Delilah

I keep a smile plastered on my face as my life from the past two years crumbles under me. It might not seem that long, but at twenty, it feels like a lifetime.

“You understand, right, baby? It’s time for us to part ways and adventure on without each other.”

I can feel the edges of my lips wavering and fight to keep my smile in place. This is just like those yoga poses I force myself to wobble through, or the dance classes my mother used to make me attend even though I have the hand-eye coordination of a milk-drunk toddler. But Bam is almost done with me, I can tell by the way he’s edging closer to the door and fiddling with the piercing in his ear.

Twenty more seconds and I can relax. Five more minutes and I’ll be outside and I can give in to the internal screaming.

He slides something across the table toward me and I stare blindly at the words.

A migraine looms, my left temple throbbing dully. The words in front of me are all laid out on crisp, white paper that still smells fresh out of the photocopier. But none of them quite make sense.

It’s a contract bringing all activities from our previous agreement to a close. An agreement that I apparently signed at the start of our relationship.

“Wh-wh—” I croak, then want to punch myself repeatedly in the face. Especially when Bam’s expression softens into one dangerously close to pity.

“It’s what we agree, Delly Belly.”

I sift through the pile of papers.There are at least fifty pages of them, the old agreement appended to the back just in case I forgot the details. There’s an NDA telling me to keep my mouth shut about anything and everything to do with Bam’s work or private life.

How can this be happening?

I shift my attention to Bam’s gorgeous face. He’s standing right beneath one of the lights and it makes my eyes sting to look at him. Shuffling through the pile of papers, I clear my throat.

“Where do I sign?”

At the very back, there’s my looping signature from last time, complete with a tiny little heart over the ‘i’ in Delilah. My stomach churns and I can taste the scrambled eggs I had for breakfast lingering on my tongue.

I’m never going to admit it, but I didn’t read any of this when they were slid under my nose by my mother and Bam’s manager two years ago. The two of them must have worked it out together, probably over coffee since my mum works in the finance office of the same company Brenda works for.

I was too starstruck to ask questions, my brain addled by the thought that Bam Fortune, soap star with big dreams, wanted to date little old me. My mum insisted that both she and Brenda had my best interests at heart, that neither of them would ever encourage me to do anything that would damage me.

What a fucking lark.

I feel pretty well damaged right now. Like someone’s scooped out my insides and left them raw and bleeding.

I love him. Have done for years. And up until half an hour ago, I was planning our lives together. Intertwined.

The harsh lights are making my head swim, the migraine coming on faster than I’d like. I had wondered why we were meeting here in his management company’s office building. I haven’t seen much of him recently and not at all over the past few weeks, which isn’t all that unusual. He’s a star on the rise, out of the country filming more than he’s home. But when he does come home, he always lavishes me with attention. We’re always going out to dinners at the hottest restaurants in town, or to music awards and film premieres, and sometimes to the afterparties. Everyone always seems to know and love him and everyone always knows of me. I’m used to the slightly odd looks I can never quite interpret and the conversations that go slightly over my head.

Right now, it feels like my entire life has gone over my head.

Often, I felt like I was only attending the parties as either Bam’s arm candy or as a buffer for conversations he didn’t really want to have. And it turns out that’s exactly what my role was. The peaceable omega, there to placate and to flatter, and always to sing Bam’s countless virtues. His omega girlfriend who was just enough of a freak that I wouldn’t lose my mind over heats or make things messy.

All because I thought this was real.

And clearly my mother and his manager both thought I was too stupid to keep the fake part of our relationship convincing.

Bam falters partway to the door, his dark eyes with their enviable lashes searching my face. “Baby, I didn’t expect you to be so upset. We did really well to last this long, don’t you think?”

“Not upset,” I reply. “Just a headache.”

I’d sound more convincing if it didn’t sound like I had a massive lump in my throat.

“Sure.” He runs his hand through his long, dark hair. “Well, maybe head to the bathroom before you leave? It wouldn’t be a good look for you to head out looking like you’ve been crying. Not when Miri and I have a pap walk in an hour.”

