Page 8 of Want It All
All the students at Banksia House were impressive. But the scholarship students were next level. There werethousandsof applications for the two scholarship places each year, and the students who got them deserved them. They hadn’t bought their place here, not with money, nor their family name. They’dearnedit.
Sebastian was, without a doubt, the smartest person I’d ever met. His parents were all Banksia alumni, but while his mother had gone on to win a Nobel Prize, and his fathers to win awards that were equally impressive – if not as well known – none of them had ever won a prize at Banksia.
Despite Sebastian’s achievements, his mother saw only his easy smile and warm manner. Nothing he did was ever good enough, and if itwas, she’d infer he’d used his looks to getthere.Sebastian isn’t serious enough, she’d say one visit, andhe simply doesn’t have the aptitudethe next. It made me livid, but it hurt Sebastian, deeply.
And so he was determined to win the Banksia Prize and prove his mother wrong.
It wasn’t a healthy obsession, but I wasn’t one to talk.
‘You’re getting that prize,’ I said quietly.
He hooked his foot around my ankle. ‘I know, alpha.’
He didn’t know, not really. Not evenIknew the lengths I would go to ensure his happiness.
I clicked into the pretty omega’s personal information, and noted down her room number, along with a few other details – her home address, her parents’ names, her birthday – before skimming through her application documents. As expected, her admissions essay was well-written, eloquent, and the perfect balance of emotive and respectful.
While I wouldn’t say it wasbetterthan Sebastian’s, it was certainly equally as good.
As I’d suspected, her education summary showed a gap of a few years after high school, probably when she’d emerged as an omega. Sebastian was right, too; she’d completed her Bachelor degree and Honours year online, after what seemed like a short-lived foray into art school on campus.
I wondered what had put an end tothatambition, but suspected I could guess.
When designations had started to appear, there had been a period of significant upheaval as workplaces and schools adapted to the new needs of employees and students. Tertiary academia, however, had always done things at its own pace. It had taken a few horrific – and very public – incidents caused by barely-human alphas for universities to start changing their policies around scent blocking and rut suppression, but by then, the damage had been done. Omega enrolment sank so low thatthe designation made up less than two percent of all higher education students across Australia. Everything was stacked against them: alpha and beta teachers who didn’t understand the complex needs of an omega body, harassment from fellow students and even teaching staff, and the nature of the term structure and assessment deadlines, which demanded that omegas change to meetthem, rather than allowing for flexibility to flow the other way.
There was a lot that needed to change.
Sebastian’s foot traced up my calf. I turned to him, my lips curving into a smile, and took his fingers in mine. ‘Have I ever told you that I love you?’
He rolled his eyes, grinning. ‘Only a hundred times a day for the last six years.’
‘Hmm. That doesn’t seem like enough.’ I caught a movement from the corner of my eye and looked up to see a handsome woman standing opposite us, smiling.
‘Is this seat taken?’
There was a sea of seats elsewhere, many of them closer to other groups of students. I wasn’t bothered so much bythat, though.
What bothered me was the way she was looking at Sebastian, the way her eyes caressed his golden hair, traced over his lovely face, and locked onto the delicious stretch of tanned skin beneath his collarbone.
My instincts bristled. ‘There are plenty of seats elsewhere.’
‘I was asking the beta, not you,’ she returned, her smile widening.
The alpha inside me snarled his displeasure. ‘Do you meanmybeta?’
She glanced at me for the first time. I knew what she’d be seeing: someone who was tall but slender, a messy crop of brown curls falling over his glasses.
‘I don’t see a bite,’ she said dismissively.
I smiled, showing my teeth. ‘What makes you think I’d bite his neck?’
‘If you’ve both finished pissing on my leg,’ Sebastian said tightly, laying down his fork, ‘I rather think those seatsaretaken. If you’re looking for a beta, might I suggest a different tack next time? Betas aren’t possessions to be had.’
She scowled. ‘What else are you good for?’ She turned and strode away, settling near a group of students closer to the salad station.
Sebastian sighed, rubbing his eyes. ‘For fuck’s sake.’
‘I’m sorry she was an asshole, Seb.’
