Cassidy
“And who is the omega?” Hudson Gyiti asks, causing every head in the room to turn towards me.
My heart genuinely stops beating as I feel the weight of too many alphas and far too much judgement.
Before now, I had been doing an excellent job of pretending I didn’t exist.
Not a single person from our side has acknowledged my presence since they arrived, and it has been blissful.
The conference room is too beautiful for me to hate it. Which is unfortunate because I very much want to right now.
Everything about it has been designed to look effortless, which, of course, means it must have cost an obscene amount of money.
The walls are a soft, warm cream, with panelled sections in pale oak and long vertical strips of smoked glass that catch the morning light from the floor-to-ceiling windows.
The table itself is huge—oval, glossy, and dark enough that every reflection looks sharper than reality. It makes everyone around it look important.
It makes me look like I wandered in by mistake. No wonder this alpha is confused by my existence.
I’m tucked into the corner, with a small side table reserved for minute-taking, far enough from the real decision-makers that nobody has to acknowledge I’m there. I’m not an important person at the table—I’m a nobody.
Harlan cocks a brow at me when I meet his eyes.
I keep my spine straight, my knees together, my expression polite and neutral, so that nobody has to worry about my abilities.
I should feel grateful that Harlan’s enforced the scent neutraliser because, otherwise, they’d all be drowning in my fear.
And yet, I still resent it.
“Nobody relevant,” he says smoothly. “Cassie’s a first-year trainee who is taking our notes.”
The words land right in my gut, and when he immediately dismisses me with his gaze, it feels like he’s twisting the knife deeper.
Nobody relevant.
Right. Of course.
I don’t know why I expected anything else. Harlan’s the one running this meeting, unsurprisingly, and has taken the head of the table.
He’s got one hand clutching the back of his chair, veins bulging and knuckles white, but despite the apparent tension he’s carrying, his aura just screams boredom.
His suit today is deep bottle green, perfectly cut and almost offensively elegant, the crisp white of his shirt making the gold warmth of his skin stand out. His dark blonde hair is pushed back from his face, and I have to avoid looking at him, or I’d be blushing for the world to see.
“Now, since we’re all here, let’s get started,” he says, his voice smooth and cutting. “The materials you’ve received this morning contain our preliminary visual for Amplified.”
He gestures to the presentation packs that someone has put together, and I wish I was given one so I could follow along better.
“To get us started, we need to work through our plan and make tweaks. The foundational elements of today are the silhouette, movement, product-to-skin relationship and, of course, model compatibility.”
He nods towards Orion Calder, an alpha I hadn’t met before today, who also works for Opus Media. He’s a product coordinator—something I never even knew existed.
From what I’ve gathered, he’s not as overly severe as Harlan, but there’s something steady about him that settles something low in my chest.
He’s got light blonde hair, a strong jawline, and the kind of broad, calm presence that suggests he can get everyone to obey without needing to raise his voice or rely on his bark.
His scent is warm amber and vetiver that doesn’t intrigue me, but thankfully doesn’t unsettle me either. It sits low and warm in the room, mingling nicely with the others without pressing too hard against my nerves.
“Perfect,” Henry says, nodding firmly. “Take the stage, then. I’m intrigued.”
Henry Murmen is the leader of his trio, I think, since he’s taken the centre seat, letting the other two alphas sit on each of his sides. It would make sense since he’s the brand director and campaign lead.
He’s an alpha, too, older than everyone else here, for sure, with silvery grey strands threaded through his black hair.
His charcoal suit is a custom Auxec and looks soft enough to be stroked, and his shoes are Kohi.
I’m not surprised that he’s here in designer clothes, but I do feel a little underdressed.
“You were very clear in the brief that the formulations are designed to support biology, and we’ve built the campaign around that message,” Harlan says, clicking the remote in his hand to turn to the first slide. “Our idea is to centre everything around one key word.”
“Amplify,” Ava says with a warm smile.
She’s their marketing lead, and honestly, I shouldn’t be surprised that the only female alpha here is the most breathtaking.
Tall, slim, with dark red hair that’s tied in an elaborate up-do. Her makeup seems professionally done, the dark eyeliner, matching with the deep red lipstick in a way I could never pull off.
Her suit is ivory, her nails wine-dark, and her scent is crisp pomegranate and white musk. Feminine, yes, but not soft.