“Miri?”

“My, er, new omega,” he replies.

Ah, of course. Because my nightmarish humiliation won’t be complete until I have to meet my replacement. Bam taps the door and disappears out of the conference room, leaving me alone with my head fit to split open.

My heart too.

I turn the pages of our agreement wildly as my heart pounds in my throat and sweat trickles down my spine. Since our entire relationship—every kiss and touch, every shared confidence—has been a business arrangement, I wonder what exactly I’ve got out of it. For Bam, the entire thing must have been for PR, although I can’t understand why.

I turn another page, my sweaty fingers messing up the paper, but I don’t care. I need to know. I need to find—

A soft exclamation gusts out of me.

Oh.

That’s what I got out of it. A whole lot of zeroes have been deposited into an account that I’ve never even seen.

Another thing my mother probably thinks I’m too stupid to manage.

“Holy hell, girl, I thought you were scentless.” A woman steps into the room, wrinkling her nose as she takes in the sight of me.

She’s gorgeous. Tall and lithe with a shock of bright pink hair that makes her green eyes pop from a perfectly symmetrical face.

“That’s Bam, not me,” I mutter in reply, not thinking as I speak. I continue to leaf through the papers, although I no longer know what I’m searching for.

“He’s scentless, I’m scent-blind,” I continue to mutter, not caring whether I’m giving away his secrets. “And I’ve got a scent-in-hiding. That’s what they call it, most people can’t scent me most of the time.”

“Well, I can certainly smell you right now,” she says. “Come on, let’s get you out of here.” She grabs my arm and tugs me up onto my shaky legs.

“Have we met before?” I ask as she manhandles me out the door and into a toilet just along the corridor. I try peering at her face again, but she clicks the lock shut and immediately starts spraying descenter all over me.

Along with being scent-blind, I’m also mostly face-blind. Typically, I’m less direct about asking and I just act like I know everyone, which gets me out of any awkwardness of not being able to recognise them.

“I guess it must come in handy,” she says. “Being scent-blind and not having a scent to give you away most of the time.”

I just grunt at her.

“You’re upset,” she continues. “Did they shaft you with the contract, or something? I know some people have a ton of clauses but it didn’t seem like that’d be your thing.”

I eye her again, getting a faceful of descenter spray as she blasts herself for good measure. Most of the time, I struggle with seeing people out of context. I have to rely on my memory of their voice or their mannerisms to get me through most interactions with people I don’t know well.

“I’m sorry. Are you with Brenda?” I ask. Brenda’s my manager and it’d make sense that she sent a representative through to make sure I signed the damn contract.

I’m frankly surprised my mother didn’t come along too to peer over my shoulder and make sure I was signing the correct part.

She knows. Of course, she knows that I thought it was real. I must have wanged on at her countless times about how wonderful Bam is, and she’d just pat me on the hand and nod along before sending me on my way.

She could at least have warned me that this was coming.

The woman chuckles under her breath, plucking something from her tiny bag and proceeding to dab at my face. “It’s the wrong colour make-up, but it’s better than nothing. Did no one warn you I was going to be here? I’m a little bit early, but—”

When I continue to stare at her blankly, she gives an awkward chuckle. “I’m Miri, Bam’s new omega. I’m the one before he packs up. The last defiant act before settling down with someone suitable, you know?” She peers at my face as she smears something cool beneath my eyes. “You do know about the roadmap, right?”

“Roadmap?”

“Yeah.” She gives me a doubtful look before continuing, “You know, the roadmap? How he starts with you as his sweet first love, then you grow apart and he has a defiant period with me, the ex-child star, where he’ll pick up a bunch of my younger-leaning fanbase before he matures, finding a pack that appeals to his audience as they age. That roadmap.”

I continue to gape at her, feeling another trickle of sweat drip down my spine. “All that’s… planned out for him?”

“The roadmap.” She nods. “It’s a story, you know? One that people can follow along with. They watch him fall in and out of love, watch him grow as they do.” She licks her lips nervously. “They did fill you in, right? I feel like I’m telling you all of this for the first time, but I can’t be.”

