The Omega and The Arrogant Alpha (by Kylie) novel Chapter 273

Sally doesn’t waste time easing into it.

She closes the door behind her and sets the folder on the table without sitting down, like she’s afraid the weight of it might spread if she pauses too long. Her jaw is tight. Controlled. The kind of control that takes effort. That alone tells me this isn’t routine.

“They’ve started pushing a narrative,” she says.

I don’t ask who. I already know. Narratives don’t appear out of nowhere. They’re seeded. Watered. Encouraged to grow in the dark where accountability doesn’t reach.

She opens the folder and turns it so I can see. Screenshots. Transcripts. Fragments pulled from private channels and semi-public forums where people speak carefully enough to deny intent but sloppily enough to imply it. The words are familiar. Not verbatim, but close enough to sting.

Savannah’s compromised.

Too close to the problem.

Emotionally entangled.

Distracted.

Nothing overt. Nothing actionable. No single sentence that can be dragged into the light and interrogated. Just a steady drip of suggestion, repeated often enough to feel like common knowledge if you aren’t paying attention to where it started.

“They’re not accusing you of anything concrete,” Sally continues. “They’re planting doubt. Letting other people finish the thought.”

My chest tightens.

Fury flares sharp and hot, sudden enough that my wolf surges forward in response, teeth bared at nothing. For half a second, I want to break something. Names. Channels. Faces. I can feel the instinct coil, ready to strike, to correct, to make it stop.

I don’t.

I breathe once. Then again. Slow. Deliberate. I feel the anger compress instead of dissipate, heat folding inward until it sharpens into something dense and focused. Rage is a luxury I can’t afford to spend carelessly.

“How far has it spread?” I ask.

“Far enough,” Sally says. “Not everywhere. But in the right places. The places that matter.”

I nod. The anger is still there, humming under my skin, but it’s quiet now. Dangerous in a different way.

People start noticing the lack of traction. The way the rumor doesn’t grow teeth. The way it fails to provoke the spectacle it was designed for. Without resistance to push against, it loses momentum, starts to sag under its own vagueness.

By the third day, it’s already losing shape.

That night, I can’t sleep anyway.

The day replays itself on a loop behind my eyes. Not the meetings. Not the decisions. The glances. The half-second pauses when someone decides whether to look at me too long. The recalculations I can feel happening in real time. The awareness that even silence gets interpreted, weighed, catalogued.

I get out of bed quietly and head for the bathroom.

The shower again.

Too hot. Always too hot at first. I step under it and brace my hands against the tile, letting the water pound down my back until sensation crowds everything else out. Heat. Pressure. The steady roar filling my ears. Routine anchors me. Shampoo. Rinse. Soap. The predictability is a relief when everything else keeps shifting.

I stay longer than necessary, until my skin is warm and my thoughts have slowed to something manageable. Until my wolf settles, not calm exactly, but contained.

When I step out, towel wrapped around me, Ben is sitting on the edge of the bed.