Tailored for you

n. The initial point of entry. Where intention meets resistance, and something begins to hold… or to unravel.

He was nervous—his hands damp, his breathing uneven. He knew he had to calm down, that he needed to focus on it:

One.

Two.

Three.

Deep inhales, slow exhales.

He had left late—and not by accident. He had seen him downstairs, leaning against the wall of the building as if he had never really left.

Máxime.

His ex. The only name that could still throw his chest into disarray without warning.

He hadn’t stopped. He hadn’t said a word. But the image had lodged itself under his ribs, undoing whatever calm he had managed to gather before stepping out.

Now breathing didn’t come as easily.

Today was the day he had both feared and waited for in equal measure: the interview at Maison Vairel that, against all odds, he had managed to secure.

In his world, alphas inherited power and omegas learned not to get in the way.

Lucky had chosen something else.

And if he failed today, it wouldn’t just be a missed opportunity. It would be proof that everyone had been right about him all along.

Leaves crunched under his steps as he hurried forward. He checked his watch.

8:10.

At last, he reached the building that housed Maison Vairel.

It was old, but immaculately preserved. The stone arches stood firm against time, and the white façade with its wrought-iron balconies and tall windows made it look like a small palace—a hidden place where dreams were either brought to life or crushed underfoot.

Lucky adjusted the high collar of his coat before knocking. It still felt strange to hear his name like this—Lucky Clairvaux, his mother’s surname—instead of Lucky Van Leuven. But it was better this way. No one at Vairel needed to know who he really was—nor which clan laid claim to him.

Cold slid up the back of his neck. His omega ears—small, triangular, covered in fine fur the same shade as his hair—flattened instinctively against his skull.

Not all men had them. Only omegas carried those small animal ears, an unmistakable sign that no high collar could fully hide.

He inhaled.

Exhaled.

Then he raised his hand and knocked on the large black door bearing Vairel’s emblem—small, minimal, precise. Everything about the place was so refined, so controlled, that Lucky had to take two more breaths before pushing it open.

He crossed the small front garden, where a fountain stood surrounded by perfectly arranged flowers, aligned in symmetrical rows and columns.

If he made it across that garden, there would be no turning back.

The lobby stunned him.

Marble floors echoed beneath his steps as he approached reception. The neutral walls and subtle gold accents gave the space a warmth that didn’t show from the outside—and yet Lucky felt colder there.

The air was clean. Too clean. And his own scent—sweet, cool—felt out of place in that silence.

He headed toward the desk, but before he could reach it, the elevator doors opened.

Two men stepped out, speaking in low voices.

Lucky lowered his gaze out of instinct—politeness drilled too deep to ignore—but he couldn’t help it.

The scent hit him all at once.

Sweet pepper.

Authority.

It lasted a second—no more. Just a crossing of steps.

But it stayed. He felt it like heat under his skin.

Green eyes fixed on the back of his neck with a kind of curiosity that carried no restraint.

Lucky didn’t know who that man was, but in Maison Vairel, alphas didn’t smell like that unless they had the power to ruin you or remake you.

“Bonjour, monsieur. Do you have an appointment?” the receptionist asked, a young omega with his ears neatly folded in quiet composure.

Lucky tightened his grip on the inhaler in his pocket, trying to steady his pulse before it betrayed his voice.

“Yes. Lucky Clairvaux. I have an interview for the internship.”

The receptionist checked the list, then glanced at the clock.

Ten minutes late.

And the ghost of that scent still clung to him.

“You may go up to the second floor. Follow the corridor to the end; the review room is on the right.”

Lucky nodded.

“Merci beaucoup.”

The spiral staircase rose ahead of him, iron gleaming under chandelier light. He climbed carefully—he needed his lungs to cooperate. He needed to be able to speak when he got there.

The second floor greeted him with complete silence.

No hum of sewing machines. No metallic whisper of scissors cutting through fabric. No soft puncture of pins through cloth.

Nothing.

It feels like a cemetery, Lucky thought. A very beautiful one.

The silence only made his own heartbeat louder.

He paused in front of the half-open door, his fingers gone white from gripping his portfolio.

He knocked softly, as if the gesture alone could convince his body to move forward.

A woman opened the door with a smile.

“Bonjour! Lucky, right? Please, come in.”

“Bonjour, madame.”

