He huffed. “I entirely do not agree with this arrangement.”
“Well, that’s what you and Kael get for skipping yesterday’s evening practice because having a threesome right before the Games was apparently more important than reviewing the play formations Coach Mercer assigned.”
The sentence was delivered at whisper volume with the precise, casual,I-know-what-you-did-and-I’m-not-mad-but-I-am-using-it-as-leverageenergy that pack dynamics produced when the Omega had intelligence and the Alphas had been caught.
Luka pouted.
The expression was brief, defeated,carrying the specific,I-have-been-outmaneuvered-and-the-evidence-is-irrefutableenergy of a man whose private activities had been identified and weaponized with the prosecutorial efficiency of an Omega who had been raised by a coach and trained in a sport where observation was a competitive skill.
Then he shrugged.
Muttered, low enough that the cameras couldn’t lip-read:
“I regret nothing.”
I had to physically restrain the laugh.
Compressed it into a smile that I directed at the stadium’s upper decks, where sixty-two thousand spectators had no idea that the poised, professionally composed figure skater walking behind the American flag was fighting the urge to dissolve into hysterics because her goaltender-slash-figure-skating-partner had just defended his pre-Olympic threesome with the captain of his hockey team with the unapologetic conviction of a man whose priorities were firmly, irreversibly, magnificently aligned.
The interviewers arrived.
A camera crew materialized in the delegation’s flow with the practiced, choreographed efficiency of a broadcast team whose job was to extract sound bites from moving athletes without disrupting the ceremony’s progression. The reporter was a Beta—a woman whose media credentials and shoulder-mounted camera identified her as one of the floor correspondents assigned to capture athlete reactions during the procession. Her microphone found the space between Luka and me with the navigational precision of a professional whose equipment was an extension of her body.
“Octavia Moreau, Luka Petrov—congratulations on qualifying. Can we get your comments on the Games? How are you feeling heading into the competition?”
I turned to the camera.
The smile I produced was practiced. Warm. Carrying the specific, media-trained,I-am-thrilled-and-accessible-and-you-may-quote-mecomposure that athletes developed through years of post-competition press interactions and that I deployed now with the muscle-memory automaticity of a woman who had been facing cameras since her junior competition debut at fourteen. The expression was genuine—the excitement behind it real, the energy authentic—but thedeliverywas curated. Calibrated. The professional packaging that ensured the content reached the audience in the configuration the athlete intended rather than the configuration the moment’s raw emotion might have produced.
“We’re honored to be here,” I said, the words carrying the diplomatic, inclusive,speak-for-the-teamregister that athletes employed in group contexts. “The preparation has been intense—six weeks of the most demanding training I’ve experienced in my career—and the energy in this stadium is extraordinary. We’re ready.”
The reporter smiled. Nodded. Then steered toward the angle the broadcast wanted—the question that the producers had flagged, the narrative thread the coverage was designed to pull.
“Octavia—are you nervous about being back on the ice at this level? Especially with a new partner, compared to your previous partnership with Garrison Hale, who is now, interestingly, representing Canada in the same events?”
There it is.
The narrative. The angle. The story the media wants to tell—the injured skater returning to face the man who caused the injury, except the public doesn’t know the injury was caused and the media doesn’t know the silence was engineered and the reporter isframing it as a comeback-against-the-odds when the real story is a comeback-against-a-conspiracy. And I am going to let them tell the wrong version, because the wrong version serves me better than the right one.
Ignorance is my armor. The moment Garrison believes I’m unaware, he underestimates me. And underestimation is the most valuable currency a competitor can hold.
I smiled.
Sweetly. The expression carrying the specific, practiced,I-am-answering-the-question-you-asked-and-not-the-question-you-wanted-to-askdiplomacy that media training had refined into my default interview mode. The smile that gave the camera warmth without giving the reporter substance. The composure that looked like openness and functioned as a wall.
“I’m just here to have fun and express myself on the ice.” The words were delivered with the light, genuine,isn’t-this-wonderfulenergy that audiences responded to and that reporters filed underathlete provides positive but non-substantive comment. “I’m incredibly confident in my partner’s skills. Luka and I have developed a dynamic that I think is unique to our partnership—our backgrounds in different disciplines create a contrast that, when it works, produces a thing that neither of us could achieve alone.”
I glanced at Luka.
The look was deliberate. Timed. The specific, camera-aware,let-the-audience-see-the-chemistryeye contact that our media strategy called for—not the private, loaded,I-need-you-to-know-somethingversion that we shared in closed spaces and quiet corridors, but the public, curated,look-how-well-we-work-togetherversion that was designed to generate the exact kind of speculation that advanced our game plan.
“And I hope,” I continued, still looking at him, my voice carrying the warm, slightly intimate,there’s-more-here-than-I’m-sayingregister that the microphone would capture and the audience would interpret and the social media analysts would dissect frame by frame within the hour, “that we can portray the chemistry shimmering between us.”
Luka smirked.
The real one. The quarter-turn, eyes-included, directed-at-me version that I’d first encountered at the bar and that had, in the weeks since, been refined into the specific, public-facing,I-know-what-you’re-doing-and-I’m-going-to-play-along-because-the-play-is-brilliantiteration that our media strategy required. He leaned toward the microphone—not far, just enough that his voice entered the frame with the warm, charming, my-accent-does-the-heavy-lifting energy that had made him the most social-media-popular athlete in the Ironcrest program.
“Chemistry on the ice, ladies and gentlemen.” The words were delivered with the casual, confident, hint-of-a-wink energy of a man who understood that the line between innuendo and professionalism was a blade edge and who was skating it with the same precision he brought to lateral movements in the crease. “We’ll keep this PG-13.”
