6. Stress Balls And Razor Blades

It wasn’tuntil she was tucked into the shower alcove, her head turned up to the gentle stream that drifted like rainwater over her skin, that she came to terms with what she had just done.

Her last sexual encounter had been with Theodore, where she had admitted to having feelings for him, and here she was, letting his friend fuck her thighs. She hadn’t even thought about what confessing her feelings for Theodore would mean with the other surrogates. Did it make it wrong if she continued allowing them to ease her bond in the same way? Was she leading Theodore on and then betraying him?

She stumbled to the bench cut into one of the shower walls—the shower seemed to be designed around a spa experience, with massage jets set into the walls and a small bench to rest on as steam choked the alcove. The stone of the seat was lined with amethyst gems, sprigs of dried flowers hanging from hooks above her, their cloying perfume wrapping her up in a comforting embrace.

But she couldn’t relax.

She was getting very involved with more than one man at once, and none of them subscribed to the idea that “fate” could determine who belonged to whom. They wouldn’t simply accept her taking her pick of the Alpha group just because she happened to be half-bonded to them all—the bond meant nothing to them, and it meant nothing to her. It was simply a problem they had decided to tackle as a group, a problem they had decided to share responsibility for. It had no great, magical power to decide their personal and sexual relationships for them.

They still had to decide for themselves.

And what Alpha in their right mind would decide to share the woman they were interested in with nine of their closest friends?

Oscar may have only been appeasing the bond for both himself and her, but the way he had refused to push further for fear of hurting her when she wasn’t thinking straight made her uneasy. She wasn’t experienced with relationships or harbouring feelings for anyone, but now suddenly it felt like she was growing emotionally attached to more than one of her bond mates. Theodore, certainly. Oscar, surprisingly. Kilian—because how could anyone not?

And Cian … who concerned her even more than the others.

Cian had more charisma in his little finger than most people had in their wildest dreams, and he rarely ever deviated from his playful, easy-going personality. It made him seem utterly unreachable, and that intimidated her. It made her unsure how to approach him or talk to him. She mostly waited for him to come to her, but she couldn’t keep doing that, not if he, Oscar, and Kilian were acting as her surrogates for the cameras. She would need to get comfortable telling him when she needed him—or they would likely all suffer the consequences of her ignoring the bond.

Her phone lit up in the towel recess, so she stood and fetched it, along with the jewelled artefact. She sat back on the bench, pulling in deep breaths to fill her lungs with the aroma of the dried flowers as the steam seemed to activate their scents.

She rested the jewel on her thigh and sleepily tapped at her messages.

Theodore: What were you doing when it changed colour?

Oscar: Not me.

Niko: What kind of joke is that?

Oscar: The kind that’s a statement, not a joke.

Kilian: Isobel?

Oscar: She’s in the shower.

Elijah: And you are…?

Oscar: Not a fucking idiot. You told me to rub her temples and use a soothing voice and to not make any sort of suspicious scenes.

Elijah: And you…?

Oscar: I rubbed, but I missed the temples. I used a voice, but it wasn’t soothing. I didn’t make any suspicious scenes.

Oscar: Gold star for me.

Moses: Regular saint, over here.

Niko: This is fucking awkward.

Cian: How is she?

Oscar: Dizzy, a bit confused. Her reflexes are slow and she’s lost a lot of weight. But $10,000 worth of beauty products say she’ll be a brand-new person in no time, thanks to all the cactus juice and diamond shavings her father could spare.

Theodore: What?

Cian: Rich girl shit.

Kilian: Who’s going in there next?

Mikel (admin): Kilian, you go in. You and her in bed together probably won’t cause a riot.

Elijah: Probably.

Mikel (admin): Cian, bring her some food and coffee at 4.

Cian: Will do.

Kalen (admin): Everyone be ready for a group meeting at 4:30 in my office. We have a lot to discuss before classes start tomorrow and this brand-new shitshow really takes off.

Since everyone else had reacted to Kalen’s message with a thumbs-up, she did the same, and then propped her head back on the wall behind her, deciding to close her eyes for just a minute …

Tap tap tap.

“Illy? You all good in there?”

She blearily blinked her eyes open, the world around her swimming dizzily as she tried to orient herself.

“Illy?” Kilian called out from the other side of the door.

“Y-yes,” she croaked, before raising her voice in a wobbly imitation of a shout. “Yes! Be right out!”

She stood up too fast, almost pitching into the stone wall, but she tossed out an arm at the last moment and caught herself. After waiting for her equilibrium to return, she turned off the shower and dried herself in record time.

There was a door to the right of the shower alcove, which she assumed was a dressing room, but Kilian interrupted her deliberations over whether she should chance peeking into the room to see if it was camera-free.

“I have some clothes for you,” he said through the door.

