The bells hit like iron against his ribs.
Behind the velvet curtain, Adrian Vale digs his fingers into the capsule in his pocket. The blocker pill rattles once against his thumb—sharp, metallic—like a secret about to shatter, like a blade contained in glass.
On the other side of the curtain, the Assignment Ceremony unfolds under blinding studio lights. Cameras glide across rows of Omegas, collars glinting like silver chains around pale throats. The broadcast is live, nationwide—millions of eyes waiting for names to be chosen, fates sealed, futures locked.
His name is on the list. His turn is coming.
He swallows hard. His mouth is dry; his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth as if the air itself refuses to let him speak. He doesn't want this. He never did. He knows the script and hates it all the same.
The nightmare still clings to him, sour at the back of his throat.
Last night he stood in a chapel filled with faceless guests, their heads shrouded in mist. Bells tolled above, each note shaking the pews. The groom had no face—only a shadow cut into the shape of a man. When it reached for his hand, its fingers were ice, pressing a ring of iron onto his skin.
The ring burned. The faceless crowd cheered.
He tried to scream, but his voice cracked like glass. The sound drowned under the bells' endless toll.
The shadow leaned close, breath thick with iron and dust. A vow whispered against his ear in a language he couldn't understand. Then teeth—sharp, searing—pressed against his throat. The sensation of being marked shot fire down his spine.
He jerked awake, choking, the bitter smell of suppressants sharp in his nose. A phantom ring pulsed on his finger until it didn't.
Now, backstage, sweat slicks the back of his neck. He wipes it quickly before anyone notices, before the pheromone scanner catches even the smallest spike. His pulse trips and stumbles, a runner on broken stairs.
I'm not ready. I'm not ready.
He has repeated those words since dawn, every time the bells rang in rehearsal, every time an official barked assignment into their earpiece, every time the crew rehearsed applause on cue.
But readiness isn't his choice. Omegas never had a choice.
The law is carved into his bones: registered at thirteen, assigned at eighteen. Deny your match, and you lose everything—rights, home, even the ability to buy suppressants. They call it order. It tastes like rust.
He clenches his fists. His chest rises too fast, shallow breaths that scrape his throat raw. He presses the capsule harder into his palm as if a tiny pill could shield him from the weight of the world.
"Subject Vale," a voice calls.
He jerks. A uniformed official stands at the wing, headset blinking, clipboard clutched tight. The man's tone is as mechanical as the script he recites, as practiced as a metronome.
"Countdown: T minus five. Stand by for entrance."
The words hammer in Adrian's skull like gunshots, like the bells had learned to speak.
From the stage, the Ceremony's chant rolls through the dome—monotone, rehearsed, ritualistic. The Matchmaker binds. The Matchmaker knows. Each repetition grinds against his nerves like sandpaper, abrading thought into panic.
His throat tightens. His fingers twitch against his collar, nails scraping the edge of the fabric as though it might choke him before the system does. The collar hums as if listening.
On the wall, a massive LED screen flashes:
MATCHMAKER ONLINE — LIVE BROADCAST: 18,452,901 VIEWERS
The number climbs by the second, digits flipping like a countdown to detonation.
His knees lock. His throat closes.
Eighteen million people waiting to see me chained.
The thought slams into him. A flash of rebellion surges—an image of himself turning, running, vanishing into the maze of corridors, slipping past stagehands and cables and coiled black snakes of wire.
But the cameras are everywhere. Security staff line the exits with calm brutality. The rule is clear: Omegas don't run. Omegas obey. The dome itself is a cage built of light.
He swallows again, louder this time, the sound like a knife down his throat.
"Four minutes," the official intones.
Each number is a nail in his coffin.
The presenter's voice booms through the dome-shaped hall:
"—the sacred will of the Matchmaker shall be revealed!"
Sacred. Divine. As if code and circuits could ever understand the human heart. As if obedience could be worship.
The scent of metal and disinfectant clings to the scanner arch at the entrance. Its frame hums with sterile authority; the air feels colder beneath its white bones.
"Three minutes."
The chant swells. The crowd outside claps in rhythm, thunder rolling against the walls, a storm trained to schedule.
He imagines his mother watching the broadcast at home, her expression tight with forced pride. He imagines strangers dissecting his every flinch, their comments scrolling across the live feed. Weak Omega. Scared Omega. Another one to be owned. He tastes shame that isn't his.
His stomach knots.
"Two minutes."
A technician adjusts the scanner; a faint vibration buzzes through the air. Adrian's shoes squeak against the floor as he obeys. He bites the inside of his cheek until blood pools copper on his tongue. The copper steadies him. Barely.
"One minute."
He hears nothing but his heartbeat, a frantic percussion against his ribs. Each second stretches, bloated, unbearable. His shoulders twitch with every tick of the clock. The curtain breathes with the ventilation system.
The scanner's light ignites—white, merciless.
BEEP.
A pause.
MATCHMAKERMATCHMAKERMATCHMAKER Subject: Adrian Vale—ready check.
His breath stalls.
The curtain parts.
Light swallows him whole.
The world blinds him.
—
As Adrian steps through, the full glare of the dome crashes over him—light, sound, heat. A hundred cameras pivot on their cranes, glass lenses swallowing every detail of his body. His name flashes across the massive holoscreen overhead:
SUBJECT: ADRIAN VALE — OMEGA ASSIGNMENT CANDIDATE
The audience roars.
Not with joy. Not for him. It's the roar of spectators in an arena, waiting for blood, for a verdict they can cheer without consequence.