The room was wide and pristine, with that unsettling kind of beauty only lifeless things seem to have.

Parisian light spilled across the mannequins, which seemed to watch him just as intently as the man seated at the far end of the table. His mustache was perfectly groomed, his arms crossed.

“Have a seat.”

He extended a hand. The fingers were rough—not the hands of someone who sketched, but of someone who made.

“You’re late,” he added, glancing at his watch. “Ten minutes exactly.”

Heat rushed to Lucky’s cheeks.

“I’m very sorry. There’s no excuse. It won’t happen again.”

The woman sat across from him, still smiling.

“I’m Claire Duval, junior designer. This is Émile Moreau, our head of atelier.”

Lucky nodded, trying to settle into a chair that suddenly felt too small.

He tried to focus, to pull himself into something resembling professionalism, but the skin at the back of his neck still buzzed.

That scent—the one from the elevator, sweet pepper with something sharper underneath—felt embedded in his coat like a warning.

In the silence of the room, Lucky could have sworn he still felt those green eyes on him.

“We read your statement of intent,” Claire said, opening the folder. “Lucky Clairvaux. It was… intense. Direct. Why did you write that you’re not interested in ‘pleasing,’ but in ‘leaving a mark’?”

Lucky hesitated.

Words had a way of betraying him, twisting into something else before they ever reached his mouth. His drawings were his real voice—the place where he knew how to speak.

“Because fashion that only aims to please dies quickly,” he said at last. “I want my pieces to say something more. To feel solid… like the things that last.”

Émile slid a document across the table, stamped with the Institut’s seal.

“Your professors speak highly of your talent. They also mention your stubbornness. What do you have to say about that?”

Lucky couldn’t help the small smile that surfaced.

“That it’s true. I’m stubborn when something matters to me. But I do know how to listen. I’m open to learning—as long as what I’m being taught makes sense.”

Claire wrote something down, still smiling.

“There are many maisons in Paris, Lucky. Why ours?”

He had asked himself the same question. The answer sat bitter on his tongue.

Vairel hadn’t been his first choice. It had been the last one left standing.

He couldn’t tell them that every other offer had disappeared without explanation. It had taken him months to understand it.

Máxime.

It had always been him.

Cutting his opportunities away in silence while telling him no one in Paris wanted the talent of an omega. Vairel was the only place Máxime wouldn’t dare touch.

The tension between the Van Leuven and Vairel clans ran too deep—too dangerous. Even someone as reckless as his ex wouldn’t risk stepping into that territory.

For a Van Leuven, walking into this building was a betrayal.

For a Vairel, Lucky would be a problem.

So he lied with the kind of precision only learned in childhood.

“Because beauty here isn’t obvious,” he said, holding their gaze. “There’s space for the unexpected. And I’m not interested in being where everything comes easy.”

Émile leaned forward, studying him closely.

“Sketches are nothing without the hands that bring them to life. Do you respect the hands that sew?”

“I do,” Lucky answered, his voice—once fragile—steadier now. “Without them, everything is just a drawing on paper.”

“Last question,” Claire said, relaxing back into her chair. “What do you want from Maison Vairel?”

“To be pushed beyond what I already know. To learn how to build without losing what makes my work mine,” he said, meeting both their eyes. “I want the chance to prove I can be more than I ever thought possible.”

“Thank you, Monsieur Clairvaux.”

“Merci, Lucky,” Claire added, taking the handmade portfolio he had chosen—the risky one, the one that might cost him everything.

Lucky left the room with a small nod.

As he crossed the lobby, he searched—without meaning to—for that scent of pepper and authority, a strange need to confirm he hadn’t imagined it.

But the corridor was empty.

Just another alpha, he told himself as he pushed the door open.

But his instincts—those that had never once failed him—told him something else entirely. He had just walked the edge of something dangerous.

Outside, the cold hit him again.

He didn’t know if they would call him back, but something of him had already been left behind inside that building.

Máxime wouldn’t take this from him too.

Lucky had no intention of leaving Paris without fighting for his place in it.

My wolfpack… 🫀

thank you for staying with me through this first stitch. 🧵✨

If this chapter moved you, leave a vote and tell me—what did you feel watching Lucky stand in front of Vairel’s doors?

I’ll be reading 👀🗼

With all my bite. 🐺💙

Shaly