No, this alpha screams power in a way the men could only dream of achieving.
“Exactly,” Harlan says. “We’re amplifying what exists, and that’s what will appeal to the demographic. Celebrating the inner beauty of yourself, and all that.”
I lower my head, scrawling quickly, as I try to tune out the bitchy voice inside my head. I can feel the heat of someone’s eyes on me despite the effort I’m putting into staying hidden.
I’m not important enough to be here. Not good enough to share a space with these truly talented people.
Honestly, I feel like a fraud working on this campaign. The idea is truly magnificent. The branding will be exceptional. The message… beautiful.
And yet, it’s something I’m currently not able to claim. Before I started here, I never once thought I’d hide who I was.
I never thought I’d be happy hiding my scent—hiding my truth from the world, keeping every anxious spike locked beneath a chemical veil.
And yet… I’m relieved, far more than I should be.
How can I promote Amplify when I’m a coward? Someone unworthy to even be a footnote in this campaign?
“From a visual perspective, we’re keeping the lens close,” Silas says, and I look up at him, before gasping quietly when I notice his dark brown eyes are still trained on me.
Silas Varrick.
Director of Visual Production. Another alpha who coats himself in enough scent neutraliser that he could successfully rob a bank and leave nothing behind.
Strangely, he’s the first alpha I met here at Opus, yet he didn’t introduce himself at the time.
Harlan’s friend, who was cryptic when offering tips on how to handle the stern alpha.
He’s broad-shouldered, with dark brown hair styled neatly, and takes up space without even trying.
“We want to focus on the specific points that people will relate to. Necks, wrists, that sort of thing, but we want it natural,” he continues, still not looking away from me.
“If we’re focusing on amplification—then it needs to not be a performance for the sake of the ad.
It needs that real feeling, so people connect. ”
Ava nods eagerly. “I love it. If the viewer feels close, then they’re going to be more intrigued.”
“It’s like a story rather than just an extra,” Henry says dryly. “I don’t care for it, but then, I’m not the demographic.”
“No, you’re really not,” Ava says, swatting his arm in a familiar way. “What do you think, Huds?”
Hudson smiles. He’s the product specialist from Aurelion, and from my research,I know that he and his pack are the ones behind this new line.
Hudson is younger than Henry, but no less composed, with warm brown skin, close-cropped curls, and a wedding band on his left hand that keeps catching the light.
His scent is the most free in this room—spiced orange and rain-wet stone—and it makes my nose wrinkle whenever it slips beneath the neutraliser.
I know it’s the mating bond making me dislike it. My chest aches, some stupid, possessive part of my biology still reaching for Evander instead.
I swear, I should charge him rent for how much space he’s occupied this weekend.
“I like what I’m hearing, but I am concerned about the casting for this,” Hudson says, and I notice everyone rapidly change the pages in their books. “You’ve listed people here, and I see you’ve got a list of designations, skin tones, undertones, and their existing brand alignments.”
“Yes,” Orion answers. “It was important to us to make sure that we had primary and secondary models picked out, per product, so that we can get them booked in for the proposed shooting windows.”
The three Aurelion members exchange looks, and Harlan fills the silence by rattling off statistics I remember gathering on Friday afternoon.
My heart is racing, and I don’t think I’m the only one currently unsettled. The two beta stylists have yet to speak, but they’re now exchanging notes on their papers.
Finn’s lean and sharp-faced, with soft brown skin, a shaved head, and silver rings stacked neatly across his fingers. His outfit is simple—black trousers, cream shirt, soft grey cardigan—but every line of it is deliberate.
Penny is all pale blonde hair with wide blue eyes, and she’s got a gorgeous blush-pink blazer on.
She has colour-coded tabs sticking from her folder, and she seems the most uncomfortable with the current questions.
“Matching by designation is fine,” Hudson says carefully. “But that’s not the purpose of this product.”
Harlan leans on his chair, a creak echoing around the room. I flinch, my throat tightening around a swallowed whine as I once more feel the weight of Silas’s gaze.
Oh, no. I hope he doesn’t tell Harlan.
“We’ve been extremely careful to make sure that coercive testing language has been erased from this campaign,” he says calmly. “From our understanding, biology is important, yes, because it’s part of the identity of the consumer, but it’s not the entire pitch.”