“No one filled me in on anything,” I reply quietly, feeling utterly pathetic.

Miri freezes before plucking out a lipstick which she dabs on my lips before doing the same to herself. “You mean…”

“I was seventeen when we met,” I tell her wretchedly. “Utterly starry-eyed. Bam was so handsome, you know? He was a few years older and he’d just finished that soap and was branching out into new things.” My eyes feel hot and itchy, the words catching in my throat.

“Oh shit.” Her eyes go wide as they bore into mine. “I did always wonder what you got out of it. I’ve seen you at parties before and… you’re not in the industry, are you?”

“Brenda and my mother are friends,” I say.

My beta mother, who has never known what to do with me, ever since I presented as an omega when I was eleven years old with all the joys that the mess of hormonal changes brought with it.

“Oh shit,” Miri repeats. “Well, if it’s any consolation, Delilah, you were good at it. I bet there’s a list of people a mile long who’d want to be the next person on your books. And think about it this way, you don’t have to find someone whose scent you don’t react to, as you don’t react to anyone’s. Trust me, that’s a big boon.”

“And people pay big money for it?” I ask. “Like, enough to pay off my degree and buy a car?”

It feels weird to be this vulnerable with my replacement, with the omega who’s going to step out of this room and be hanging off Bam’s arm. The person who’ll be sharing dinners and kisses and his bed.

… unless that last part was unusual for people in this particular situation. My stomach gives an unhappy gurgle and I eye the toilet behind Miri.

I really don’t want to ruin her hard work by throwing up. I want to walk out of here looking utterly unaffected.

She snorts. “Girl, I bet you could buy multiple houses if you play your cards right. You’re in demand.”

Who knew that a defective omega like me could be so sought after? Or that celebrities’ lives are all one big con, fed to the public to make them more money? Not me, that’s for sure.

I know now. And I’m going to leave these offices heartsick and broken, with a little of my naïvity worn away. But maybe I’m also going to be wiser, safe in the knowledge that I’m never, ever going to make the same mistakes again.

Charon

Pure electricity. 

Sweat pools in my mask and runs in rivulets down my naked back. The stage lights are the cheap kind and they’re blinding when I shift my head, so I keep my focus down on my sticks while my right foot goes wild on the double kick pedal. It’s easy to lose myself like this, to forget that there’s a stage or a shitty dive bar around me. 

Some people think that we drummers are just keeping time, but they’re talking out of their arse. We’re the heartbeat, keeping everything going and giving our absolute all. 

Tonight’s just a small gig, a favour to one of the bars in our hometown where we got our start, but that doesn’t mean we’re not going all out. It’s intimate. Intense. Hotter than Hades and I can smell far too much. If I tilt my head just right, the spotlight’s not so blinding and I’m able to look out to the crowd. 

There certainly are a lot of them. They’re singing along, screaming at the top of their lungs and staring up at us like we hold all the secrets they’re missing. My eyes are one of the few things visible through this fucking sweatbox of a mask, so I’m able to give a quick wink to the ones right at the front, pushing up against the security barrier. 

It earns me a chorus of screams and I grin as I draw my focus back. That’s all they get from me, my eyes and nothing else. It’s the exact opposite of Skoll, whose mask is just a silver skull that’s all mouth and no eyes. He says it’s so he can focus on the music and not the crowd, but all I know is without Titan and Oberon’s interference, he’d constantly be skirting with the danger of walking clean off the stage. 

We move seamlessly through another handful of songs, with Oberon shifting seamlessly between singing and screaming, and then passing over to Titan to release his roar that never fails to leave my skin tingling. The sound quality might not be the best, but the feeling in here tonight is alive. 

There’s another chorus of screams, punctuated by some gasps, and I glance up to see both Titan and Oberon are glaring our wayward bassist. It takes a second to see why. He’s stepped right to the centre of the stage and has one foot hovering. 

That’s his usual position for the song that leads us into the final section of the gig. The part that’s just me and him, so that the other two can grab a drink and prep themselves for our last song and the encore. Usually, it involves a whole lot of pyrotechnics, including me being flipped upside down with my rig entirely on fire. 