She propped it open, standing clear of the cameras, and he slipped the bundle into her hand. Sandwiched between the layers was her small contacts case, which he must have fished from her bag. She switched out her contact and dressed quickly, combing out her hair, brushing her teeth and slipping the stone into the waistband of her boy shorts.

She paused before pulling open the door, realising that the shirt was one of Kilian’s—not one from her bag, but one from him. A breathy sigh of relief escaped her throat as she tugged the neckline up to her nose, inhaling deeply, a well of gratitude almost choking her.

She pushed into the room, blinking in surprise at how dark it was.

“Blackout curtains,” Kilian explained, waving a tablet at her—as though that explained anything—before dropping it to one of the bedside tables.

Before she closed the bathroom door, she swept her eyes across the room while she still had light to see by, her heart squeezing at the beautiful, thoughtfully decorated space. She didn’t have the highest opinion of the Ironside officials, but they sure knew how to make people feel like they had been transported to a whole new world.

The gleaming marble floor was cut into sections by silk rugs decorated in geometric patterns and floral motifs, in pale greens and creams. A king-sized bed dominated the centre of the room, the rich walnut of the frame contrasting deeply with the pale mauve and buttery gold bedding. She blinked at the bed, realising that twisting vines and floral motifs—which echoed the patterns on the rugs—were carved into the footboard, the sides, and the headboard. There was a canopy over the bed, a smooth fall of cream silk tied to either side of the headboard and footboard.

She cast a brief glance to the sitting area behind the bed, currently shrouded in shadow, though she could make out velvet armchairs and a chaise beneath the window, and what looked like a very ornate fireplace opposite the sitting area.

The officials had steeped her new home in luxury, the vastness of the wealth underfoot and overhead making her feel tiny, light as air, like she could glide across the gold-veined marble and tangle seamlessly with the airy silk canopy of her towering bed. It reminded her of how large, heavy, and cumbersome she had felt, stuffed into a closet with a blanket on the floor and a lock on the door as effective as glass against the power of the sun.

They truly wanted people to feel the difference. To feel their poverty being lifted from their shoulders, turning them so buoyant they could almost float.

It was the prettiest of gilded cages.

But it was a cage, and they could only float so far before colliding headfirst with the solid gold bars.

Kilian had dragged back the plush duvet as she took in the room, and he was sitting up against the pillows now, fiddling with the tablet again.

“You like it cold, right?” he asked.

It took her a moment to realise he was adjusting the temperature of the room. “Oh, yeah.”

She closed the bathroom door and padded over to the bed, her head beginning to pound—her entire body protesting that she had been woken up in the shower. She slipped into bed beside Kilian, rolling onto her side to prop her phone onto the bedside table.

It was so dark, but there was the faintest hint of a daytime glow emanating from behind the blackout curtains and peeking beneath the door to her room. Still, when she lowered herself back to the mattress, it could have easily been night for all she could tell.

“Kalen installed the curtains,” Kilian explained, rolling from the bed and untying the canopy. “He got here early and decided all the rooms needed them. We’re going to have insane schedules this year, so he wants us to get sleep when we can.” He pulled the canopy all the way around the bed, and she watched as his shadowed form ducked back through the fluttering silk, settling beside her again.

“White noise?” he asked, picking up the tablet again. He pressed a button and the fireplace suddenly flickered to life, making them both jump. “Oops, not that one.” He tapped at the tablet and the flames turned off immediately—apparently, it was only an aesthetic fireplace. Which made sense, considering the climate.

“There we go,” Kilian muttered as a soft wave of subtle sound suddenly emanated from the ceiling. “This room system takes a minute to get used to.”

He tugged the duvet up over both of them, shifting close to her. As tired as she was, she was also jittery and nervous. She had no idea where the cameras—or microphones—were. She had known almost everything about the previous Ironside location, having watched more episodes of the show than she could ever hope to count, but other than a few news articles as she had struggled to stay awake in the hospital, drifting in and out of consciousness, she knew next to nothing about where they were now.

“This is the longest I’ve been awake in a week,” she whispered, barely louder than a breath.

Kilian crept closer, probably to hear her better. “Turn over,” he muttered, also as quiet as a whisper. His hand gripped her hip beneath the cover, pushing her gently to face the other direction.

He slid one muscled arm beneath her head, tugging her right back into his body, his mouth against her hair. He pulled in a breath so deep his chest expanded against her back, forcing a shiver to travel through her body. His hand slipped into her shirt, flattening against her stomach. He pressed there, eliminating any space that might have remained between their bodies.

He didn’t say anything else, and after a few moments, her exhaustion won against all the other sensations in her body, quieting the thoughts that zipped restlessly around her mind. She closed her eyes, soothed by his sweet bergamot scent and the warmth of his solid muscles surrounding her, even his possessive grip against her stomach, his hand spanning one side of her waist to the other. It might have kept her awake with nerves had she been less exhausted, but the protective, almost dominating touch calmed her, and she melted back against him, slipping into sleep.

