“Days, not weeks,” I say. “Preheat usually lasts ten to twelve days. She’s already several days in. She’s running out of time.”
Adrian’s expression shifts, calculation replacing ease. “She thinks she has until the end of production,” he says. “She may not.”
I nod. “And if she doesn’t—“
“She’ll be in full heat,” he finishes for me. “On set. With fifty crew members and three alphas who are already responding to her scent.”
The words hang between us, impossible to take back. Adrian studies my face for a long moment, then nods once, decisively.
“We should check on her,” he says, the words casual but his eyes anything but. “Just to see how she’s doing. Make sure she’s taking care of herself.”
I recognize it for what it is—not curiosity, not concern alone, but action. The first real move we’ve made since that moment in the security room when everything changed. Not pushing, not demanding, but stepping in before it’s too late. Making sure she knows she has options. That she’s not only dependent on Elias.
“Lunch,” I say. “We’ll bring her food. Make sure she eats something that isn’t from craft services.”
Adrian’s smile is quick and sharp. “Perfect,” he says. “I’ll meet you by the monitors after the corridor scene.”
He moves away before I can respond, heading for makeup. But there’s a new purpose in his step, a focus that wasn’t there before. I watch him go, suddenly aware of what’s happening. We’re no longer standing back, waiting to see how this plays out. We’re moving now. Making choices. Taking action.
I turn back toward the set, suddenly aware of exactly where Maya is without having to look—halfway across the room, checking something on her tablet. Her shoulders are still tight. She’s clearly uncomfortable with being the center of attention in a way she’s never been before.
It should make me hesitate. Should make me question whether we’re doing the right thing, whether we’re moving too fast or pushing too hard or crossing lines that shouldn’t be crossed.
But it doesn't. Because part of me—the part that's been tracking her movements since long before this presentation started—recognizes something in her posture, in the way she's holding herself together.
Something that's changed.
I replay the last few days in my head.
The security room.
The hallway.
Breakfast.
The pattern has been there all along.
Whether I'm reading it correctly... That's the only part I don't know yet.
I head for my mark, suddenly aware of how much has changed in the last twenty minutes. Not just what I know or what I‘ve learned, but what I’m willing to do about it. The distance we’ve all been maintaining since that moment in the security room doesn’t feel like enough anymore. Not with the timeline shrinking by the hour.
We're moving now. All three of us in our own ways.
Elias refuses to leave Maya unprotected.
Adrian instinctively knows how to make people feel seen.
And I'm already halfway through planning for problems that haven't happened yet.
However this ends, the distance we kept before is impossible now.
Chapter 12
Maya
I sit on the narrow bench behind the lighting rig, phone balanced in my palm, screen lit with the two new contacts I didn’t ask for. “My alpha” stares back at me in Adrian’s clean, efficient font—a joke, it has to be—while Bash‘s straightforward entry sits just beneath it, as if distance on the screen might create actual space between them. I should delete them both. Swipe my finger across the screen and erase the evidence that this morning happened at all. But my thumb hovers over the delete button, refusing to press down.
The lighting rig casts long shadows across my hiding spot, the thin beam of sun making it through the tangle of cables and equipment just enough to warm my face without being visible from the main set. I chose this place carefully—a quiet corner in the controlled chaos of lunch break. Somewhere I could eat the protein bar in my bag and check tomorrow’s schedule without the questions, the looks, the way people have been moving around me since yesterday.
