The cage is beautiful.
That’s the cruelest part.
Alexander’s penthouse sits above Manhattan like a god complex made of glass and gold. Floor-to-ceiling windows. Silk curtains. Marble so pale it looks soft. From up here, the city doesn’t roar—it kneels. Every light below feels owned.
I’m escorted inside like a guest, not a prisoner. My wrists are free. My phone is gone. The doors lock with a sound too quiet to hear, but I feel it settle into my bones.
“Welcome home,” Alexander says.
I don’t answer.
The laboratory is hidden behind a wall that slides open at his fingerprint. Stainless steel, white light, humming machines that smell like antiseptic and power. This is where he bleeds for science. This is where I’m supposed to save him.
Or doom my sister.
Sophia’s room is across the hall. Glass walls, frosted for privacy. Soft bed. Books. Cameras in every corner disguised as minimalist art. When she sees me, she runs to the glass and presses her palm against it.
I mirror her.
She’s alive. Breathing. Unbroken—for now.
“She stays,” Alexander says behind me, voice precise. “As long as you cooperate.”
“And if I don’t?”
His reflection meets mine in the glass. “There are collectors who pay more for a frightened Omega.”
The words slice cleanly. Surgical. I nod because I have no choice.
They call it employment.
A contract appears on the tablet he hands me—nondisclosure clauses, intellectual property ownership, consent waivers disguised as opportunities. I don’t read most of it. The condition is burned into my brain anyway.
Fix him.
Or lose her.
Dr. Marcus Thorne arrives that afternoon, white hair immaculate, eyes sharp with something that feels like guilt wrapped in pride. He taught me everything I know about pheromone chemistry in secret lectures and half-erased data sets.
“Luna,” he says softly. “I hoped it wouldn’t come to this.”
I laugh. It sounds wrong in my throat. “You always say that when it already has.”
Alexander sits in the observation chair as I draw his blood. He doesn’t flinch. His veins glow faintly beneath his skin, pulsing with synthetic Alpha dominance that shouldn’t exist in a human body.
The sample separates too fast.
I stare at the vial, heart stuttering.
This isn’t natural.
The genetic markers are wrong—overexpressed receptors, spliced sequences, edits stacked on edits like a tower built too fast. His pheromones aren’t just strong. They’re engineered.
“You’re not a born Alpha,” I whisper before I can stop myself.
Silence crashes down.
Alexander’s jaw tightens. Marcus looks away.
“What?” Alexander says, voice flat.
I turn the screen toward him. “This genome… it’s modified. Aggressively. Whoever did this wanted to force Alpha traits to dominate everything else. You were made.”
Something dark flickers across his face. “I know.”
The admission hits harder than denial would have.
Night falls like a held breath.
Sophia sneaks into my room when the cameras cycle—small, furious, shaking. She slaps me before I can speak.
“You lied,” she hisses. “About everything.”
I don’t defend myself. I deserve this.
“They killed her,” Sophia whispers, tears streaking down her face. “Mom. I remember now. They said she was defective. Genderless. Dangerous.”
My chest caves in.
“She was a Beta like you,” Sophia says. “And you let me believe I was special. Chosen.”
“I was trying to keep you alive,” I say, breaking. “I thought if they never looked at me, they wouldn’t look at you.”
Sophia turns away. “You’re just like them. Deciding who gets sacrificed.”
The words stay with me long after she leaves.
Later, the penthouse alarms don’t scream. They don’t need to.
I feel it before I hear it—the air thickening, pressure crashing down like gravity doubled. Alpha pheromones flood the corridor, wild and feral.
Alexander is on his knees in the lab, hands shaking, pupils blown wide.
“Get out,” he snarls when he sees me. “Now.”
I don’t.
He lunges.
The force of his body slams me into the counter. His scent wraps around me, suffocating, demanding submission that my body refuses to give. His teeth graze my neck, searching for a gland that doesn’t exist.
For one terrifying second, I think he’ll kill me.
Instead, he shoves me away and grabs a syringe, jamming it into his arm without hesitation. Suppressant. Too much.
His body convulses. He collapses.
I catch him before he hits the floor.
As he slips into unconsciousness, his face twists—not with rage, but with disgust.
“Monster,” he breathes. “They made me a monster.”
I hold him anyway.
And in that moment, surrounded by gold and glass and lies, I understand the truth that will destroy us all.
The system didn’t just cage Omegas.
It manufactured gods—and broke them on purpose.