The chanting started before dawn.
Low. Rhythmic. Male voices layered with rage and certainty.
I stood at the glass wall of the main building, watching them gather—rows of armed Alpha men in dark uniforms, their insignia stark against the morning fog. PUREBLOOD ALLIANCE. They carried banners like holy texts and rifles like punctuation.
“End mixed-gender education.”
“Restore biological order.”
“Hand over the fraudulent Omega.”
The campus I had sworn to protect had become a battlefield overnight.
Inside, students crowded the atrium. Fear smelled sharp—acidic Beta sweat, panicked Omega pheromones struggling against suppressants. And then there was Isabella.
She climbed onto the marble steps with a megaphone, her voice cracking but loud.
“She lied because the world punished her for the truth!” Isabella shouted. “If you want her, you go through us first!”
Omega students locked arms, forming a living wall in front of me.
I had never felt more exposed. Or more protected.
Alexander appeared at my side, jaw clenched. “Police are stalled. Negotiations are the only thing slowing them.”
“I’ll do it,” I said.
He stared at me. “Victoria—”
“I’ll talk. On one condition.”
The medical lab smelled like antiseptic and inevitability. Marcus’s equipment blinked silently as Alexander drew the final syringe.
“You don’t need to look like an Alpha to be strong,” he said softly.
“I know,” I replied. “But they don’t.”
The needle slid in. Cold flooded my veins, flattening the storm inside me.
On the steps outside, the Pureblood leader waited, flanked by guns and certainty. I walked out alone.
“I am Victoria Sterling,” I said into the amplifiers. “I will not resign. And this university will not surrender its students.”
They laughed.
The first shot shattered glass.
Chaos erupted.
Armed men surged forward. Students screamed. Smoke grenades hissed. I felt myself pulled back as the atrium exploded into violence.
“Sophia!” I screamed.
I found her near the stairs, blood blooming red across her shirt.
“No—no, no, no—” I dropped beside her, hands shaking.
She smiled. Gods, she smiled.
“I told them everything,” she whispered. “Recordings. Names. Marcus ordered it. He panicked.”
My chest broke open.
“They knew,” she continued. “They knew I was a spy.”
Her breath hitched. And then—
Power.
Raw, incandescent Alpha pheromones tore through the air, wild and untrained but devastating. The Pureblood soldiers staggered, weapons dropping as dominance crushed their senses.
Sophia screamed—not in pain, but in defiance.
Then she went limp.
“No!” I held her, rocking, blood soaking into my sleeves. “Stay with me. Please.”
The rooftop was a blur of sirens and smoke. Alexander shielded us as bullets ripped past. One tore into his side. He didn’t fall.
“I’ve got you,” he gritted. “I’ve got you.”
Somewhere behind us, Marcus’s voice echoed over a loudspeaker, pleading innocence, denying everything. Liar. Coward.
The chip repair alert blinked green in my vision.
Complete.
Useless.
I cradled my sister as the sun broke over the horizon, her scent fading, her revolution unfinished.
The campus was silent now.
And nothing—nothing—would ever be the same.