Eventually, Johanna took a job at a magazine that covered high-society gossip, all for the chance to see him more often.
She no longer tried to deny the reason she went to such lengths to follow his orbit.
The time for pretending was over.
She had to admit the truth to herself: this was a crush.
A hopeless, one-sided love.
“It has been too long, Marquis Neuwitz,” a man would say, sidling up to him at a party.
“Allow me to introduce my daughter.
She turned twenty this year and is a Dominant Omega.”
Standing in the corners of lavish ballrooms, Johanna often saw people approach him.
Half of them were Omegas—all of them with delicate, pretty faces and an air of fragility, as if they were flowers that might snap at the slightest touch.
Standing next to the Extreme Dominant Alpha, they looked like figures in a painting.
Johanna was grateful to be a Beta, but sometimes, she envied those with the Omega trait.
It was a feeling that had only surfaced after she had fallen for Leonid.
Alpha and Omega—two natures drawn together by the invisible threads of pheromones.
It was a world Betas could never truly know.
The concept of a Fata, a fated pair, felt as distant and unreal as a fairy tale.
A destined partner… Does such a thing truly exist?
Just then, Leonid was shaking off an Omega with a look of undisguised irritation.
His bored expression and cold gaze betrayed his notoriously fussy nature.
In her recent observations, Johanna had learned that he was exceedingly difficult to please.
It made her wonder: what kind of Omega could possibly capture the attention of Leonid Neuwitz?
To satisfy a mysophobe who openly detested Omegas, an ordinary beauty would not stand a chance.
It would likely take a woman of legendary allure, the kind said to bring nations to ruin, to even merit a second glance.
With an annoyed scowl, he strode out of the party hall.
Johanna watched him go, a familiar sense of disappointment settling over her.
He was leaving earlier than usual tonight, likely because of the sheer number of Omegas who had approached him.
Time marched on, bringing Johanna to her seventeenth birthday.
It was a day she would never forget.
Despite their tight finances, her mother had prepared a large cake and even gave her a present: a lovely silver pendant shaped like a clover.
Daniel gifted her a handwritten letter and a small bouquet.
Johanna read the letter on the spot and burst into laughter.
For that one day, everything was perfect.
A warm, comforting peace filled their small home.
Her father, likely off at some gambling den, offered no congratulations, but she had not expected any.
Before blowing out the candles, Johanna made a wish: for her mother and Daniel to be healthy and happy.
For them to always be together, just like this.
She had no grand ambitions.
This was all she wanted: her mother’s and Daniel’s laughter, their warm words, the shared cake, their loving eyes.
This was her entire world.
A world she had mistakenly believed would last forever.
The end of that world came with breathtaking suddenness.
“As of now, there is no cure,” the doctor said gently.
“All we can do is manage the pain and extend her life as much as possible…”
A terminal diagnosis.
Her mother, whose health had always been frail, became completely bedridden.
With a sick mother and an incompetent father, Johanna had to become the head of the household, shouldering every burden alone.
She quit the low-paying gossip magazine and took on more illustration work for serialized newspaper novels.
The luxury of observing the object of her affection was now impossible.
The fear that her mother could die at any moment, the mounting medical bills, her brother’s tuition, their daily living expenses—the weight of it all was a suffocating, silent despair.
It was March, and though spring was stirring, a late cold snap still gripped the city.
A frigid wind blew through the world and through Johanna’s heart.
Walking home from the newspaper office one evening, she stopped abruptly and looked up at the pale sky.
Ash-gray ice crystals drifted slowly down.
The temperature had dropped below freezing; it was beginning to snow.
She closed her eyes, feeling the cold flakes melt against her face.
Their transience filled her with a sudden sorrow.
But what was truly sad was the realization dawning within her.
It is over.
In that moment, she knew her carefree days had ended.
It was the end of her childhood.
The sensation of becoming—no, having to become—an adult was terrifying.
The sheer weight of the responsibility threatened to crush her.
Foolishly letting my heart flutter for someone I can never have… I cannot do that anymore.
She must not.
She had to stop.
She would fold this feeling into the smallest possible square and set it aside, out of sight.
It was not difficult to pile resignation on top of it until it was completely buried.
Johanna had always been a realist.