Kilian wasin the cosiest hell on earth.

His Alpha instincts were raging at him to turn the Sigma around, to part her pale thighs and force her to take his weight. To drag her eyes open and wear her out until those lids were heavy again, weighed down in satisfaction.

But their relationship wasn’t like that, and he could smell Oscar on her. She hadn’t washed him off her well enough. It was making his blood boil with the painful need to erase him from her skin, and then to go deeper, and erase the memory of him from her mind.

He tried to talk some sense into himself as she slept in his arms. As he pretended to sleep with her. As he kept his hand on her stomach. As he refused to twitch it an inch in any direction. He tried to tell himself that she was his friend, and in any case, he needed to get used to other people’s scents on her, because she had never been his, not even for a minute.

It just … wasn’t working.

Whenever he thought he had talked some sense into his rioting thoughts, she let out a distressed puff of air against his bicep, and his hips jerked the barest inch against her soft flesh. He was aggressively hard, desperate for friction, but his frustration at their lack of privacy soared above his other emotions because most of all, he just wanted to talk to her.

He wanted her eyes wide and bright, those puffy cheeks bunching as she tried to hold back laughter. He wanted her healthy, not this wilted Sigma who had stumbled off the bus. He wanted her warming his lap as her lovely voice recounted all the reasons why they needed to set up her father for some sort of high-collar financial crime and get him locked up for life.

He wanted her head tipping back, her mismatched eyes catching on his, his hand drawing up to her neck, catching beneath her jaw and drawing her up, closer to his mouth …

He throbbed against her and buried his face deeper into her hair.

So fine, maybe he wanted to do more than talk.

The door cracked open, the room flashing with light briefly before the door clicked and it grew dark again.

“Time already up?” His voice cracked.

“Yeah,” Cian answered. He pushed through the silken canopy, holding what looked like a tray. He set it on the bedside table before crouching by the bed, his face placed before Isobel’s. “Wake up, Sigma.” He tapped her on the nose.

Kilian eased back from her, spreading out on his back and closing his eyes, willing his persistent erection to just fuck off and give him a break.

“Illy.” Cian tried again, slipping his hand beneath the duvet.

Isobel twitched, and then rolled back and forth, like she was shaking off a bug, before settling again. She had her face half turned toward Kilian, and he watched as Cian’s hand crawled up from beneath the blanket, only the tips of his tattooed fingers appearing as he rested them along her collarbone. He leaned over, planting his mouth by her ear, and whatever he said had her eyes flying open, immediately connecting with Kilian’s.

Her lush lips parted on a silent sound, her tongue sneaking between them, wetting her lower lip, the slightest whine catching in the back of her throat. Kilian was seconds away from deciding that their whole plan could go jump off a cliff because he was going to kiss her, taste her, grab her, force his tongue past those parted lips—but then Cian inserted his hands beneath her arms and hauled her up, falling into her spot on the bed and bundling her into his arms.

Asshole.

Kilian scowled at him, sitting up. “Hand her over. You can get the food.”

Cian shot him a narrow-eyed glare. “Wake up grumpy much? I even brought you chocolate.”

Kilian’s vision washed red, a growl snapping from his lips. “Now.” Alpha voice.

Cian tried to fight it, Isobel’s widened eyes flicking between them in alarm, but Kilian won.

Just because he didn’t use his influence, didn’t mean he was without it.

The only people who outranked him were Oscar, Mikel, and Kalen. After forcibly swallowing down his own reaction, Cian plastered a smile onto his face that was all teeth and temper. He passed Isobel gently into Kilian’s arms before flicking a switch on the wall beside the bed, turning on the halo of soft light set into the cornices of the ceiling.

Isobel placed a small hand against Kilian’s chest, rubbing back and forth, so subtle. He let out a rattling breath, calming somewhat, before forcing a wry, empty grin onto his face. “I’m not a good napper. I always wake up crabby.”

“You think?” Cian rolled his eyes, pulling the tray onto his lap.

Isobel strained out of Kilian’s arms, snatching a steamy mug of coffee from the tray before Cian could even offer her anything. She sucked down several mouthfuls that were likely scalding her, if the wince in her forehead was anything to go by, but she didn’t seem to care. She released a deep groan that went straight to his cock, followed by a full-body shudder as the caffeine seemed to hit her system. She did some sort of wriggle, like she was trying to shake some movement back into her body or like she was just that happy about the coffee. He hissed out a warning breath, pinching her thigh.

She froze, and it took her a moment to realise she was pressing his dick right up against her ass, nestling his hardness in the layer of soft cotton wrapping her body, but then her face was blooming with a soft, rosy flush—an adorably stunned expression arresting her features. She hid her face behind her mug and refused to lower it again, taking small, measured sips to maintain her disguise.