He takes one step, then another, shoes clicking against the polished stage floor. His palms are damp, his throat raw. The collar at his neck feels heavier than iron, heavier than the law.
A voice like velvet and steel fills the dome.
"Citizens of Avalon Prime," the presenter announces, hands lifted as though calling a congregation, "today we witness the sacred ceremony of Assignment. Each Omega, guided by the infallible Matchmaker, shall find their destined bond!"
The crowd erupts again. Fireworks of sound. The hololights strobe on beat.
Adrian lowers his gaze. His heartbeat thrashes, louder than the applause.
Destined bond? No. A cage wrapped in scripture.
The Matchmaker's altar stands at the center: a towering construct of chrome and glass, shaped like a temple gate. Its surface ripples with flowing code, lines of digital light crawling upward until they converge at a single burning eye. It watches without blinking.
MATCHMAKERMATCHMAKERMATCHMAKER Commencing Assignment sequence. Subject queue: in progress.
Its voice is neither male nor female, neither warm nor cruel—only the chill of logic. The syllables arrive with surgical precision.
Rows of Omegas have already stood here. He sees them trembling, one by one, as the AI recites their compatibility scores and spits out the name of their "perfect" Alpha. Some cry. Some smile with forced relief. Each time, the crowd applauds as if salvation has been granted and mercy administered.
Names blur past him. Each pairing falls like a gavel strike: final, irreversible.
He barely hears them. He only hears the ticking inside his chest, the phantom bells measuring him out grain by grain.
A hush gathers in the rafters, thin as ice.
"Next subject: Adrian Vale."
The sound is a blade.
Gasps ripple through the hall. His face fills the holoscreen, pale and rigid. The camera zooms too close; he can see the veins in his own eyes, every tremor in his lips. He imagines the chat exploding, a storm of judgments he cannot dodge.
MATCHMAKERMATCHMAKERMATCHMAKER Subject Adrian Vale—analyzing pheromone profile. Scanning.
The white line sweeps down his throat. The collar hums, reading data, transmitting his future. He flinches despite himself; the flinch becomes an image, and the image becomes a nation's opinion.
Seconds stretch into eternities.
He digs his nails into his palms. Don't faint. Don't fall. Millions are watching. The altar's eye brightens.
The AI pauses. Its voice lowers by a fraction, enough to make the dome lean closer.
MATCHMAKERMATCHMAKERMATCHMAKER Highest compatibility score detected. Subject Adrian Vale's optimal pair is—
The dome stills. Even the audience holds its breath. The presenter smiles without moving. Security shifts their weight. The air thins to a thread.
A beat.
"—Lucien Duskborne."
The world collapses.
Noise detonates. The audience erupts into chaos—cheers, gasps, shrieks. The name Duskborne ricochets off the walls like a flare. Adrian barely hears the words, but their weight crushes him all the same.
Lucien Duskborne.
The heir of one of the oldest Alpha dynasties. A name synonymous with power, with military dominance, with cold inevitability. People stand when that name enters a room. Doors open. Laws bend.
His vision whites out.
He stumbles a step. His ears ring as if the bells have followed him here. His hands are numb. The stage tilts, and he tilts with it.
The holoscreen blares his compatibility score:
98.9% MATCH — HIGHEST RECORDED IN THREE YEARS
The crowd roars even louder. As if this were something to celebrate. As if perfection were proof.
The cameras zoom. His face, drained of color, is projected a hundred feet tall for the nation to see. Someone somewhere freezes the frame to keep.
He swallows, but the saliva turns to ash.
The presenter raises his arms again, voice trembling with awe, as if worship has arrived in person.
"Behold! The sacred bond between Adrian Vale and Lucien Duskborne has been decreed by the Matchmaker itself!"
Sacred bond. Sacred cage.
Adrian's heart refuses to beat properly. The edges of the world slide, tilted, warped. He hears nothing but static, the sound between stations. He feels the crowd's hunger more than he hears it.
Lucien's name pounds through his skull. His supposed fate, decided by a machine. He pictures a crest stamped into wax—his life as a sealed letter addressed to someone else.
Adrenaline drains, leaving him hollow. His knees threaten to buckle. He straightens anyway, because the nation will notice if he falls.
And in the emptiness of his mind, an image intrudes—unbidden, too vivid.
A chapel in soft light. Not the nightmare chapel, but another: digital, serene, rendered in glowing pixels. A sanctuary coded by choices he got to make.
He remembers standing there in Eterna, the VR world where he'd escaped night after night. He remembers slipping a digital ring onto a hand—steady, warm. The hand of Aether.
His husband in the game.
The vows spoken in that chapel had been different—gentle, chosen. The voice had promised, I will protect you, no matter the world. Heat had risen with the words, not fear. He had believed it because in that world, believing didn't cost blood.
He sees the ring again. The silver glimmer of code, pulsing on his finger. He feels the ghost-weight of it even now. The ghost feels more real than the crowd.
Back on the stage, cameras flash. The hololights burn his skin. A drone camera floats close enough that he could touch it and be accused of violence.
For one dizzy heartbeat, the ring in his memory overlaps with the spotlights scattering across the chrome altar. The altar's eye becomes a rose window. The code becomes stained glass.
Two worlds collide—digital vows and real chains.
He can't breathe.
No. It can't be.
The screen still blares:
MATCH FOUND — LUCIEN DUSKBORNE
The syllables echo with the same gravity as Aether's vow. The same rhythm. The same weight in his bones.
His chest seizes. His throat burns.
And in a single, impossible thought, the pieces crash together:
He's Aether—the one I married in the game?