The digital clock on the dressing room wall gave a sharp, mechanical click as it turned to 09:00.
Exactly forty minutes left.
Shen Yue, 30, Alpha, the eldest son of Shen family, yanked at the high collar of his white ceremonial jacket, cursing under his breath as the stiff fabric bit into his throat.
His fingers were sweating, leaving small, damp smudges on the velvet box he was holding.
Inside was the ancestral jade pendant for his younger brother, Ce.
A political offering for the Gu family’s monster.
“Ce, hurry up,” Shen Yue barked, kicking the heavy inner door open with his heel.
“The procession’s already crossed the lower district borders.
The media drones are buzzing outside the windows like damn flies.
Get your…”
The words died in his mouth.
The room was completely quiet, save for the low, annoying rattle of the old air conditioner vent.
The vanity mirror was lined with unused cosmetics, but the velvet chair was empty.
On the floor, the heavy red silk bridal robes, the ones Commander Gu Canglong had sent personally, were thrown into a tangled heap.
Right on top of the red silk lay a cheap, scratched burner phone.
The screen flickered, showing a single text message from an unregistered number:
“I’d rather drown in the ocean than let that freak Gu Canglong touch me.
Don’t look for me.”
The velvet box slipped right through Shen Yue’s sweaty fingers.
It hit the parquet floor with a loud crack, the jade stone inside shattering into a dozen dull, chalky green pieces.
He didn’t even look down.
A cold, heavy weight dropped straight into his stomach, making him feel instantly sick.
If Ce was gone, they weren’t just ruined; they were dead.
The Gu dynasty would pull their manufacturing licenses before the sun went down.
But it was the thought of the military audits that made Shen Yue’s breath hitch in a sudden, ugly gasp.
If those investigators dug into the Shen family registries, they wouldn’t just stop at Ce.
They’d look at him.
They’d look at Pei Jin, his Omega partner.
His mind flashed to his Omega, currently downstairs managing the guest lists.
Elegant, perfect, high-society Pei Jin.
The perfect Omega partner.
Shen Ye had spent the last two years living in a state of sweaty, stomach-churning panic, treating Pei Jin like a piece of broken glass behind closed doors, terrified that the world would find out he was sleeping with a …
If Gu Canglong’s people came looking for blood, the mask would come off.
“Father!”
Shen Yue choked out, stumbling over the broken pieces of jade on his shoe.
He tore down the hallway, nearly tripping on his own formal trousers.
“Father!
The phone…
The idiot ran!
Ce ran away!”
Shen Ce, the second child of Shen Family was an outstanding Omega when it came to beauty.
He had the most enchanting fragrance.
Everyone envied Shen family and especially Shen Ce for securing the marriage alliance with the most powerful Enigma, Commander Gu Canglong.
It was Gu Canglong’s paternal grandfather and Shen Ce’s maternal grandfather who had sealed this alliance at the time Shen Ce and Gu Canglong were kids.
Initially what Ce felt a blessing, later felt a cage to him as Commander Gu Canglong was famous for his ruthlessness.
It was not new for the world to know that once commender was triggered, his anger sent the alphas and omegas to hell.
This ruthlessness was the reason why Shen Ce escaped from the wedding.
Ten minutes later, the central study smelled heavily of cold coffee and old leather.
Shen Hong stood behind his desk, his thumb rubbing the edge of the burner phone’s screen over and over until the plastic clicked.
He didn’t look angry; he looked old, his jaw locked tight enough to make the veins on his neck stand out.
Over by the window, completely ignored, Shen Qing was leaning against the sill, watching a small beetle crawl up the glass.
At twenty-three, Shen Qing was the son this house forgot to raise.
While his brothers got the elite tutors, Qing had quietly finished his business degree with his own intelligence.
He looked like Ce; same nose, same dark eyes, but he didn’t have Ce’s soft, dimpled smile.
He just looked tired.
And right below his right eye, there was a tiny, dark mole that looked like an accidental drop of ink.
He was just a Beta.
Scentless, stubborn, and cheap.
“The procession will be here in five minutes,” Shen Yue shook, his hair a messy, uncombed disaster as he gripped the edge of the desk.
“Father, do something!
We can’t lie to an Commander!
He’ll smell the fraud the second he opens the transport doors!”
Shen Hong went out of the room and was back in 5 minutes.
He didn’t look at his eldest son.
His heavy, bloodshot eyes shifted slowly toward the window.
“Qing.
Put the red clothes on.”
The rattle of the air conditioner vent seemed to get louder.