Isobel was embarrassed,but not nearly enough to move until she had finished her coffee. Especially since Kilian had looped a strong arm around her hips—a deterrent to her going anywhere, though she wasn’t sure if he had done it consciously or not.

“How was your sleep?” Cian asked her, leaning back and folding his arms above his head, his cotton shirt sleeves slipping down to show a delectable swell of golden muscle.

“Good,” she answered.

There was a knowing look in his stunning aquamarine eyes, so she uncurled a leg and kicked him in the thigh. He caught her leg, draping it casually over his lap, pushing the tray further down his thigh so that she wouldn’t knock over the other coffee balanced there. Cian picked up the cup and handed it to Kilian, who grunted out a thanks that sounded a little forced.

“How long was that nap?” She squinted at the curtains, unable to tell how light it was outside. Kilian leaned back, switching out his coffee for the tablet and holding it in her lap, his chin notched onto her shoulder.

“Around seven hours,” he said. “No wonder.”

“No wonder what?” she asked, watching as he tapped on a house icon, and then a black curtain icon, and then the word open. The curtains slowly parted, filling the room with soft afternoon light.

Kilian didn’t answer her, instead deciding to give her a mostly silent tour of the tablet, showing her how to order food from the dining hall—only available outside of general mealtimes—how to control the aesthetic fireplace, the lights, the speakers, and the projection screen that rolled down from the ceiling opposite the seating area. There was a popularity bank app, showing how many popularity points she had accumulated, and a rewards program to order things from Market Street.

“They rebuilt Market Street and Ironside Row?” she asked, absently eating the bowl of fruit and yogurt that Cian had handed to her.

“Bigger and better,” Cian confirmed as Kilian flicked to an interactive map of the academy, zooming in on a huge slab of the grounds labelled Ironside Row. “They separated them, though. They needed more room for Ironside Row. They’ll be holding games there every Friday night, and we’re going to have to compete.”

“For what?”

“Special privileges?” Cian guessed. “Popularity points? We don’t actually know. I guess we’ll find out.”

She finished her food and coffee, and they all tumbled from the bed when Cian said it was time to meet with the others. She padded after them as they left the room, surreptitiously patting the waistband of her shorts to make sure the artefact was still there.

Cian and Kilian led her back downstairs, where they ran into Oscar, Elijah, and Gabriel—all of them carting around heavy book bags that were almost overflowing with cords and laptops. Gabriel and Elijah had changed out of their exercise clothes, donning linen shorts and loose shirts.

“How was your nap?” Elijah asked, nodding slightly in the direction of the archways Cian and Kilian were already heading toward, indicating that they should head that way.

He moved to follow them, and so did she. Oscar and Gabriel trailed them silently, so close that she could feel the heat of their bodies.

“I feel amazing,” she answered, cutting Elijah a small, unsure smile.

He nodded, a flash of relief in his cold eyes. They had entered a passage with a kitchen area on one side and a lounge on the other, the furnishings and fixtures as luxurious as she had come to expect. They passed into a closed-in hallway with a single door on either side, a plaque above each. Cian rapped his knuckles against the heavy walnut door with Professor Kalen West on the bronze plaque above it. He opened the door before anyone could answer his knock, and the rest of them filed in after him.

The office was much like her bedroom—open and sprawling with towering, squared-paned windows and plush, velvet-lined furnishings, hints of rich, honeyed walnut features scattered about. There were sheer silk curtains mottling the view outside the windows, and Kalen was leaning against a heavy wooden desk, his arms crossed over his chest, his yellow-amber eyes fixed on her face. The unwavering way he stared at her was enough to tell her that there were no cameras in the room.

“Isobel,” he grunted, his gruff tenor enough to tell her that there were no microphones either. Oscar had told her earlier … but she had been a little distracted.

She relaxed instantly, her shoulders slumping slightly. “Thank fuck for private offices.”

Cian smirked, stopping at the bar, and bending to fish something from the small fridge set beneath. “Iced coffee, anyone?”

“Yes,” she answered, quick as a snap. “Please.”

Gabriel smirked at her quick add-on, nodding at Elijah before sinking into the velvet couch.

The door to the study opened again and the rest of the Alphas filed in, Mikel appearing last.

Isobel felt herself drifting toward Theodore—for what, she wasn’t sure—but Kalen cleared his throat, pulling her up short.

“Will you oblige me?” he asked, holding out a large hand.

What?

She stared at his hand, and then peered up into his face, trying to figure out what he wanted.

The stone?She flicked up the hem of her shirt, pulling it from her shorts—the sudden stillness in the room wasn’t lost on her, but the narrowing of Kalen’s eyes had her attention caught.

“No,” he rumbled, giving the artefact a rapid flicker of his attention before his eyes were boring into hers again. “You, Carter.”

Oh.

Oh.

