I nodded, surrendering to the sandwich.
Daniel shifted, his heavy leg hooking over my hip, pinning me down completely. He ground against me again, harder this time, a slow, deep roll that elicited a moan from deep in mychest. It was carnal, yes, but it was also medicinal. It was the only thing loud enough to drown out the noise in my head.
"You feel that?" Daniel murmured against my mouth, stealing the air I exhaled. "That’s you. That’s your body responding. You’re here. You’re alive."
"I'm here," I repeated, clutching his shoulders, digging my nails into the fabric of his shirt.
We stayed like that for a long time, minutes, or maybe hours, I couldn't tell. Just the slow, heavy friction of the pack pressing me back into reality.
Eventually, my heart rate slowed. The frantic vibration in my bones smoothed out into a low, steady hum of exhaustion and arousal.
"She's back," Simon whispered, his hand relaxing slightly on my stomach. "Her breathing changed."
Daniel lifted his head, hazel eyes searching mine. "Tessa?"
"I'm real," I whispered. My voice was steady. "You can let me up."
Daniel hesitated, dropping one last, heavy kiss on my lips before rolling off. The loss of his weight was a physical subtraction that made me ache, but Simon was there to catch me, rubbing my arms briskly to keep the circulation moving.
I sat up, pushing my tangled hair back.
Anders was sitting in the armchair by the window, his laptop open on his knees, a phone pressed to his ear. He looked up as we shifted, and hung up without saying goodbye.
"You're stable?" Anders asked.
"I'm stable," I confirmed.
"Good." He spun the laptop around to face us. "Because we have a problem. And we have a solution."
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. Daniel sat next to me, his thigh pressed against mine, a constant reminder of thesupport system. Simon sat cross-legged behind me, playing with the hem of my hoodie.
"The problem is the narrative," Anders said, his tone shifting into Agent Mode. "The leak connected the dots. The world knows T.L. Rose is Tessa Kane, the girl from the graduation video. The narrative they are spinning is 'Tragedy.' Reclusive, broken woman hiding in a glass castle because she can't handle the world."
He paused, looking me dead in the eye.
"That narrative kills the career. Not because of the scandal, but because of the pity. If they pity you, they stop respecting the Alpha's Oath. They stop seeing the power fantasy and start seeing a coping mechanism."
I flinched. He was right. It was ruthless, but he was right.
"So what's the solution?" I asked. "I can't go back into hiding. They know where I look. They know my face."
"The solution," Anders said, "is the Keynote."
My blood ran cold.
"The... game launch?" I whispered.
"In forty-eight hours," Anders said. "The studio has booked the Paramount Theater. Two thousand attendees. They expected a prerecorded message from a silhouette. We are going to give them something else."
"You want me to walk out on a stage?" I asked, my voice rising an octave. "Anders, did you miss the part where the last time I was on a stage, I destroyed my life?"
"That was Tessa Kane," Daniel interrupted softly. "The terrified girl with no pack."
"This time," Simon added, leaning forward, his eyes shining with a dark, creative fire. "It won't be a graduation ceremony. It will be a production. And we are the production team."
"I can't give them a speech," I said, shaking my head. "I can't stand there and let them look at me."
"You won't be standing there doing a speech," Simon corrected. "You'll be doing a performance. I handle the visuals. I project the characters,yourcharacters, behind you. Ten feet tall. We overwhelm them with the art so they can't look at anything else."
