“We’ll try them out,” I promise the coordinator, tucking the items into my handbag next to my beloved Fabby McStabby 2.0 cutlery set.
“Wonderful,” the woman says, closing her folio of sex secrets. “Let me know what your preference is before filming starts. Now, let’s head to the set and do the walk through for the scenes so we can work out where your hands will go.”
I glance at the graphics on the page. We’ll step through every line of the faked sex and go over it until the movements stick in my brain, and that requires pressing my body up against Brad’s.
Fuck. How on earth am I going to explain this kind of acting to Zack?
***
After a long, tiring day at headquarters, Rickon and I slurp down bowls of instant ramen in the OCB camper van before heading back to our tent under a twilight sky. It’s strange to be out in the air instead of curled up in our love-nest apartment, but at least I’m doing something for Zack here. Otherwise, I feel completely useless.
Rickon glances around nervously. He’s been twitchy ever since we pitched the tent three days ago. Well, more like failed atpitching the tent. Luckily Agent Josef has a bunch of experience with camping, or we’d have been using the entire structure like a giant sleeping bag.
When my suspiciously quiet lover zips the flaps closed, I pop my hands on my hips. “Something bothering you?” I wince. “Besides the obvious gaping hole in our lives?”
Rickon comes over and rests one hand lightly on my waist. “I wouldn’t even know where to start, besides being petrified for Zack.”
I wrap my hand around his wrist, locking him in place. “Try.”
He sighs. “For one, I have the loveliest omega on the planet with just a thin scrap of canvas between us and the big bad world, and for two—” He stares at me in the gloom and then reaches up to cup my jaw. “Even if it’s just acting, I don’t think it’s the right time for you to be doing sex scenes.”
I lean into his warm touch. “We’ve done a lot of filming,” I remind him. The months are blurring together, but we’re getting near the back of the manuscript. We had to do some re-shoots around the script change after Director Yun got awesome footage of me flying through the air, but now we’re back on track.
Once we get through a couple of sex scenes, we’ll be approaching the big finale horse race where Ashana gets her chance to ride as an omega after all the struggles against the jockeys and corrupt owners trying to drive her out of the industry. Then my first acting contract ends; at least until we start the pre-release campaign.
But what started as my lifeline became barely meaningful in the face of my newfound family.
I slide my hands up Rickon’s arms and clasp them around his neck. “Did I ever tell you why acting is so important to me?”
He touches his forehead to mine. “No.”
“We didn’t have much in the trafficking center. A gym with a pool, card games with the other omegas once a week, and a TV inour rooms. Well, we had books too, but as you know, those aren’t much good to me.”
He nods, his brow furrowing against mine in empathy.
“I spent half my time with the other omegas pretending to be insane so they wouldn’t get hurt . . .” I chuckle and shake my head, enjoying the silky touch of our skin and the faint tickle of his white hair falling around my temples. “Well, maybe not all of it was feigned.”
Rickon squeezes me tight, pressing me into his chest. “I know you’re not crazy.”
I brush my thumbs over his neck and throat. Rickon’s always been the most accepting human in the world. “I’m crazy about you,” I murmur.
“And I’m crazy about you.” His lips find mine, warm and touched with a hint of his lip balm. He tastes like ramen and onion, and I melt into his affection. After a few moments, he pulls back, breath warm on my swollen lips. “What were you saying?”
I chuckle. Easy to forget things mid-sentence around this stunning alpha. “Movies and shows were pretty much all I had to make sense of the big world those bastards had barred us from. So many times when they left me tied to that table in my heat, I remembered those actors, and I imagined myself playing my own role.”
Rickon rocks me slowly side to side, a loving dance made just for this moment as I peel back the layers on the secrets I’ve never dared reveal.
“My favorite self was Red Hawk, an undercover spy being tortured for information. Her special training allowed her—allowed me—to endure pain and hunger and yeah, torture. I got through a lot with her help.”
I dig my nails into the skin on his upper back. Not enough to bleed, but to ground myself. “So I really am crazy, Rickon,because I have all these other people in my head. Wild Red takes over during my heats and imprisons me, and when I thought we’d lost Zack, Ghost Red froze me like a glacier. But I’ve never truly lost myself because I also had my alphas’ voices. You’re my anchor to finding my way back to myself, Rickon.”
A few cold drops land on my neck as he cries on my behalf again. “What do we sound like in your head?” he asks, voice thick with emotion.
“Just a faint murmur, like you’re speaking in another room and all I can make out are some rises and falls instead of words. It goes quiet when you’re in line of sight. Actually, it went away once we connected through a bond.”
Rickon leans back and smooths a few strands of hair off my forehead. “Then . . . is Callisto the only one you hear now?”
I tap my temple. “In here, yes.” I shift my hand to my chest. “And you and Zack live in here.”