There are two sides to the bond, asshole, she admonished herself. While Oscar’s dominant claiming and seven hours of sleeping baked in Kilian’s scent and wrapped securely in his arms had settled things for her, it apparently didn’t work that way for the rest of them.

She walked on light feet over to Kalen, placing her hand in his. His rough fingers wrapped around hers, dwarfing her hand as he tugged her a step closer and then turned her so that she was standing between his legs, facing the rest of the room. But that’s all he did. He held her hand and had her stand there, so close but not touching other than their hands.

Elijah handed her a cold can, his cool attention flicking up to Kalen in brief question before he moved to the couch, passing another can to Gabriel before falling down beside him.

Moses and Theodore dragged the armchairs away from the heavy wooden coffee table, forming a semi-circle around Kalen and Isobel instead, as the others found seats. Mikel leaned against the wall by the window, his eyes narrowing on the way Kalen’s hand enveloped hers for a moment before a mask of indifference fell over his face.

“Well,” Mikel started, lips thinning, voice tight. “What a summer.”

Isobel choked on an unwilling laugh as the others rolled their eyes.

“I think it goes without saying … but that can never happen again.” Elijah sighed. “It was a severe miscalculation on my part—you’ll have to forgive me.” He turned his heavy stare on Isobel. “Before you came along—and after you came along, to be honest—all of my plans have centred around covering for Theo and Moses and hiding their ferality. You were standing in that chapel, having a panic attack, and I knew you needed to get out of there before you could watch us burn Crowe’s body, but I couldn’t spare anyone to go with you because when Theo and Moses turn feral at the same time, it’s a shit fight for our lives and we need all eight of us on task.”

Isobel blinked at him, surprised at the grim expressions everyone else was throwing Elijah’s way.

“I don’t blame you,” she said, frowning at him. “You told me to go next door. We’re talking fifteen feet. You told me to go straight there, straight to Sophia and her family—who had literally just saved my life, so of course that made sense. I’m the one who fucked up. I should never have answered the phone. He—my father used Alpha voice on me.”

“We figured.” Gabriel’s hands dug into his hair, his body language tense. He didn’t fix his hair afterwards, which spoke volumes, and she examined them a little more thoroughly.

They all seemed to have grown, except for Mikel and Kalen, who must have already reached the end of the mysterious Alpha growth cycle that she still didn’t understand. But other than that obvious sign of vitality, they looked … almost haggard. Dark circles were smudged beneath their eyes. Elijah’s pointed, streamlined features were more pronounced, as though he hadn’t been eating properly, despite his swelling size. Gabriel’s hair was more than just messy from the ministrations of his hands—he had outgrown his cut, the strands uneven as they brushed his neck and ears. Cian had fierce frown dimples digging into his cheeks, his brows drawn low, weighed down by his thoughts. Theodore and Moses were twitchy, fidgety, both of their eyes darkening until they began to look more like the twins they were pretending to be.

Oscar was rubbing his knuckles, which seemed to be bruised.

Kilian looked like he had seen a ghost.

Niko had an actual stress ball in his grip, his fingers flexing around it reflexively. Gripping, releasing, gripping … pop.

He frowned, looking at the deflated thing in his palm.

Not a stress ball, a tennis ball.

He sighed, tossing the fuzzy green remnant to the coffee table before folding his arms and leaning up against the wall perpendicular to Mikel—almost matching the other man’s pose. She was ashamed that she had been so out of it that morning she hadn’t noticed how much the summer had affected them.

Elijah, who had taken a moment to mull over her words, finally shook his head. “No, this is on me. You were out of your mind with panic, utterly traumatised, and the group relies on me to come up with a plan in situations where everyone has lost their head. I failed everyone. I’m sorry.”

“Is that why you won’t fucking sleep?” Gabriel snapped, surprising everyone, except for Elijah, who only clenched his jaw tightly, ignoring the other Alpha.

“What?” Mikel asked, fixing his stare on Gabriel. “You said he calmed down after we got Isobel out of that apartment.”

“I lied,” Gabriel said, without inflection, before turning back to Elijah. He downed the rest of his iced coffee, setting the can on the coffee table, his fingers shaking slightly. “He kept working, right up until the day we left. And in case none of you have noticed, he’s sneaking out every night to work in the library.”

“You’re with me half the time,” Elijah growled back, pale eyes flashing in a dangerous warning.

Kalen squeezed her hand before releasing her … and she was moving before she could even think it through, passing the room to the couch where Gabriel and Elijah sat, plopping herself between them and setting her drink on the coffee table. They both shifted closer—the movement more of a reflex than anything—while glaring at each other over her head. Unsure how to proceed, she placed her hands on her thighs, her pinkies stretching out nervously to brush against their hard legs, which were already pressing up against hers.

