Puppet For Me

Kael's POV

I have always been good at strategizing. I would consider it my best quality, even.

Which is why, one week ago, when Andreas sat across from me and told me my approval ratings had plummeted low as fuck, I didn't panic.

I simply turned it over. Looked at it from every angle. And then I started throwing ideas out into the void.

The show was not one of my ideas, of course. It was Andreas who brought it to me—Mate Or Break, the kind of TV show that ordinary people watch on their sofas and form opinions about.

Strong opinions. The kind that translates into votes.

The concept is simple. Couples in the show participate in a series of activities and 'unscripted moments' as they spend weeks alone in some secluded area where they do nothing except talk to each other.

Everything about it is designed to reveal the truth of their relationship. The audience likes authenticity.

True connection… and love, supposedly.

I told him I'd think about it, then I spent an embarrassingly long time watching the TV show until I understood it was a great idea. Because the thing about Mate Or Break is that the show is not about couples who are thriving.

That would get boring in a day. The couples the audience connects with the most, the couples who win the public sentiment are not the ones who arrive already perfect.

The most popular couples are the ones who go through hell together and then make it out alive.

The audience wants a whole journey. They want fighting, tension, friction and then resolution. Distance and then closeness. They want to watch someone suck at love and then choose to do better. That is the story people root for.

So the plan took shape quickly, with Sera's help.

Elara and I would enter the show as what we actually are: a couple with visible distance. That part will require no performance. Anyone spending ten minutes in our packhouse could document the chill between us without any help from either of us.

That part is not manufactured, it is simply how it is between us.

Elara is definitely my fated mate.

Absolutely gorgeous. Body of a goddess—slender in the right places, thick where it matters the most—and a face any man would go to war for. Honey brown eyes, the sweetest smile, golden long hair. A true natural beauty.

She is definitely my mate, she appeals to my wolf in every way that counts. And she is also the perfect wife to my human side.

A beautiful trophy Luna.

And yet, outside of the bedroom, there is nothing between us. I have nothing in common with her and I do not even have the time to create new things so we can have them in common.

It’s fine. She is a good wife, but I have more important things in my life. She is not even on my top five list of priorities.

Across the show, all we have to do is perform and allow the people to connect with us as we finally 'fix our differences' and find true love or whatever.

Sera, Rowan and I did our research on which behaviors correlate most strongly with positive public sentiment in these formats. I am a fast learner, so I'm not nervous at all. I know I'll make it work.

The final piece of the plan is Elara.

She needs to look genuinely dissatisfied. Miserable, even.

But I am not worried.

Elara is the kind of woman who sits beside you at dinners quietly until you instruct her to speak and smiles when you smile and says exactly what you instructed her to say.

A perfect Luna, in my opinion.

All I have to do now is tell her to perform like a woman who really dislikes her husband. She needs to appear unhappy, not simply bored.

But she is nothing if not my perfect puppet. Whatever performance I ask of her, she will deliver.

Which is why I trust her to act accordingly in front of an audience of millions.

The story writes itself, really.

The plan is clean. Logical. It accounts for every variable, leverages what already exists, and requires nothing from me that I am not capable of delivering.

I have reviewed it many times. It holds.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My phone buzzes against the desk a day later.

I glance at the screen.

Alpha Andreas, calling from his personal number instead of an official council line.

My stomach doesn't drop because I don't allow it to. I answer on the second ring.

"Kael," The voice is measured.

"Alpha Andreas," I say, and my voice comes out exactly right.

"I'll be brief," he says, which immediately means whatever he's about to say will require me to be very, very still, "There are serious conversations happening already. About retracting your candidacy.”

I realize my hand has tightened around the phone only because I consciously feel my knuckles ache.

"That's—" I start, and then I stop, because the word that came out was not measured. Was not right. I try again, "We spoke only eight days ago. You’ve already told me about the issue and I am fixing it."

“No, I warned you about this being a possibility and I offered you a solution so you could try and fix it before your terrible public perception became an issue. I anticipated this… and it happened. Earlier than I had expected,” he says with his usual matter-of-fact tone.

I can’t argue against facts, so I start to consider solutions.

“The show is an amazing idea. I have seen how much of an amazing reception the couples who ‘mate’ in the show have. I promise you, they will love me and Elara,” I promise, my voice coming out a bit more desperate than I’d like, “My Luna used to be an internet celebrity, did you know that? She had almost one million followers at some point. And people in our pack love her. I can promise you we’ll bring in the views and the drama and the excitement. The council will appreciate our performance, trust me. And then I will shift the waters, have everyone love me and stop complaining about my fucking eyes looking dead.”

Andreas takes a second to just breathe and consider what I’m saying.

“The public is complaining about your candidacy right this second. So the council needs to fix it right this second. We can’t wait another month for the show to start shooting, it would need to start… right this second.”

“The council owns the production company. You could just tell them to do it faster. Me and my Luna are ready, we have signed the contract.”

“We cannot simply ‘tell them’ to act faster. We need money to make it happen,” he adds.

I’m not stupid or naive, I know Andreas is rooting for me to win because he knows I have the bigger fortune.

My pack is the richest one in the country. My father left me with a ten-billion fortune when he passed away two years ago. Andreas wants access to it, therefore he wants to help me win the seat at the Council.

We both serve each other’s best interests. So I will let myself be of use to him for as long as I have to be.

Because that Council seat it’s the only thing that has mattered to me for the last five years, since I became an Alpha.

Every decision I have made, every alliance I have built,every miserable gala I have attended and smiled through—all of it was for this.

There is no version of my future that I have ever imagined that does not include that seat.

It is not ambition in the soft sense. It is architecture. The entire structure of what I have built my life into rests on this.

And they're considering taking it away because of the fucking public.

"I’ll be happy to make a donation for the production company if the council is gracious enough to push the start of the show to a closer date."

"Great start. See? That is exactly how you play the game. But just so you know… not everyone is as easily swayed by large donations,” he lets me know, making my mood darken again, “Some members don’t care about the donation or the show, or even speaking to you at all until your public approval goes up. So, don’t lose sight of that. Make it happen, no matter what.”

The line goes dead.

I stand there for a long moment, phone still in my hand.

“Fuck,” I growl, “Rowan!”

My beta rushes into my office.

“Yes?”

“Send one million dollars to the production company in charge of that stupid TV show and tell them to fucking push it for as soon as possible. Let them know I am not playing around.”

“Got it.”