“Correct,” Lulu says and a horn sounds again.
My team explodes into a celebration, cameras zoom in on bright smiles and sun-kissed skin, bouncing breasts and slivers of stomach. Odette throws herself at Thayer and climbs him like a monkey, shouting about how they workso welltogether. The dream team.
I suspect he catches her more out of fear for her safety than anything, but he also doesn’t set her down, looping an arm under her ass to support her weight. Petal hugs me, a waft of something sweet hits my nostrils, faint but there. And it doesn’t take a genius to realize that we’re out here in the sun, sweating our asses and our descenter off.
Thayer shifts toward me, still holding a grinning Odette. The faintest whiff of an alpha scent teases my nose. Gorgeous and entrancing, and I can only imagine what it would be like to smell his full scent.
His own nostrils flare.
The production team notices.
A swarm of people surround us, there’s a veritable cloud of aerosol propelled descenter sprayed over every one of us. Andby the time they retreat, Petal’s sweet scent and Thayer’s more masculine one is completely gone.
And I can’t figure out why that makes me feel like I’ve lost something vital.
Episode 8: Knight in Shining Armor
I knew going into this, the challenges were rigged. Knew that the production team would want to have the prince as the winner of every game they could manage to skew in his favor.
I didn’t know they would outright lie about the results though.
And yet, that is exactly what they did when Cleo Hartwell stood up on the stage and announced that after penalties were calculated, we lost by three seconds, becauseFlorencetouched a rope.
She didn’t. I know she didn’t.
I was watching her too closely. The bend and sway of her body as she navigated that obstacle. She didn’t get anywhereclose to a rope. It's more likely one of the other omegas on my team did. I wouldn’t know because I hadn’t been able to look away from the gorgeous honey blond.
It takes a moment for the announcement to sink in. For the cheers to fade. For the crew to start moving again, resetting cameras, corralling omegas, pretending this outcome makes sense.
Florence doesn’t say anything. She just nods, polite and distant, brow wrinkled like she’s thinking back over the rope course and wondering if she did touch a rope without her realizing. She steps back into line without complaint, without protest, letting them guide her away from us.
I flash her a reassuring smile when she glances over her shoulder in our direction, wanting like hell to pull her aside and tell her she’s not mad, that she didn’t touch a rope, but that they just couldn’t let us win, like I’d told her from the beginning.
Not that Forsythe's ego is that fragile, it's just a matter of having him be portrayed as our strongest alpha, our most competent.
“Well,” Courtland says lightly, though there’s tension under it, “that was enlightening.”
Grieves grunts in agreement. Piers lingers near us, close enough to hear but far enough to keep up appearances, his gaze tracking the omegas until they disappear from sight.
We don’t need to say it out loud to know what comes next.
Elimination discussions always come after challenges like this. Performance. Compatibility. Narrative. Who adds something to the story—and who doesn’t. If this were the normalAlpha Love Getaway, we’d focus on compatibility. On whom we like the best. But this isRoyaLove Getawayand we have no control over the eventual outcome.
It's a foregone conclusion, so instead we’ll focus on performance and narrative.
We retreat to the private seating area set aside for us, microphones still clipped but cameras pulled back just enough to pretend this is candid. Forsythe waits until we’re settled before straightening, shoulders squaring in that way he gets when he’s about to be royal instead of just Forsythe.
“All right,” he says. “We need to talk about cuts.”
There it is.
He lists a few names first. Safe ones. Obvious ones. Omegas who didn’t contribute much, who faded into the background, who looked good on camera but didn’t connect. We all nod along. Even Courtland doesn’t argue.
Then Forsythe hesitates.
My spine goes rigid already knowing where he’s going to go with this, and readying to fight.
“There’s also Florence,” he says carefully. “She’s not… seamless in group dynamics.”
