Chapter 1: The Interview That Changed Everything
The air in the podcast studio tasted like recycled oxygen and regret. Sable Vance adjusted the slim microphone, his violet eyes scanning the sound levels on the screen before him. The fluorescent lights overhead were merciless, but he was accustomed to performing under a glare.
"Five seconds, Mr. Vance," the producer's voice crackled in his earpiece.
Sable gave a tight, practiced smile to the man sitting across the polished obsidian table. Atticus Holloway was… enormous. He filled his chair, his broad shoulders seeming to absorb the light, his large, capable hands resting calmly on the tabletop. He wore a simple flannel shirt, the sleeves rolled to his forearms, and looked profoundly, infuriatingly unimpressed.
"Welcome back to Vance Unfiltered," Sable purred into the mic, his voice a familiar silken blade to his millions of listeners. "My guest today is Atticus Holloway, the man behind the surprisingly popular 'Hearth & Homestead' channel. Six million subscribers watch you… plant carrots."
A beat of silence. Tuck’s smile was a slow, gentle curve in his dense beard. "Well, last week it was rebuilding a stone wall. The carrots are for next month."
Sable leaned forward, the delicate lace of his custom Valentino camisole peeking from the open collar of his suit jacket. "Let's be frank, Atticus. May I call you Atticus? In a media landscape defined by shock, speed, and spectacle, your content is an artifact. It's slow. It's quiet. It's about dirt. What’s the compelling narrative? Where’s the hook?"
Tuck considered the question, his gaze steady. "The hook is that the seed always grows. The sun always comes up. The wall, once built, will stand for a hundred years. There’s a deep comfort in that. A truth."
"Truth." Sable let the word hang, dripping with skepticism. "Or is it just a clever逃避 from the complexities of the modern world? A performative simplicity for anxious urbanites?"
"Could be," Tuck replied easily, his voice a low, warm rumble that seemed to vibrate through the table. "But I find most complexities get simpler when you’re holding a splintered post that needs replacing. Your hands are busy, your mind clears. You focus on the task. Not the noise."
Sable felt an unfamiliar twitch in his jaw. This mountain of a man wasn’t bristling, wasn’t trying to match his barbs. He was just… sitting there, a solid rock in the stream of Sable's verbiage. It was throwing him off his rhythm.
"And your audience," Sable pressed, shifting in his seat, the leather creaking. "They log off your videos about… soil pH levels, was it?"
"Amending clay soil, yeah."
"They log off from that and return to a world of chaos. Doesn’t that feel disingenuous? Selling them a pastoral fantasy?"
Tuck’s eyes, a calm, deep brown, held Sable’s. "I’m not selling anything. I’m sharing my life. If it brings someone peace for ten minutes, that’s a good thing. The world has enough shouting, don’t you think?"
A strange heat prickled under Sable’s skin. This wasn’t going according to script. The guest was supposed to get flustered, defend himself vehemently, providing the conflict the algorithm craved. Instead, Tuck’s placidity was becoming the dominant force in the room. Sable caught the clean, honest scent of pine and sun-warmed wool cutting through the studio’s stale coffee smell. It was disorienting.
He decided to go for the jugular, a personal twist he’d dug up from research. "You live alone on that homestead, correct? A solitary figure. One has to wonder about the psychology of that. A deliberate withdrawal from society. Almost like a—"
"My omega designation makes traditional partnered living scenarios less straightforward," Tuck stated, his tone as even as if he'd commented on the weather.
The air evacuated the room.
Sable’s brain short-circuited. The carefully prepared next question evaporated. His producer was hissing something in his earpiece, but it was just static. He stared. The man was built like a mythological warrior, hands that could probably shatter stone, a presence that commanded the very space around him… and he was an omega?
Society’s stupid, choking stereotypes flashed uselessly behind Sable’s eyes. Omegas were small, were delicate, were needing. They weren’t supposed to be giants with calm eyes who rebuilt stone walls and spoke about truth with a quiet certainty that made Sable’s meticulously constructed world feel like a house of cards.
His own designation, a secret he guarded more fiercely than any business deal, roared to the surface. The control he exerted over every interaction, every contract, every lover—the power bottom ensuring he was never, ever vulnerable—slipped for one catastrophic second.
The words were out of his mouth, raw and stripped of all performative gloss, before his filter could engage.
"You're mine."
The silence that followed was absolute, a physical weight. The producer had stopped talking. The hum of the equipment was deafening. Tuck’s expression shifted, the gentle patience melting into a guarded, intense scrutiny. He didn’t look offended. He looked… interested.
Across the glass, in the control room, Sable saw his sister Zara’s face appear, her eyes wide with a mixture of horror and dawning amusement.
Sable’s blood ran cold, then hot. He’d said it on a live, delay-less broadcast. Millions had heard it. The alpha media tycoon had just claimed a homesteading omega he’d met ten minutes ago like a prize. His empire, his persona, was built on icy control and sharper-than-knife wit. Not on raw, public, primal declaration.
Tuck leaned forward, the table groaning faintly. His voice dropped even lower, for Sable alone, though the mic would catch every syllable. "Is that a business proposal, Mr. Vance? Or something else entirely?"
Sable’s mouth was dry. The scent of pine was overwhelming now, dizzying. He could see the faint calluses on Tuck’s fingers, imagine the strength in them, and a shudder he couldn’t suppress rolled through him. This was a disaster. This was ruin.
This was the most electrifying thing that had ever happened to him.
He opened his mouth to backtrack, to laugh it off as edgy humor, but nothing came out. Zara was now gesturing frantically through the glass, slicing a finger across her throat.
The red ‘ON AIR’ light stared back at him, unblinking.
Tuck was still watching him, waiting. A tiny, almost imperceptible smile touched his eyes. He wasn’t running. He wasn’t submitting. He was just… there. A challenge and a promise, all wrapped in a quiet, earth-scented calm.
Sable Vance, for the first time in a decade, had no idea what to say next. The only thing he knew, with a terrifying, thrilling certainty, was that nothing was going to be the same.