles tucked in the back of her desk drawer.