But we don’t do that for smaller gigs. No chance we’re risking this place with open flames when there’s this level of booze on the floor. Titan glances at me, his half-mask and heavy crown in place. I give a one-shouldered shrug, not pausing the beat as I transition into the usual mix of improv and rehearsed beats that the crowd goes wild for. Skoll is a master of his bass, leading into a rhythm that hits me deep between my ribs like he’s tugging at my soul. 

I glance up again, sweat pooling at my waistband. My senses are in overdrive. The scents of the room overwhelming me. I can pick out the alphas in the room from twenty paces, from the couple behind the stage, the bartender, the bar owner. Then there are the more muted scents of the betas that make up most of the crowd. They’re mostly intermingling together like a laundry room of scents. 

And then there are the omegas. Ten of them at least, all reaching crisis point at the same time. Their scents are sweet and heady enough to make my head ache. 

My skin tingles as a flash of heat and ice slides up and down my spine.

I open my eyes again, barely aware that I’d closed them. The first two rows of the crowd are now on their knees on the sticky floor. 

No.

That’s not right. It’s never right to see them like this. They first started doing it maybe six months ago, and it never fails to make me feel close to puking. 

Titan spins around and gives me another pointed look as Oberson shakes her head, giving me the signal to cut the song.

“We are Into Nothing. We appreciate you being here with us tonight,” he rasps into the mic. “How about one last song to see us out.”

The crowd screams their heads off. Oberon strides from one side of the stage to the other, the entire room’s attention on him. He handles it with ease, shoulders back and raw energy spilling out of him until they’re all utterly entranced. 

“Now, I want you on your feet,” he continues, holding one finger behind his back to signal that now’s the time for silence that I don’t need to fill. “On your feet for us. That’s it. We appreciate you.”

They’re reluctant at first, worshiping us as gods. But Oberon is intimidating as fuck when he wants to be, especially wearing his gold and black mask that makes it look like he can see everything. He’s in his usual black shirt, black trousers and cape and he just stands there, staring them down until they get to their feet. 

He then lowers his hand, and we kick into our last song, Feed the Flame.

We barely get through it. It’s not the triumphant end we were hoping for, or the thank you to Bryce—the owner of the bar. It fizzles along as the electricity in the air shifts into tension that I can feel right to my bones.

And then it’s over, we’re done. The four of us stagger offstage with the crowd baying for blood, or possibly for an encore. But Raf is there, shepherding us into the shitty greenroom in the back that hasn’t got any nicer over the years. There’s the stale smell of sweat and piss that lays thick in the air. 

Greg, our manager, is already here and is pacing from one end of the tiny room to the other, his nose firmly buried in his phone. He scowls as he looks up, earning himself warning growls from Oberon and Raf. They’re both scary fuckers at the best of times, and Greg pales, looking suitably chastened. 

“What was that?” Oberon rounds on Skoll, hissing under his breath as Raf has some choice words with Greg. 

“You could smell the desperation as soon as we stepped on stage,” Skoll replies with a shrug. “They needed something, or they’d have torn this place apart otherwise.” He’s grabbing fistfuls of something from a bowl and shoving them into his mouth. 

I shoot a glance at Titan, who gives a shrug from his corner. Oberon then gives me a little nod and some of the tension lifts from my shoulders. We all know that whatever was provided would head straight into Skoll’s mouth, whether it was sweets, snacks or drugs.

It’s not the first time he’s talked about the fans as though they’re feral, which… yeah, sometimes they can be . 

“They’re praying for Eris to find you,” Greg says. “Half of them are, anyway.” He glances up from his phone, pushing thick black glasses further onto his nose. “The other half are praying that you’ll recognise that they are your true Eris.”

“Whose fucking stupid idea was it for them to worship you all like gods, anyway,” Raf grumbles, leaning against the door with his arms crossed. 

“You wanted to hide your faces. The hero worship was entirely organic, I assure you.”

