Mated to the Four Hockey Billionaire Alphas

Love always came with conditions. I learned that the day I presented as an Omega.

My parents loved the son who was going to be an Alpha like his father. They loved the perfect grades, the academic awards, the future they'd already planned out for me. Then I presented omega at twenty-one, and overnight I became something to be ashamed of.

"Do you have any idea what people in our circle are saying? An omega son? We should've sent you away years ago." My father spat those words three months ago, right before he threw my two battered suitcases onto the wet pavement and slammed the door in my face.

Rain poured from a black Chicago sky that night. It soaked straight through my thin sweater while I stood alone on the sidewalk outside my childhood home. My mother never even came downstairs.

That was three months ago. Three months of sleeping folded into the backseat of a rusted-out hatchback. Three months of double shifts at a coffee shop that smelled like burnt espresso and pity. Three months of skipping meals so I could afford suppressants that cost more than my rent.

I sat in my car after another ten-hour shift, feet throbbing, spine screaming, and pulled up my bank app.

*$23.41.*

I stared at the number like it might change if I glared hard enough. It didn't. My landlord had already sent three final notices this month. Tuition was past due. If I didn't work a miracle by Friday, I'd be spending a Midwest winter living out of a car with a check-engine light that never turned off.

Nobody hired unbonded, unmasked omegas in a city that belonged to Alphas. Not really. Every HR department in Chicago saw us the same way, a liability, a distraction waiting for a heat cycle to happen at the worst possible moment. And the news never let me forget what happened to omegas who slipped up, who got caught unprotected by the wrong Alpha with the wrong idea about what pheromones entitled him to.

My stomach turned just thinking about it.

But pride doesn't pay rent.

I dug a small silver box out of my backpack, three scent-blocking patches and a double-strength bottle of suppressants I'd bought off a forum that definitely wasn't FDA-approved. Illegal. Expensive. Murder on my stomach. And still non-negotiable, because the one thing I couldn't afford was someone catching my scent.

*Ding.*

My phone lit up.

> VANGUARD ELITE STAFFING: APPLICATION APPROVED

> Position: Lead Executive Assistant.

>Client: Confidential (High-Profile)

>Pay: $8,500/month + Full Benefits

>Note: Immediate trial interview required.

> Address: Lakefront Tower, Penthouse 1.

I almost dropped the phone. Eighty-five hundred a month. That number didn't belong anywhere near a job posting for a twenty-one-year-old college dropout-in-progress. I scrolled through the listed duties scheduling, private travel, grocery runs, absolute discretion ” and none of it explained the salary.

"This is a scam," I muttered, rubbing my eyes. Nobody paid this much to manage an apartment. Not unless they planned on selling my kidneys on the side.

I looked at the $23.41 again.

Honestly? At this point I'd have handed over a kidney myself if it meant keeping a roof over my head.

I didn't care who the client was. Didn't care if he was demanding, unreasonable, impossible. I smoothed down my thrift-store sweater, checked the mirror to make sure my patch was hidden under my collar, and pulled out of the parking lot before I could talk myself out of it.

---

Thirty minutes later I was standing in a marble lobby that cost more than my entire life.

The air hit me before anything else did. It felt thick with power, territory, Alphas. My stomach dropped into some deep, animal recognition I didn't ask for and couldn't switch off.

"Name?" The receptionist didn't look up.

"Orion Vance. Here for the assistant interview, Penthouse 1." Her head snapped up fast. Her eyes went straight to the faded jeans, the too-big sweater, the face I hadn't slept enough to hide. "You're the replacement?"

"Replacement?"

She looked away and cleared her throat instead of answering, sliding a keycard across the counter with an expression I didn't like one bit. Pity, maybe. "Private elevator's on your left. Press PH1." A pause. "Good luck. You'll need it."

My mouth went dry. I took the card and stepped into the elevator before I could think better of it.

The doors closed. The numbers climbed. I caught my reflection in the mirrored wall — pale, wide-eyed, patch peeling slightly at the corner ” and pressed it back down with a shaking thumb.

*Just get through this. Keep your head down. Get the job.*

The doors opened onto a cavernous living room, ceilings two stories high, glass walls holding back the entire skyline. Cedarwood. Peppermint. Something underneath both of those, dark and old, like wet earth after a storm. Dominance so concentrated it made my knees go soft.

I stepped out onto the marble, clutching my folder to my chest like it could stop something.

"Hello?" My voice sounded tiny in all that space. "I'm Orion Vance” from the staffing agency?"

A voice answered from the shadows by the windows. Low. Cold. Close enough to raise every hair on my arms.

"You're late."