That Telling MomentChapter 10

Ryland strode through the Dabney corridor mentally cataloguing seventeen separate improvements he could implement to the energy storage prototype. Ion transfer efficiency calculations occupied him so completely that he nearly missed the voices spilling from Meeting Room 6, where someone had left the door ajar.

“…bet the two of you look fucking identical when you come,” Mann-Fielding’s voice carried through the gap.

Ryland froze. His brain seemed to stutter. Because surely Elliot Mann-Fielding wasn’t saying what it sounded like he was saying.

“That little gasping thing he does? When they’ve got him pinned between them? Do you make that same sound when you’re taking a pounding, Huxley?”

Stephen.

Ryland pressed himself against the wall beside the door. His hands had closed into fists without his permission. The silence from inside the room was deafening.

“I watched the video where he lost his virginity, you know,” Mann-Fielding continued, his voice dropping lower. “That famous one, uploaded to OnlyFans back when he was just starting out. ‘MY FIRST KNOTTING!!!’ All caps, exclamation marks.”

Mann-Fielding’s alpha pheromones were spiking. Ryland could smell them through the gap in the door. Arousal. The clinical observation did nothing to calm the pressure building in his chest.

“Makes me wonder why you’re even bothering with Dabney, really. Your brother’s a top creator now. He’s got… What is it, a million subscribers? At twenty-five quid a month?” A low whistle. “Partner up with your twin, make some content together. You could make bank with a bit of twincest play. The internet would explode.”

Silence from Stephen. Ryland held his breath, waiting for Stephen’s razor-sharp wit to land. But nothing came, and with each passing second, Ryland’s jaw clenched tighter.

“What’s the matter, Huxley? Bit tongue-tied? Your brother certainly isn’t in that video. He was pretty fucking good in it. Authentic feeling.” Mann-Fielding’s voice had gone dreamy. “That opening scene where he’s all wide-eyed innocence… ‘I’ve never done this before, please don’t record this…’” He pitched his voice in cruel mimicry. “Those perfect tears on his lashes, catching the light just so…”

The door handle turned under Ryland’s grip with a soft click.

He stepped into the room.

Four faces turned toward him. Varying degrees of panic, guilt, and, in Mann-Fielding’s case, the flushed skin of an alpha who’d worked himself up with his own cruelty.

And then there was Stephen.

Sitting perfectly still at the far end of the conference table, spine straight as a steel rod, face composed into a mask of such rigid control that it could have been carved from marble by a particularly vindictive sculptor. His hands rested on his laptop keyboard with the kind of stillness that suggested if he moved even a millimetre, something inside him might shatter completely.

But it was his eyes. Bright blue-grey, burning with a rage so cold it could have flash-frozen the Thames in July.

“Dr. Ryland,” Mann-Fielding said, his voice cracking. “We were just…”

“I heard what you were _just doing_.” Ryland’s voice came out perfectly level, each word measured and precise. The kind of tone he used when explaining to particularly dense colleagues why their research methodologies were fundamentally flawed and likely to produce results with all the scientific validity of a horoscope in the Daily Mail.

He stepped fully into the room, closing the door behind him. The click echoed.

“Mr Mann-Fielding.” Ryland’s pale eyes fixed on the younger alpha. “Would you mind explaining to me what professional value you were deriving from your interaction just now with Mr Huxley?”

Mann-Fielding’s mouth opened and closed. His pheromones were shifting from arousal to the first bitter notes of fear.

“I was just…”

“You were just what?” Ryland took another step forward, and Mann-Fielding flinched. “Discussing your colleague’s family in sexually explicit terms? Creating a hostile work environment through targeted harassment? Or were you perhaps preparing a roleplay presentation for next week’s executive meeting? ‘How I Torpedoed My Career in Under Five Minutes: A Cautionary Tale.’”

The temperature in the room dropped. Ryland’s alpha presence, usually controlled, filled the space. The other alphas shrank back in their chairs.

“I think,” Ryland said, “that you should leave. Now. Before I decide that this conversation would be better continued in Eames’s office.”

Mann-Fielding paled, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he scrambled to his feet. “This isn’t…”

Ryland’s eyebrow rose a precise millimetre. “It is, Mann-Fielding. Unless you’d prefer to explain to HR exactly how you’ve been spending your time with juniors. I’m sure they’d be fascinated to hear about your research into OnlyFans content during work hours.”

Mann-Fielding gathered his things with jerky, panicked movements.

“Right, yes, I’ll just…” He stumbled toward the door, pausing only when Ryland’s voice stopped him.

“Mr Mann-Fielding?”

“Yes, sir?”

“If I hear that you’ve spoken about Mr Huxley, or any member of his family, in such terms again, I will make it my personal mission to ensure that your career ends before it even truly launches. I have a very long memory, and extensive contacts throughout the tech industry.”