Elijah was intimidating and cold, and she didn’t know how to approach him on the best of days, let alone a day when he was tense and glaring holes through everyone. And Gabriel was no easier, being so particular about hygiene and personal space. She was almost trembling with nerves as she hesitantly moved her hands from her own legs to theirs.

It was awkward and clumsy, but at least they had stopped snapping at each other. Elijah grabbed her hand, drawing it over his lap and lacing his fingers with hers.

“Smart girl,” he muttered, relaxing into the back of the couch, drawing her eye as his posture changed in an instant, morphing from tense, to exhausted.

His cool gaze simmered to a calm, icy ocean, lids lowering to half-mast.

Gabriel’s thigh nudged hers, and she turned her attention to the coffee table, waiting for him to take her hand. He didn’t, but he also didn’t brush her off.

“Well, on the subject of what Gabriel, Elijah, and Oscar have been working on,” Kalen said, “who wants to explain the app to Isobel?”

“We’ve infiltrated the Ironside network and set up a few precautions,” Gabriel said, glancing down at Isobel. “Do you have your phone?”

“It’s here.” Cian dug Isobel’s phone out of his pocket and handed it to Gabriel.

Gabriel began tapping away at her phone, and after a few moments of silence, he explained, “As soon as you get into bed at night, you need to hit the sleep icon in the Eleven app I’m installing,” he said. “After exactly thirty seconds, it will start recording, preparing a loop of overnight activity. That’s why Kalen had the blackout curtains installed—so that the officials won’t realise they aren’t monitoring a live feed. In the case of any accidental teleportations or ferality outbursts, this should cover us. As soon as one person hits the sleep icon, the entire dorm will start looping, erasing and replacing the last three minutes of footage. That should be enough of a buffer if anything happens suddenly, but don’t fuck around—as soon as shit starts to go down, hit that button. We can only replace the last three minutes of footage. All the cameras will reset at four in the morning—before the sun rises. If something happens during the day, there’s another button to scramble the cameras. They already think that having so many Alphas in one place fucks with their networks, but we want to use that option sparingly.

“We’ve added an AI proponent to the program that can cut together frames of you sleeping in different positions. It will insert transition footage at the end of the loop so that it looks seamless when the cameras reset. Try to toss and turn as much as you can for the next few nights. Move your bedding around. Give the algorithm a few options. There’s too much room for error to implement this for daytime use, so all group meetings will have to happen at night. We tested the AI on scenes from movies where there were two people in the frame, and it was buggy as hell, so we’re not going to risk that.”

“Which means no bed sharing while the cameras are live,” Niko explained, catching the struck look on her face. “When you need to settle the bond, we’ll start the cameras looping and everyone will need to be back in their beds before four.”

“O-okay,” she croaked, still overwhelmed at the scope of what Elijah, Gabriel, and Oscar had created.

No wonder Elijah had been working non-stop.

“There’s also a live recording sensor,” Theodore spoke up, drilling his fingers agitatedly against his knee, his stormy gaze flicking to the Alphas on either side of her before he tore his attention back to her face, masking whatever emotion he was feeling. “So you can check the app at any time to know if the cameras around you are recording or turned off. Some of our training and tutoring sessions are supposed to be off-camera so that we can develop projects for the show without spoiling them. With the beefed-up surveillance, we weren’t confident that they wouldn’t try to spy on us—especially on you.”

“We all have watches with the app installed.” Mikel pushed off the wall, stopping before her and holding out a smartwatch with a plain, threaded white band. “It will vibrate when cameras around you are switching back on—both on the Dorm A loop and anywhere else if you’re having a private session.”

She took the watch and slipped it immediately onto her wrist, biting her tongue at the question that almost spilled to her lips—of how they had afforded eleven smartwatches. They all seemed to be wearing one, all with the same simple white band.

She shook her head in bemusement. “That’s amazing. Thank you.”

Mikel nodded, shifting back to the wall. “About Cooper—we’re sorry for the unpleasant shock. Theodore said they filled you in.”

She grimaced. “He’s supposed to stay out of our way, right?”

Mikel nodded, his nose twitching briefly as he quickly shut down whatever expression had briefly arrested his severe features. “Both a good thing and a bad thing, because that means he’ll call you into his office more than seeking you out where there are cameras. You aren’t to meet with him alone under any circumstances.”

She blinked, glancing from tense, angry face to tense, angry face.

“How long were you watching us, back in Nevada?” she asked.

“Long enough,” Moses grunted.

“Right.” She sniffed, suddenly uncomfortable, though she wasn’t sure what she had to be embarrassed about. All she had done was sleep, train, and drag her feet to appointments. “And what if nobody is around to go with me? What if he catches me alone? I’m not saying I can’t hold my own. I’m just trying to manage expectations here. I’m new to being … one of your … one of …” She trailed off, looking away from Mikel, her face flaming. “Last year I very much did my own thing. And it’s pretty clear there’s a hierarchy here, and orders to follow.”

