The word "each" hangs in the air like cigarette smoke.
Clarke's grip on my arm is tight enough that I feel her pulse. Or maybe that's mine. The bass is so deep it rattles my back teeth.
"Hundred thousand euros. Each," she repeats, quieter, like saying it softer makes it less insane.
Gabby is still staring at the ceiling. Her margarita is sweating onto her fingers. She hasn't blinked in twenty seconds.
I pull my arm free. "You want me to — what? Get on a stage with you in front of strangers and—"
"Exclusive members who you won't even recognize because they're under masks," the guy interrupts. "Nobody's posting this. That's why the phones stay outside. The room is very discreet. Only contestants and a few invited viewers."
"Still strangers," I say.
Clarke turns to face me fully. Eyes bright, pupils wide. "Benny, please. You're not new to this either."
I glance back toward the couch where Amasten is still holding court. One of the girls is saying something close to his ear. He tilts his head to listen — and in that exact moment, like he felt the direction of my attention, his eyes cut across the room and find mine.
He holds it for exactly one second. Then looks away.
One second. Like I'm a detail he's already filed and moved past.
My wolf does something complicated and humiliating that I choose not to examine.
The invite guy clears his throat. "Fifteen minutes became twelve. Clock's ticking. You want in, I need to tell the selector now."
I look at Gabby. She's biting her lip, eyes darting between us like she's watching something unfold in slow motion.
"Say something," I tell her.
She exhales. "I mean… if it's safe. And you actually want to…" She trails off. "I'll be outside the curtain. Moral support with tequila."
Clarke snorts. "Romantic."
I close my eyes for a second. The room smells like chlorine and bodies and expensive cologne and underneath all of it the layered territorial scent of a dozen wolves who don't know I can read them. The white dress feels too clean for this place. Too much like the girl who got rejected this morning. Too much like the girl I've been trying to be.
I think about the casting directors' faces. Polite pity.
I think about Alexandra's voice. Always certain. Always right, which is the part I can never say out loud.
I think about my stepfather's smile in the hallway. The house going quiet when he walked past my door. The way the Marcel name was supposed to protect me and didn't, because the wolf world has its own rules about what protection means and none of them were written for girls like me.
I think about Amasten Zakiel looking at me for one second and looking away.
"Fine," I hear myself say.
Clarke's face lights up.
"But we won't take things too far," I add quickly. "My rules."
"Obviously," she says, already turning to the guy. "We're in."
He nods once and disappears.
Gabby squeezes my hand. "You sure?"
"Not really," I admit. "But I'm doing it anyway."
She laughs — shaky but real. "That's my girl."
We're led to a small curtained alcove near the grotto pool. Inside: low lights, a wide padded platform, mirrors on three walls. A discreet tray with everything clinical and professional. The kind of setup that has been thought about carefully.
A woman in black leather appears. Mid-thirties, clipboard, completely unbothered. The selector.
"Names?"
"Benitova Marcel."
"Clarke Laurent."
She writes without reaction. "Relationship?"
"Friends," Clarke answers. "Close friends."
"Theme preference? Dom-sub, voyeur, roleplay, impact, sensory…"
Clarke glances at me. "Dom-sub. She tops. I bottom."
She knows. She's always known, even before I did.
The woman looks at me. "Are you comfortable with that?"
"Yes," I say.
She runs through the rules fast. Twenty-five minute scene. Judges score on chemistry, creativity, intensity. Audience votes count for twenty percent. Prize wired anonymously. Safewords: red, yellow, green.
"You'll be the third pair. Hydrate. Breathe."
She leaves. The curtain falls closed.
Clarke turns to me. That grin — like we're about to do something we absolutely should not do and we both know it.
"You're really topping me?"
"Apparently."
She steps closer. "We've never done this with an audience."
"Obviously not."
She reaches up and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. Her fingers stay. "I trust you," she says. Simple. No performance in it.
Something in my chest opens — not wide, just enough. Not the complicated locked thing my wolf has been doing all evening in response to a man across a room who looked at me for one second and filed me away. Something warmer than that. Something that belongs to me.
I kiss her.
She kisses back immediately — hands in my hair, body pressing mine against the padded wall. When we break apart we're both breathing hard.
"Fuck," she whispers. "That's a good start."
I laugh softly, cleaning the smudged lipstick from the corner of her mouth. She does the same for me.
Outside, the announcer's voice rises over the music. First pair starting.
We have minutes.
"Tell me what you like," I say.
She smiles slowly. "Boss me around. Make me beg. Don't be gentle."
I nod.
And for the first time since this morning's rejection, I don't feel like I'm auditioning for something I might not get. I feel like I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be, doing exactly what I was made for — just not the version of that my family has always meant.
We put on the masks laid out for us. Nose to forehead. Half a face each, suddenly nobody.
I take Clarke's hand.
We step through the curtain into the contest room.
The invite guy was right — few viewers, all robed, all masked. The lighting is low and red and everything feels sealed off from the world above. Private the way only spaces with serious rules can be private.
I scan the masked figures once, quickly, the way I always scan a room.
One of them is standing slightly apart from the others. Still. Not performing interest the way the rest of them are. Just watching, with the specific quality of attention that dominant wolves have — total, unhurried, like they have all the time in the world and nothing surprises them.
I turn to Clarke instead.
And we begin.