She knew what was truly important.
It was how she had survived for so long.
*
“Sister!
I’m home!
Are you here?”
Daniel’s voice pierced the quiet, and Johanna snapped back to the present.
Shaking off the afterimages of the past, she left her room.
A clatter from the kitchen drew her in, where she found Daniel setting a large bowl on the counter.
A cascade of perfectly round baby potatoes tumbled from a sack into the bowl.
Johanna’s eyes widened.
“Where did all these come from?”
“Potatoes,” he announced proudly.
“Mrs.
Tanya gave them to us.”
“We are indebted to her again.”
Mrs.
Tanya and her husband lived on the second floor.
They were an unusual Omega and Beta couple, a pairing nearly as rare as an Alpha and a Beta.
The husband was prickly but kind, while his wife was a social butterfly who loved to meddle.
The couple had taken pity on the Lucerne siblings and often shared food with them.
Johanna mentally calculated the number of potatoes.
“This is more than enough for purée, with plenty left over.
We can roast the rest in the oven tomorrow.
I believe we still have that butter we bought.”
Or, she mused, she could go to the market early and buy some meat to go with them.
They could afford that now.
A wave of pride washed over her; she could feed her brother well.
And I can send him to Bamberg boarding school.
She decided it was best to tell him later.
If she mentioned it now, Daniel would only grow suspicious.
She would have to invent a plausible lie.
After making and eating potato purée, they read together until it was time for bed.
As they went to their separate rooms, Johanna’s thoughts turned to the day ahead.
She had to visit her aunt’s family to pay off her father’s debt.
And she had to meet… Ilian Redis.
It will be fine, she told herself.
I have the money to pay the debt.
But a cold knot of anxiety settled in her stomach, a nameless dread that kept sleep at bay for hours.
*
The next morning, Johanna was a whirlwind of activity.
She bought meat at the market, served it with roasted potatoes for breakfast, and saw Daniel off to school.
With the envelope of money tucked securely in her bag, Johanna made her way to her aunt’s home, swallowing a suppressant just before she stepped out the door.
“I am Johanna Lucerne,” she stated to the guard at the gate.
“I am here to see Mrs.
Rietberg.”
Befitting a family of new money that had clawed its way into the upper echelons of society, her aunt lived in a four-story mansion complete with a sprawling garden and a full staff.
It was Johanna’s first time setting foot on the property; her aunt, whose stinginess was legendary, had never seen fit to invite her.
“Please come in,” the guard said, swinging open the black iron gate that led into the garden.
Johanna drew a deep breath, her first step onto the manicured path feeling as heavy as lead.
A maid in a crisp black dress met her in the foyer.
“Please follow me.”
As she followed, Johanna surveyed the lavish interior, a staggering display of extravagance.
She could not help but compare it to the Weimar Mansion.
The Elderic family’s townhouse was opulent, certainly, but it possessed a classic, old-world grace.
This place was merely ostentatious, utterly devoid of elegance.
It looked as if its owners had simply bought the most expensive items they could find and scattered them about with no sense of cohesion—the clumsy result of someone blindly imitating the upper class without any true understanding of taste.
“This way,” the maid murmured, stopping before a set of large double doors.
The drawing room, Johanna presumed.
The maid announced her arrival, and a moment later, her aunt’s clipped voice drifted from within.
“Let her in.”
The maid bowed low and opened the doors.
Whatever else one could say about the mansion, Johanna thought, the staff was impeccably trained.
Neither this maid nor the few others she had passed had shot her so much as a single disdainful glance, though her shabby clothes certainly invited it.
“You’re here?” her aunt said, her tone indifferent as Johanna stepped into the drawing room.
She was perched on a luxurious velvet canapé trimmed with gold.
That piece alone must be worth five thousand Rubels, Johanna mused as she approached.
“Hello, Aunt Rietberg.
I hope you have been well.”
“Looking at you just makes me sigh,” her aunt lamented.
“I know you scrape by with those paltry illustrations of yours, but you are a noble by birth.
You look no different from the common girls who roam the streets.”
Her aunt’s first words were a calculated jab.
Johanna offered a bitter smile, refusing to waste energy on anger.
All she wanted was to hand over the money and be gone.