Episode 36 Queen of Heats… Er, Hearts
Florence
I honestly never thought I’d be here again.
Sitting across from a journalist, a camera pointed at my face. But unlike that regretful interview with Heather Howle, this time I’m surrounded by my pack and have five mating marks visible on my neck.
Oh, and the interviewer is Cleo Hartwell, with Lulu and Marshall hovering over her shoulder.
That familiarity is somewhat soothing. Despite how it turned out, I can see that they were both trying to help me in their own way.
Lulu looks nervous, fidgeting with her hair, smoothing it out, and then running a hand down the front of her button-down shirt. Marshall is speaking to her in a low voice, pointing at his tablet and then pointing to a camera.
In the chair across from us, Cleo Hartwell sits in all her statuesque glory, a veritable golden goddess among us. A make-up artist is brushing powder across her nose. She looks as calm and collected as always.
When we’d reached out to Alpha Love Getaway to propose this, they’d all but jumped at the opportunity and been willing to give us every one of our demands. Including having Lulu, Marshall and Cleo Hartwell fly to Granton to conduct the interview.
They’ll finally get the final confessional I refused to give them when I left the show.
The producer gives me a tight smile. “This would have been so much easier if you’d been willing to do this months ago. Or at the reunion. Or you know, any time before this.”
I shrug, while my pack lets out low warning growls. Our bond is still new, still settling and they have a hard time when anyone is even remotely rude to me. But this is pretty par for the course for Lulu, so I push a flood of calm in their direction.
“Maybe, but I wouldn’t have been ready back then.”
“And this is going to be one of the most watched episodes of Alpha Love Getaway in the history of the show,” Court says, sounding completely sure of that statement.
Lulu hums, but she can’t deny what he’s said.
It will likely be watched by millions of people. It's the only thing we could think to do to help Elizabeth from halfway across the world.
Cleo chuckles. “That’s true, Lulu darling. The buzz is near deafening.”
“I know.” The producer sighs like the thought of that is distressing. “I suppose we should get this started, shouldn’t we?”
The room shifts.
No one moves, no lights change, but something settles all the same. Conversations taper off. Cleo straightens in her chair, Marshall and Lulu step back behind the monitors, and the makeup artist disappears as though she was never there at all.
A quiet falls over the set, thick with anticipation.
I take a slow breath, grounding myself in the feel of them around me. Thayer’s hand is warm on my thigh. Forsythe’s knee presses against mine. Piers close enough that I can feel the steady rhythm of his breathing. Grieves and Court flanking us like immovable pillars.
My pack.
Not a possibility anymore.
A fact.
Somewhere off to the side, someone calls, “We’re live in five.”
My pulse kicks, sharp and immediate, but I don’t let it spiral. I’ve done this before. Not like this. But I know what it means to sit under the weight of a camera, to have the world watching and waiting for you to say the wrong thing.
Only this time, I’m not alone.
This time my pack won’t let me fall, literally or figuratively.
“Three… two…”
A red light blinks on.
Cleo’s spine straightens almost imperceptibly as the red light flickers on, her expression settling into something practiced and effortless.
“Good evening,” she says, her voice warm and steady, the kind that fills a room without ever needing to rise. “I’m Cleo Hartwell, and tonight’s episode of Alpha Love Getaway is… a little different.”
A faint smile curves her lips, a bit knowing, a bit smug.
“Over the course of the last season, millions of you watched what was meant to be a search for love unfold into something far more complicated. What began as a courtship became a controversy, then a scandal… and, for some, something much more personal.”
Her gaze flicks briefly to me, then back to the camera.
“In the weeks since the finale aired, questions have only grown louder. About the choices that were made. About the people involved. About what happened behind the scenes.”
She lets that sit for just a beat before continuing.
“Tonight, for the first time since the events that changed everything, Florence Karlin and the Ashbourne Pack have agreed to speak openly. Together.”
Her hand gestures lightly toward us, elegant, deliberate.
“This is not a reunion. This is not a performance.” A pause. “This is the truth as they’re willing to share it.”
Her gaze sharpens just slightly, a glint of something showing beneath the polish.
“And I think we can all agree… It's been a long time coming.”
She turns fully toward me then, the warmth returning, threaded now with curiosity.