Mann-Fielding fled.

The remaining three associates exchanged glances before gathering their materials, murmuring excuses as they edged toward the door. Ryland made no move to stop them. His attention had already shifted to Stephen.

“Stephen,” Ryland said, softening his tone. “A word, please.”

Stephen’s fingers paused for the briefest moment before resuming their rhythmic clicking. “Apologies, Ryland, but I need to finish my work.”

Ryland moved closer, stopping at a respectful distance. Now that the room had cleared, he could detect the faint edge of distress beneath Stephen’s scent. Scorched metal, bitter and acrid.

“The work can wait,” Ryland said. “I’d like to talk to you.”

Stephen’s fingers faltered over the keyboard, hovering. His shoulders remained rigid, sharp angles beneath expensive cotton, but something in his scent shifted. A crack in the neutrality that had been his armour since Ryland had met him.

“What would you like me to say?” Stephen’s voice was barely audible over the soft whirr of the laptop fan. “That I’m grateful? That I couldn’t handle it myself? That I needed an alpha to step in and rescue me?” His fingers resumed their typing, the click-clack filling the space between them.

Ryland settled into a chair at a careful distance. Far enough that Stephen wouldn’t feel crowded, close enough that he didn’t have to raise his voice. “I’d like you to say whatever you want to say. Or nothing at all.”

For several long moments, there was only the sound of typing. Ryland waited, patient as the tide.

“He didn’t want it.”

Stephen kept typing, eyes fixed on his screen, as if the admission would cost him less if he didn’t have to face Ryland while making it.

“Lysander. He told me after. He really was asking his boyfriend not to record him.” A sharp inhale, held for three beats, then released. “He wanted to have sex. He was in heat. It really was his first time, and he’d been with Dane for a few months…”

His fingers stilled, then resumed with renewed vigour.

“But he didn’t want it recorded, and he definitely didn’t want it uploaded to OnlyFans.”

Stephen’s voice had gone flat, as if he were reading financial projections. Ryland leaned forward.

“Dane talked him into it.” A bitter smile tugged at the corner of Stephen’s mouth. “Sander… We grew up with no money, yeah? And he was desperate to get out of our Barking flat.”

Stephen’s hands paused over the keyboard, and for the first time since he’d begun speaking, he looked up. Not at Ryland, but at some middle distance, seeing something that wasn’t in this sleek meeting room.

“He hated sharing a room with me. It’s not even really a proper room, our bedroom. More of a study nook.” His voice cracked on the last word. “Two omega males sharing a space smaller than this meeting room table during heats and through all the biological chaos we never asked for.”

Ryland remained still, not trusting himself to speak.

“Dane told him they would only upload this one video, and Lysander could come stay in his flat.” Stephen’s typing had slowed to an irregular tap-tap. Pause. Tap. “But then he just kept asking Sander to do more and more.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “And more.”

Stephen swallowed hard, his throat working.

“And then ‘Twenty Knots and Counting’ happened.”

His hands had stilled completely, resting on the keyboard.

“Sander says he likes it now. That he chose it. That he’s making more money than any omega from Barking has a right to expect.” Another bitter half-smile. “Maybe he does. Maybe he’s convinced himself. Or maybe Dane’s convinced him. I don’t know anymore.”

Stephen’s jaw clenched, a muscle jumping beneath the pale skin. “But now he’s out there. Letting himself get recorded during his heat with randoms who pay for the privilege of ‘co-starring’ with him.” His knuckles whitened around his pen. “Fifty thousand pounds for a heat video. That’s what they charge now. There’s a waiting list.”

His eyes met Ryland’s. Pale blue-grey, clear and cold and fathomless.

“So if you’re wondering why I didn’t tell Mann-Fielding to go fuck himself, why I just sat there and took it, it’s because I don’t know what’s true anymore. I don’t know if my brother’s a victim or a willing participant or something in between. I don’t know if I should be defending his choices or mourning them.”

Stephen looked back at his screen and resumed typing. “But I do know that I’ll never let myself be defined by what my body can do for alphas. Not ever.”

Ryland sat with that for a moment. Then: “Thank you for telling me.”

Stephen nodded once, sharp. “Don’t make me regret it.” His voice had regained its usual precision, the vulnerability sealed away.

Something had shifted between them. Ryland rose from his chair.

“I won’t,” he said, and left Stephen to his work, closing the door softly behind him.

Walking back to his lab, Ryland found himself mentally calculating the exact force required to break Mann-Fielding’s nose. A purely theoretical exercise, of course. A simple application of physics to a hypothetical scenario. But he’d always been very good at turning theory into practice when necessary.