Shen Yue’s mouth fell open, a tiny dot of saliva catching at the corner of his lips.
A servant who was bringing in a tray of tea stopped dead in the hallway, the porcelain cups rattling against each other with a small, sharp clink.
Shen Qing didn’t move from the window.
He didn’t throw a dramatic fit or shout.
He just looked at his father, his face completely blank.
“Baba, you must be kidding.
You know I am Beta.
The world know I am Beta.
Besides, Long ge was fated for Ce ge.
How could you justify this.
I am not Shen Ce, baba.
I am Shen Qing.
Look at me, I am your Beta son.
I am already committed to another Beta with your and Ma’s approval.” Shen Qing said, his voice dry.
“And I don’t have a scent.
The scanners at the cathedral will flag me before I hit the step.”
“I just talked to old General Gu Zhen on an encrypted line,” Shen Hong said, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly rasp.
“The old man doesn’t want a stock crash any more than I do.
The media drones are already live-streaming the entrance.
He told me to put whoever I have into the robes to get through the vows today.
We’ll handle the paperwork behind closed doors tomorrow.”
“Then find someone from your employee pool, I am your son who has his life and this is utter nonsense that you are expecting me to do.
It is not like I have to replace Ce-ge for a performance but what you are asking is to be registered as a marriage alliance, that is out of question.” Shen Qing said, his eyes narrowing slightly.
“I’m not playing dress-up for Ce ge’s mistake.”
“You haven’t been requested, you have been ordered to do so” Shen Hong whispered, leaning his heavy palms on the mahogany.
He didn’t yell; he just smiled, a small, ugly twitch of his lips.
“And that little girl – that Beta with whom you are planning your future, you’ve been seeing her..
Su Ruo?
Her father works for Han Jiahao.
Jiahao owes me a favor from the winter defense contract.”
Shen Qing froze.
The small beetle on the glass crawled past his hand, but he didn’t look at it.
“One phone call,” Shen Hong said, tapping the desk with his thick finger.
“One call, and her father gets blacklisted for corporate theft by lunchtime.
The government freezes their bank cards.
Your little girlfriend can spend her twenties working twelve-hour shifts in a grease shop to pay off state fines.
You want to see how fast that happens, Qing?”
“Leave her out of this,” Shen Qing said, his voice losing its calm, turning flat and hard.
Shen Yue grabbed his brother’s arm, his grip tight and frantic.
“Just do it, Qing!
It’s just for the cameras!
Just put the damn veil on and save us!”
Shen Qing looked down at his eldest brother’s hand on his sleeve.
Then he looked at his father’s smug, heavy face.
This was how this family always worked.
They didn’t use logic; they just used people like sandbags to plug up holes in their leaking empire.
He had spent a year calculating his exit, tracking every cent, saving for a small apartment with Su Ruo where the air didn’t smell like gunpowder.
And it was all gone because his brother didn’t want to get married.
“Fine,” Shen Qing said.
He yanked his arm out of Shen Yue’s grip with a sharp jerk.
He walked over to the sofa and grabbed the heavy red silk, the fabric rough against his calloused palms.
“I’ll do your little show.
But don’t ask me for anything else after today and do not touch Su Ruo or her family, baba.”
Two old servants hurried into the room, their hands shaking as they pulled out a heavy, grey aerosol can with a medical cross on the label.
Psssssh.
A cold, wet mist sprayed straight onto Shen Qing’s shoulders.
The smell hit him instantly, a sickeningly sweet, heavy artificial floral scent that made his nose itch and his throat burn.
It was a cheap clone of Ce’s top-tier Omega pheromones, designed to fool the security sensors from ten feet away.
They dropped the heavy, thick red mesh veil over his head.
The world turned entirely scarlet through the weave.
The small dark mole under his eye disappeared behind the thick pattern.
He couldn’t see his father anymore.
He could only smell that fake, sweet chemical flower scent clinging to his skin, suffocating his own normal, clean smell of rain and old iron.
He wasn’t an Omega.
He was just a target in a red dress.
Outside, a low, vibrating rumble started to shake the floorboards.
The windowpane rattled against the frame as the shadow of a massive military transport ship blotted out the morning sun.
The Ocean Dragon was down in the courtyard.
Where pheromones decide status, power decides survival… and one scentless Beta just walked into the mouth of a monster.
Thank you for reading Chapter 1 of The Scentless Bride of the Enigma Commander!
If you enjoyed the chapter, don’t forget to add it to your library, vote, and tell me your first impression of Shen Qing below.