Raf snorts. “Like you guys weren’t on the fanfiction boards from day one, stirring the pot and adding to the ridiculous lore.”

“That we’re all descended from the gods themselves, that we come from the stars and we’re searching for our way home,” I mutter.

“And worse of all, that we’re looking for Eris. Our muse etched from the stars,” Titan adds. 

“I think we’ll all agree that the hero worship has gone further than anticipated.”

“They’ve started sending gifts again. The damn decoy hotel is full of them.”

We all know what that means. Mostly, it’ll be flowers and chocolate-covered raisins for Oberon since he happened to mention liking them during an interview about five years ago. 

Then there are the knicker-droppers. Sometimes they throw them at us on stage, but other times it’s like they’re mass shipments. Always worn and dripping with omega slick in a way you just know is intended to send us into rut. I’d bet my cock that most of them are outsourcing, but exactly how much omegas might charge for the pleasure, I have no idea. 

“We need to fix this,” Greg mutters into his phone. 

“Go right ahead,” Oberon growls back. 

“We’ll do this elsewhere. On the road or at the hotel. If they find out you’re still back here, I don’t want to see what happens.”

Raf pops his head around the door before swiftly returning, holding his finger to the earpiece that’s always in place. He and Oberon are the two strongest alphas in our pack, no contest there. And of the two of them, it’s a tie for who’s the more dominant alpha. In public, Oberon is our de facto leader as well as being our lead singer. But in private, Raf is the true head of our pack—he’s always watchful, always protective. Whenever Skoll comes up with a new way of pushing himself to the edge, or Oberon’s intrinsic alpha-ness overwhelms him, and when Titan needs to just be left alone, or when I find myself getting lost, Raf’s always there. 

He leads us out into the dingy corridor and out the back of the bar, away from the whooping that echoes behind us from the main room. Shoving open the back door, he holds back as we traipse out into the pouring rain. It’s splattering down from a blocked gutter, the streetlights reflecting off the puddles that are a hazard to avoid. At least with the weather like this, all scents are muffled, which is a small mercy as we sidle past the bar’s rubbish bins.

Instead of leading us to the main street, Raf points us in the other direction, and we traipse through the rain along a narrow snicket until we reach the parallel road. There’s a black eight-seater SUV with tinted windows loitering at the side of the road and Raf gives us the nod, his attention darting all around us until we’re safely inside. It’s a tight squeeze and not all that pleasant with us all still in our stage outfits, still wearing our masks and still slick with sweat. 

Greg’s the unlucky fucker in the middle, sandwiched between Titan and Skoll while Oberon and I take the two backseats. He doesn’t seem to notice, though. His face is still buried in his phone. 

We take a circuitous route back to our hotel for the night, the real one. Our PR and social teams always leak false information so that no one knows where we’re actually staying. 

Judging by the crowd gathered in the rain outside the hotel’s front entrance, that hasn’t worked out so well this time. 

“Shit,” Oberon mutters. 

“Looks like we’re all crashing in your mum’s basement, eh?” I reply with a grin. “It’ll be like old times.” 

“She’ll be ecstatic,” he replies, entirely deadpan. 

Skoll pulls handfuls of sweets from his pockets, shoving them into his mouth before offering them around and spilling them all over the car floor. Titan grunts, barely glancing up from the book he’s pulled from who knows where. 

“Hey, T,” Skoll waves his fist of sweeties in front of Titan’s face, leaning right over Greg and spilling more of them. “Want one?”

“I’m good,” he grunts. 

“How can you even be reading that thing? It’s too dark to see.”

Titan ignores him, plucking a tiny torch from deep within his costume and flashing it quickly at Skoll’s masked face, before returning to his book. 

“Ah, that’s not good,” Greg says, leaning forward and handing his phone over to Raf, whose shoulders stiffen and a low growl to emanate from deep in his chest. 

Oberon shifts until his big body is perched on the edge of his seat. “What’s happening?”

Greg doesn’t answer him directly and instead addresses the entire car, something that’ll piss off Oberon to no end. “Gentlemen, we have a big problem.”