But I notice things I wouldn’t have before.
Adrian stops by my station three times in the first hour. Not lingering, or making a show of it, just pausing on his way to somewhere else. Each time, his body is angled toward mine, and he is solely focused on me. Bash appears beside me during the first lighting reset, close enough that the bergamot-and-spice of him cuts through the smell of equipment and coffee. He doesn’t say anything about last night. Instead, he asks about a scheduling conflict for next week, his tone professional, his eyes holding mine a beat longer than the conversation requires. Elias remains at the edges of the set, his presence constant but unobtrusive. I catch him watching me twice from across the room, his gaze calm and assessing. Both times, he nods once when our eyes meet, like he’s confirming something to himself.
None of it feels possessive. None of it comes with expectations attached. It feels like being noticed, like being included, like three people making space for me in their lives.
A week ago, that kind of attention would have sent me running in the opposite direction.
Now I find myself looking for it.
How easily my body settles into their orbit. How naturally I lean toward Adrian’s warmth when he stands beside me. How my eyes find Bash across crowded rooms without conscious effort. How Elias’s grounding presence at the edges of my awareness makes the constant hum of set stress feel manageable instead of overwhelming.
I’m relaxing into them.
And I have no idea how to stop.
The first shift in how other people treat me happens around ten-thirty.
I’m at the craft services table, reaching for a water bottle, when one of the PAs—a beta woman I’ve worked with on three previous projects—steps back slightly to give me more room than she normally would. The movement is small, almost unconscious. She doesn’t comment on it. Doesn’t make a thing of it. Just adjusts her positioning the way people do when they’re suddenly aware of someone’s designation.
Five minutes later, the gaffer lowers his voice when he asks me a question about the next setup, his tone shifting into something careful and measured that he’s never used with me before.
By eleven, two separate crew members have asked if I need breaks.
Not because I look tired or stressed or any of the things that would normally trigger those questions. Because they can smell me now. Because my scent has changed enough that the neutrality I’ve spent my entire career maintaining has vanished overnight, replaced by something unmistakably omega.
Something that makes people treat me differently whether they mean to or not.
A beta PA—young, earnest, the kind who notices everything—pulls me aside during the lunch break with a concerned expression. “Those three keep checking on you,” she says quietly, gesturing vaguely toward where Adrian, Bash, and Elias are clustered near the monitors. “Like, a lot. More than normal. Is everything okay?”
Heat floods my face. “Everything’s fine,” I say automatically. “We’re just friends. They’re being... attentive.”
She nods, but something in her expression suggests she doesn’t entirely believe me. “Okay. Just... you know. If you need anything. The production office has those herbal things. The ones for presentations. They keep them in the first aid kit.” I thank her and extract myself from the conversation as quickly as I can, suddenly desperate for air that doesn’t feel like it’s carrying everyone’s awareness of what I am.
This is what I’ve been afraid of since the beginning. Not the alphas themselves—not really. The way their attention makes me visible to everyone else. The way my changing scent turns me from Maya-the-production-coordinator into Maya-the-omega in the space of a single breath, regardless of what I want or how hard I've worked to be seen as anything else.
I retreat to my station and bury myself in the schedule for the next twenty minutes, focusing on call times, location changes, and the thousand small details that have always made me feel grounded. By the time I surface, my heart has stopped racing and the tightness in my chest has eased into something I can breathe around.
Then a new alpha walks onto set.
Chapter 23
Maya
He’s introduced as a replacement for one of the supporting actors—someone’s brother, filling in last-minute for a scene that got rescheduled. He’s tall, well-built, and conventionally attractive in a way that reads effortlessly on camera. With Dark hair, warm eyes, and the kind of smile that suggests he’s used to putting people at ease.
Objectively speaking, he's exactly the kind of alpha my omega should respond to. Compatible. Attractive. Professionally appropriate. Everything my rational brain has been telling me should work just as well to ground me as Bash or Adrian or Elias.
Except my omega recoils the moment his scent hits me.
The reaction is immediate and visceral, a tightening low in my stomach that has nothing to do with attraction and everything to do with wrongness. His scent sits beneath my skin like something foreign—not unpleasant, exactly, but unmistakably not mine. Not something my body recognizes, wants, or reaches for.
He approaches the director first, then circles toward the monitors where several crew members are clustered. He passes within three feet of my station, close enough that his scent washes over me in a wave that makes my muscles tense instinctively.
My omega pulls back. Hard.
Not the mild withdrawal of disinterest. The sharp, instinctive recoil of a body encountering something it fundamentally does not want.
The alpha does nothing wrong. He smiles politely when introduced to people. He takes direction well. He stands where he’s told to stand and says his lines the way they’re written. He is, by every objective measure, perfectly fine.