“Yes, mine,” Mikel stated calmly. “Occasionally Kalen’s and Elijah’s.”

“Only you three?” she asked, glancing to Kalen, who was standing as imposing and impassive as when she had walked into the room. “Just want to be clear.”

“We all have a role.” Niko surprised her by speaking up before anyone else. “Naturally, as a group of Alphas, we’ve formed a hierarchy amongst ourselves—it’s one of the side effects of cohabitating as a large group, along with the surging. Our hierarchy naturally fell in order of age, starting with Moses, then Theodore, Elijah, Gabriel, me, Cian, Kilian, Oscar, Mikel, and finally, Kalen. So, when someone of a higher rank uses Alpha voice on someone of a lower rank, that person is generally compelled to obey. But as you will have noticed, not everyone flexes their dominance, and we don’t let rank decide who listens to who.”

“That’s why everyone listens to Elijah and Gabriel and not one of these dickheads listens to me,” Oscar said, flashing his teeth in a smile that could have been a snarl, one of his dark brows inching up, almost in challenge. “But as the baby of the group, you’ll have to answer to all of us.”

She cocked her head to the side, a wry smile threatening to curl at her lips. “Not because I’m a Sigma?” She continued before anyone had a chance to answer. “Speaking of which … are you all masking your emotions? I can’t feel anything.”

“We don’t want to overload you,” Kilian answered. “You’ve been through hell, and you’ve only had hours to recover.”

She shook her head. “Don’t bother, you’ll just tire yourselves out. I can handle it.”

“Can you?” Moses shot back quickly, though his tone wasn’t combative.

“Can I carry on living exactly as I have for all of my life so far?” she returned dryly. “I think so.”

He held up his hands, displaying his palms in supplication. “You asked for it, Sigma.”

She wanted to roll her eyes, but she was suddenly struck. Bowled over by worry, frustration, and need. As far as she knew, “need” wasn’t a negative emotion, but it was pinching into her skin from every angle, sharp and acerbic. She turned toward where she could feel it was a little more muted, not stabbing into her skin quite so insistently, and found Elijah still slumped against the couch, except this time, his eyes were closed and his chest rose and fell in a gentle rhythm.

Gabriel’s hand crept over her thigh, his fingers gripping tightly, drawing her attention back to him. “So yes, to be clear, you will take orders from Mikki first and foremost, as the rest of us do. It’s his role to manage us. Elijah has the authority to direct or redirect us, and Kalen’s word supersedes everyone else. If you were any other Sigma, we would be asserting our dominance over you until your rank as the youngest was observed, and then we would back off unless you challenged us. As our …” He trailed off, swallowing, unable to say the word.

“Mate,” Niko said, surprising her again—except this time, he seemed to also surprise everyone else.

Gabriel’s hand twitched on her thigh, his jaw clenching, his discomfort rolling over her in waves, along with tinges of guilt. “That dominance may be redirected,” he continued as though he hadn’t stumbled at all. “We may challenge each other instead, trying to assert a claim over you. Please try not to take it personally. We’ll do our best to control our aggression.”

“Is surging like going feral?” she blurted before she could think through the question.

It was rare that they openly spoke about ferality, so she was going to take advantage of the conversation while she could.

“A little.” Theodore considered her. “The feeling of not being in control of your body is similar. I suppose you’ve experienced that now, haven’t you?”

A shudder travelled through her, and she bobbed her head in a short nod. “It was … horrific.”

Theodore and Moses both lowered their eyes, their emotions immediately cutting off from the steady wave that had been buffeting against her. She frowned, realising she had probably insulted them.

She carefully slid her hand from Elijah’s and began to stand. Gabriel gripped her like he would deny her the movement, but then released her leg, his fingers trailing over the hem of her shorts, making heat curl in the pit of her stomach—a sensation she worked to smother.

She walked around the coffee table and approached the brothers sitting in armchairs beside each other. Theodore didn’t let her have even a moment of indecision over who to choose or how to approach them. He stood, scooped her into his arms, and sat again with her bundled in his lap, her legs hooked over the velvet arm of the chair. His hand gripped her hip securely, his other arm wrapped tightly around her back, supporting her in a comfortable position. She rested her hand against his stomach, feeling the muscles bunch and jump beneath her touch. His head lowered into the crook of her neck and he inhaled deeply, a rough sound tearing from his throat.

Kalen cleared his throat. “There’s a plan for this year. A delicate balance we need to maintain. We need the audience devoted to Eleven.”

Her eyes snapped open—surprising her because she hadn’t realised she had closed them—and she turned her head at the sound of the group name she had come up with the previous academy year. Gabriel had said it earlier, but she had been too preoccupied thinking about the app they had created to register that they had named it after the group.

