Once, humanity lived within the confines of three primary sexes—male, female, and nonbinary. Biology was simple. Identity, predictable. But instinct was never satisfied with simplicity.
A fracture began at the genetic level. The endocrine system betrayed its old patterns. Subtle at first—anomalous hormonal surges, strange attractions, altered brainwave responses. Then undeniable.
Pheromones had existed long before, but these new secretions were different. Potent. Directive. They did not merely attract—they compelled. They could calm a riot, provoke violence, or bend another's will. Their release obeyed no conscious command, only instinct.
From this rupture in the genome, three archetypes crystallized:
ALPHAS – aggression sharpened into dominance. Protectors, predators, commanders. Pheromones that could seize the air of any room. During rut, their instincts magnified, volatile and uncontrollable.OMEGAS – empathic resonance heightened to a razor edge. Their cycles ignited pheromone storms strong enough to override logic itself. Vulnerable in body yet unyielding in survival, they were underestimated at society's peril.BETAS – stable, adaptive, resistant. Neither drawn into rut nor heat, yet attuned to balance. The invisible scaffolding that held civilization upright while Alphas and Omegas threatened to tear it apart.
As these subgenders spread, civilization rewrote itself around them. Laws were drafted. Dynasties shifted. In some nations, Alphas ruled as kings. In others, Omegas were worshipped as sacred vessels. Betas were overlooked, even dismissed, yet their neutrality prevented collapse.
But with hierarchy came cruelty.
Omegas chained as property. Alphas feared as beasts. Betas erased in silence. The system was both salvation and prison.
Vault IX was constructed to study the anomaly. The Council of Geneticists—known internally as the Flamebound Circle—believed humanity had grown stagnant.
Emotion dulled. Society fractured. Their cure: awaken the dormant instincts locked in ancient DNA.
Their keystone discovery: Gene L-13.
A genetic trigger buried deep in the human code. When provoked by trauma or hormonal surge, it rewrote the subject's biology into Alpha, Beta, or Omega.
The consequences were irreversible.
Subjects emitted pheromones capable of rewriting behavior in others.Alphas became territorial to the point of madness.Omegas entered cyclical heat states that blurred the line between power and peril.Betas alone endured the shift without collapse.
For years, the Circle studied, documented, and refined. Until a failure almost tore them apart—when a bonded Omega drew too many Alphas into synchronization, the resulting psychic resonance nearly leveled the Vault.
The Council panicked. They buried their research. Vault IX was sealed.
Before the shutdown, an anomaly was recorded. Not Alpha. Not Beta. Not Omega.
Codex E.
Designation: Enigmas.
They resisted rut.
They resisted heat.
Their pheromones did not seduce—they commanded.
They could bond across subgenders, impregnate across boundaries.
They destabilized every hierarchy the Circle had built.
One subject carried Codex E to term. A child. Never registered. Never named.
Its records were erased. Its existence—buried.
But rumors persist.
Some claim the child escaped, founding a secret order that believes subgenders are cages—and Enigmas the key to breaking them.
Others whisper the child's body was dissected, its DNA scattered, seeds hidden in bloodlines waiting for reawakening.
The Circle swore it would never surface again.
But if Codex E lives… society as we know it will fracture.
Riven tilted his head back, eyes fixed on the towering Nexus building—a monolith of glass and steel, cold enough to slice the sky. First day back after five years in exile. If Nexus Corporation hadn't sent the offer, he wouldn't be standing here. Wouldn't even have considered coming back.
He told himself he had no reason to. But the memories didn't care. They hit hard. Fresh. Raw.
The way his family had shoved him out the moment they discovered the truth. Pregnant. Him. An S-Class Alpha carrying a child. He'd fought to keep it, fought like hell, even though he had no idea who the father was. Just one night. That night.
He remembered the ballroom—thick with pheromones, Omegas in heat. His siblings and cousins had left him there like bait. He'd resisted. Held the line. Didn't give in to the instinct clawing inside him. Didn't let the Alpha take over. But then he saw him. The man who shattered every defense. One night together, heat and hunger tangled into something unforgettable. And afterward, everything unraveled.
His body betrayed him. Pheromones glitching, instincts unraveling. Triggered ruts came fast, feral, impossible to control. Alphas were supposed to dominate, to lead. But his cravings had shifted—no longer for power, but for connection. For something soft. For something dangerous.
The memory of his father's voice still cut deepest.
"Shameful. Just like your Omega mother. Shameless. An S-Class, submissive—and pregnant? What kind of disgrace are you trying to dump on this family?"
He'd collapsed once, right in the middle of a Paragon board meeting. Thought it was just burnout, the cost of burying himself in work to forget that night. But then the doctor told him otherwise.
"Your body wasn't built for this," the man whispered, eyes wide. "But it's adapting. Fast. Like it's been waiting."
Riven had felt the floor tilt under him. Waiting? For what? How could one night turn into this?
His father's voice answered, bitter and unrelenting.
"You didn't even flinch when you went submissive. And now you're pregnant? You parade your S-Class status like it means something, but you're nothing—nothing but an S-Class embarrassment."
The words echoed even now, sharp as broken glass.
Riven clenched his fists, dragging his gaze away from the building. Nexus wanted him back. Needed him, even. But his family's shadow still pressed down like chains. And no matter how far he ran, he carried their voices with him.
His strength is still there—coiled somewhere deep—but it feels distant, unreachable. What lives in his body now doesn't feel like power. It feels like something foreign, eating him from the inside out.
His bones throb like they're being broken and rebuilt without his consent. Skin raw, hypersensitive—every brush of fabric is a jolt. He bruises too easily. He heals too slow. It's as if his body has stopped belonging to him, hijacked by something it was never meant to carry.
And his scent.
It used to be sharp. Commanding. Pure Alpha. Now it fractures when it hits the air—layered, unstable, unreadable. Predators can't track him. Allies don't recognize him. Some flinch like he's dangerous. Others stare too long, hungry to decipher what he is. Both reactions cut the same. Both make him feel less than human.
That's why they cast him out. Not because he was pregnant. But because he was becoming something they didn't have a word for. Something that scared them.
And that's the worst part—he's scared too.
Every shift in his body feels like a trespass. Every ache is a reminder that his bloodline, his very identity, is being rewritten. If an Alpha can carry life, what does that make of all their rules? What does that make of him?
Not Alpha. Not Omega. Not anything he recognizes.
An aberration. A mistake wrapped in flesh.
He stares at his own hands sometimes and wonders: how long until even these don't feel like his?