“Florence.” Then she looks at Forsythe sitting next to me. “Your highness, my lords. Thank you all for being here.”
If the prince is upset at Cleo going against protocol and greeting me first, he doesn’t show it, smiling warmly back at her. “Thank you for having us.”
She tips her head in acknowledgment. “Let's get started with an obvious question.” Her gaze lands pointedly on my neck, on my mating marks left on display by my high ponytail, and a pleased smirk curves her mouth.
“It appears as though the Ashbourne pack finally got their heads out of their arses and claimed you. Is that right?”
I allow a small chuckle to fall from my lips as I nod, a pleased flush curling over my cheeks. “Yes. It took a bit, but we bonded almost… a week ago?”
“Six days,” Thayer corrects, sliding his hand onto my thigh and squeezing.
“Best six days of my life,” Court beams.
“Of all our lives,” Forsythe corrects.
“I’m delighted to hear that,” Cleo says, sounding genuine. “I was rooting for you from the start.” I believe her. She didn’t keep it a secret that she was annoyed at the way the production staff continually put Isadora first in all things. Likely at the request of the queen.
“You made quite the waves, your highness, when you posted a photo of all of you together in bed, clearly newly bonded… among other things.” My cheeks turn pink at the mention of those ‘other things.’ “What made you decide to announce your bond in that way?”
The smile he gives her is warm and reaches his eyes, and it only grows when he looks at me, getting soft and sweet, full of adoration. “I didn’t want to wait a single second longer to claim Florence as my mate. I wanted the world to know as quickly as possible how much I adore this woman-”
“How much we all do,” Court adds, leaning forward to drop a kiss on my shoulder.
I can’t help but preen just a bit as Forsythe continues. “And how proud I am to be able to call her mine. Ours. Especially with how much we cocked it up when we first met.”
He turns to look at me, brown eyes so freaking warm. “I can’t believe we didn’t realize who she was from the first. That we didn’t tell every other omega to go home immediately.”
“Wouldn’t have been much of a show if we did,” Court quips.
“Would have saved us a lot of trouble, though,” Thayer says mildly.
Cleo hums, arching her brows. “Some might argue that given the reaction you had to her, the intense need to protect her against the other omegas, the way you called her ‘my heart’ in Latin, that you did realize who she was to you and your pack, you just wouldn’t admit it.
Not me of course,” she says with a sly smile that tells me she definitely would argue that point. “Just some people.”
“And they’d be right,” Thayer responds. “Even without scenting Florence, we knew she was special. Knew she belonged to us. But we had made commitments prior to being on the show that our duties required us to see through.”
“Yes, let's talk about that.”
Off to the side I see Lulu frantically shaking her head, while Marshall swipes his hand back and forth across his neck.
Cleo ignores them both. “Is it true that you came onto the show under false pretenses? That you weren’t there to find love, but to instead play at falling in love with Isadora Aureline for the world to see? ”
“That was the plan, yes,” Forsythe admits.
Court snorts. “Didn’t work though, did it? Everyone could see how we felt about Pix right from the beginning.”
“And they fell in love with her, right along with us,” Grieves adds.
“Fan favorite, baby!” Court crows.
Cleo laughs and shakes her head, and seemingly decides to let that line of questioning drop, her gaze focusing over my shoulder.
“Piers.”
A chair creaks behind me and I can just see our beta straightening. His nerves flow down our pack bond, tickling against me, to the point that I twist to smile at him reassuringly over my shoulder.
“Yes?” he says, sounding flustered. This is his first interview ever as a member of the pack, and I know Cleo is going to address it right now.
She smiles at him. “Hi.”
“Hello.”
“For years the world has speculated on your relationship with the Ashbourne pack. Many suspect that you are not merely a personal assistant, that your bond is actually much deeper. Others, mostly the palace, maintain that you have a working relationship. Isadora Aureline recently released a statement claiming that she always saw you as a member of her pack, is there anything you want to say about that?”
Piers licks his lips and leans forward. “First and foremost, Isadora never saw me as a member of the Ashbourne pack, or as a part of her future with them. In every interaction I had with her, she made it clear she viewed me as the help even though she knew the truth to be the opposite.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“It means he’s always been a member of our pack,” Thayer says matter-of-factly.
“We bonded him back at Uni,” Court chimes in.