“At the moment, the fans love to pair you with different Alphas,” Kalen continued, addressing her directly. She suspected they had already discussed most of these points with each other. “But that’s only because you aren’t confirmed to be dating any of them and there hasn’t been any damning footage to point the fans in one direction or another. We need to keep it in that sweet spot.

“We want all evidence to point to you being the protected princess of Ironside, building on all the PR work your father’s team has already done, with one notable difference. We don’t want the focus to be on your mate. For several reasons.” Kalen nodded to Mikel, who picked up where Kalen had left off.

“Firstly, it’s going to bite us all in the ass if it leaks that one of us is your mate. So we’re just not going to address it at all. That way, we’re not doing major damage control and trying to take back lies we’ve publicly spoken if that ever does happen. When people ask about your mate, just deflect, or say that you’re not willing to talk about that subject.”

Isobel nodded. “That’s easier than acting.”

“The other reason is purely a safety issue.” Kalen shifted, crossing one of his leather shoes over the other, uncrossing his arms to grip the edge of the desk behind him. It seemed like “safety” might have been his area of concern, whereas Mikel was more focused on the PR side of things. “The more you advertise that you’re searching for your mate, the more you open yourself up to creeps and stalkers trying to prove that they’re your mate. We can’t control the way the show twists their narrative, but if we give them nothing, they’ll do one of two things: they’ll latch onto the next best story if it’s good enough, or they’ll force the story they want out of you.”

“So we need to give them something better to focus on than my missing mate?” she asked.

Mikel’s hard lips twitched. “Precisely. We’re going to give them Eleven. As a group. You and eight Alphas: all of them fighting to be your favourite, but none of them succeeding. A fun game for the fans to gamble and gossip and fight over. Endless material for the officials to twist and frame however they like—except they won’t succeed in framing any of the guys as your favourite because the Eleven social media accounts are going to tell the real fake story.”

She opened her mouth to ask how, but Gabriel had anticipated the question and was already counting items off his fingers. “Lives, reels, photos, behind-the-scenes videos, sneak peeks, and posts. I’ll be handling the social media, so you all just need to capture as much as you can and send it all to me. I’ll make sure it doesn’t violate our Ironside contracts.”

“There’s one more piece to the puzzle,” Oscar said, leaning forward in his chair. Prickles of unease skittered over her skin—not her own unease, but theirs. “You’re going to need to get a fake boyfriend.”

She stared at him, already shifting uncomfortably in Theodore’s lap at the sudden influx of possessive fury threatening to hammer her into the floor, though all their faces remained impressively blank. Something they were clearly well-practised with.

“What?” she choked. “But I thought … I mean Kalen and Mikel said …” She swallowed, and then gave up trying to find the least offensive way of phrasing her question. “Could you all handle that? Not that you’re into me, I know that. I just mean, with the bond, with the surging and everything.”

“We have no choice.” Oscar sounded like he was aiming for a reasonable tone, but the words jumbled out on a snarled breath instead. He tried to clear his throat, but it ended on a growl, and then he gave up masking his rage altogether, leaning forward and fixing her with a dark look. “Just don’t let him touch you, or look at you, or go any-fucking-where near you.”

“Fuck’s sake.” Gabriel sighed, his head falling back. He pinched his nose. “The Beta is going to have to talk to her and stand near her, Oscar.”

“The Beta?” She whipped to face Gabriel. “You’ve already picked someone?”

“A third-year,” Niko answered, pulling another tennis ball from his pocket and resuming his flexing. “Someone Oscar had dirt on. Mateus Silva—one of Wallis’ friends. You know him. Is he acceptable to you?”

“I suppose.” She chewed on her lip, spurred to shift off Theodore’s lap by Niko’s agitation. Theodore lifted his head from her neck, blinking his eyes in a confused way as she slipped out of his arms—had he almost fallen asleep too? He seemed to shake himself, shoving his hands into his pockets, his darkening eyes tracking her as she hesitated by Moses’ chair.

“Well?” The combative Alpha shifted his hips forward, apparently getting more comfortable. “You can’t skip me, not after you did Kalen. Now everybody is on the table.”

“You’re the worst,” she said, staring at him.

“Stop teasing her,” Mikel ordered.

Moses beckoned to her—definitely still teasing her. “Just pretend I’m my brother.”

“Stop it,” Theodore snapped. Judging by the amount of tension radiating off him, she hadn’t helped him overly much.

She sucked up her courage and perched on the arm of Moses’ chair, wringing her hands in her lap as she tried to decide where to put them. He rolled his eyes at her, dragging her down to his lap and turning her to face the rest of the room, his arms wrapped around her waist. Despite his teasing, he held onto her tightly, his nose brushing the back of her head.

“Goddamn,” he groaned, inhaling deeply. “Have you always smelled this good?”

“Have you always spoken your intrusive thoughts out loud?” Theodore demanded.

“Pretty much, yeah,” Moses drawled, squeezing Isobel.