Theo scoffs. “I don’t like it. We watch her every move. We track her every breath.” Theo shakes his head. “But I won’t ruin this. I won’t break ranks. If we tell her the truth, we do it together. We don’t speak to her until we are allon the same page and talk to her as a group.”
Reid sighs. “Dismiss Roman for now. If the M.E. confirmed the body, we’ll look elsewhere and double check George, since he’s the only option. Check the staff records again and the families of the two adults who died in the home. Someone wants Zora to remember, and they have enough technical knowledge to bypass our sensors.”
The meeting breaks, but the tension remains. I walk toward the wall of monitors showing the internal penthouse feeds. I need to see her. I need to know the welds and the sensors actually provide the peace I promised her childhood self.
Theo taps a command, and the center screen fills with the 4K feed of unit 1301.
Zora stands in the center of the nesting room. Jules occupies the space beside her, . They have boxes of throw pillows, strings of warm-toned LED lights, and several high-end silk blankets scattered across the bed. Jules holds a phone on a tripod, following Zora her Radiant Life smile fixed on the lens as she speaks to her followers.
She looks happy as she picks up a string of lights and tries them on different walls for the viewers to pick out. Theo types something in a secondary monitor and pulls up her Live. She moves to stand on the bed as she drapes curtain fairy lights.“Ilike them being over the bed, too, guys.“ She looks at the camera and smiles.“Can you hand me a few of the hooks, Jules?”
A second later she’s holding up some clear plastic hooks.“If you haven’t tried them, get some of Bind’s adhesive hooks for hanging your lights and they make them for anything you could need to hang. They don’t leave holes in your walls. Get your rent deposits, Omegas.”
Bind’s product is one of the companies we got to sponsor her silently; anytime she mentions them, they cut her a check with how much she drives sales for them.
Watching her move through the room fills my inner Alpha with a fierce contentment. This was the goal all along.
I watch the way she laughs at something Jules says. I want to be the one making her laugh. I want to be the one standing in that room, helping her arrange the pillows.
Instead, I stand here in the dark, watching her through a hidden lens, pretending to be a stranger named Sawyer. I touch the tattoo on my ribs, the skull and crossbones.
One day she'll know who I am for real.
But for tonight, I stay in the shadows. I have a session scheduled in four hours. I have a different mask to wear. I have the Saturday aid to provide. I will give her the surrender she craves, even if I have to do it from behind a screen.
“Theo, keep the 4K feed pinned to my terminal.” I rumble, turning away from the monitors. “I want an eyes-on report every fifteen minutes until her stream ends. if that commenter appears again, pin him.”
I walk out of the hub. I have a session to prepare for.
I enter the private camming unit and lock the door. The silence here carries a weight of anticipation that makes my palms itch. I strip off my charcoal security shirt, tossing it onto the small couch in the corner. My reflection in the dark monitor shows the skull and crossbones tattoo on my ribs. I trace the ink for a second; the lines of the heart-eyed pirate flag remain a secret I hold close to my chest.
I pull the half-skull mask over my face. The cool fabric settles against my skin, narrowing my vision. I sit in the high-backed chair and engage the voice filter.
I log into the Remote Alpha Aid terminal. The interface displays the active Wi-Fi connections for the package Zora received this morning. Green lights on my dashboard confirm the pairing. I see the Alpha dildo, the one with the rotating head and thrusting feature, and the velvet-lined handcuffs. I also power on my sleeve masturbator. The device syncs with her dildo.
The screen flickers to life. Zora sits on the edge of her bed, the amber fairy lights casting a soft, golden glow across her mahogany skin. She wears a lacy black lingerie slip, but she hiked the hem to her hips. Toy sit box beside her.
“You look ready, Omega.” My filtered voice rumbles through her room, a deep, gravelly vibration.
Zora jumps slightly, her gaze snapping to the camera lens. She sits small in the center of that massive bed, but her eyes hold a spark of excitement that makes my blood run hot.
“I am. I stayed up thinking about these.” She reaches for the dildo and handcuffs. “The WiFi stuff confuses me a little.”
I lean forward, my bare chest filling the frame.
“The toys contain receivers, Omega. I control the intensity and the rhythm from my computer. More importantly, they sync. When I move my sleeve, your toy reacts. When your walls spasm around the device, the sensors transmit that pressure back tome. I feel exactly what you feel. We move as one tonight. I also hold the digital override for those cuffs. Pick them up.”
She obeys, the steel chains clinking softly.
“Close them for me. Click them shut.”
She snaps the cuffs together without putting them on. The mechanical sound carries through the audio. I tap a command on my screen. A soft, digital whir comes from the device on the chain, and the cuffs pop open instantly. Zora gasps.
“I hold the key, Omega. Before we begin, we must establish the safety protocols. If you feel actual distress and need the session to stop immediately, you say ‘Red’. If you need a moment to breathe or a break from the intensity, you say ‘Yellow’. Do you understand the code?”
“Red for stop. Yellow for break. I understand.”
“Good. Now, tell me something. Have you ever taken an Alpha knot before?”
