Page 14 of Craved By the Werewolf
I scrambled to pick up the phone, accidentally opening Eclipz instead. Big mistake. HUGE mistake.
Someone had made a remix.
A REMIX.
Of Thorne saying "I like a woman who doesn't flinch when I bare my teeth" set to some kind of sultry jazz background with my dead-air silence as the dramatic pause. It had 1.3 million views.
"I'm going to die. I'm actually going to die."
I scrolled down. The next one was worse. Someone had edited together every word from the promo, slowed it down, and added heavy growling and text that said "POV: You're hearing two people fall in love in real time."
I made a sound that probably violated several noise ordinances.
The comments were... a lot.
"THE WAY HE SAID HER NAME THOUGH"
"The CHEMISTRY. I felt like I was interrupting something."
"Alpha Thorne can bare his teeth at me ANYTIME"
"Someone check on Nightingale, I think she short-circuited when he said that"
Glitter was somehow worse. #BareYourTeeth was trending. #AlphaThorne was trending. #NightingaleBae was trending, which made me want to crawl into a hole.
But the real kicker? #NightAlpha.
I sat down. On the floor. Because my legs had given up.
They'd given us a ship name. WE HAD A SHIP NAME. And if that wasn't bad enough, a splinter faction was pushing for #Valpha instead, with a whole thread debating the merits of each option like it was some kind of critical global issue.
My phone rang, nearly giving me a heart attack. Mika's face appeared on the screen, grinning like she'd won the lottery.
"Don't answer that," I told myself. "Just let it go to voicemail. Pretend you're dead. Change your name and move to Montana."
I answered it.
"VALA!" Mika's voice was so loud I had to hold the phone away from my ear. "Have you seen?—"
"The internet having a collective breakdown about my non-existent love life? Yeah, I'm aware."
"Non-existent? Honey, I was standing three feet away from you two! The temperature in that studio went up about twenty degrees when he?—"
"Mika. No."
"When he leaned in and practically growled into that microphone while staring at you like?—"
"MIKA. NO."
"Fine, fine. But you need to see this." Her voice took on that dangerous tone that meant she was about to make my day infinitely worse. "Check your email."
"I don't want to check my email."
"Check. Your. Email. Now."
I switched to email, immediately regretting it. The subject line made my stomach drop.
RE: Last Night's Ratings and This Morning's... Developments
