Author's note (3 Aug): Minimal changes during the rewrite.

More dead kings and queens, beloved fictional characters, the usual suspects of a Halloween party are crammed into the flat, sprawled across sofas and carpets, in various states of inebriation with red cups clutched in their hands.

Blaise follows the toga bloke, scanning the crowd for a World War I nurse uniform. Thalia has come to the party dressed as Edith Lepius, the first omega to receive a medal for serving on the frontlines of a war. She went to get more drinks while he was at the loo, but she would have wandered off.

She is not in the kitchen, a bright, white-tiled room littered with plastic cups and half-empty bottles sweating in puddles. A giggling couple pushes past Blaise, leaving him alone with the alpha stranger. The beats of the latest pop song are fainter here.

The other man is rinsing out two glasses. ‘There’s whiskey and club soda. Highball?’

‘Sure.’

Blaise watches him mix up the drink, as he removes his face mask with its mouth cage. He takes the proffered glass, and sits down across the sticky table, wondering, how does he see through that thing? The mask is a brutal thing carved out of blonde wood: an old man’s face with wrinkles deeply etched between furrowed brows, mouth open in despair, the letter D flung on its flat side. Wild curly hair and a full beard flow around it, like the man is howling at the wind.

‘What are you supposed to be? That’s a Greek theatre mask, innit?’

‘Oedipus’s father, Laius, as he is portrayed in Sophocles’s Theban plays. Oedipus killed his father, married his mother. You might have heard of Freud’s Oedipus complex?’

The alpha’s voice is smooth and smoky, like the drink burning down Blaise’s throat. The other man lifts the edge of his mask a little to bring his drink to his lips—a glimpse of a sculpted jawline, neck convulsing as he swallows, tawny skin warm in the kitchen light.

‘Incest, a lovely topic for a party,’ Blaise replies wryly.

The other man shrugs. His shoulders are lovely and broad, his left arm and sculpted chest left exposed by the toga, the muscle-bound built which would have been held up as an example of what an alpha’s body should be; even his scent lingering in the air like a fire someone has forgot to put out, not rude or oppressive, but a reminder nonetheless of what he is.

Most alphas cannot help themselves: what use is status if others are not made aware of it?

‘Most people don’t know what this mask is in the first place. I didn’t need to tell them which character it’s meant to portray. They simply assumed I’m meant to be some sort of Greek hero.’ He sounds amused, gesturing to his toga.

Blaise suppresses his scoff. It is rather unusual for an alpha to exert his assumed superiority through Greek tragedy, he must admit, but well, if every one of his sex possesses the same physical perfection, their scents made by nature to attract all omegas, he supposes a man must find some way to stand out.

No, no, no. The two glasses of wine he had at home with Thalia are untethering his reason. The stranger wanted to talk about Empire of Chains, not because of some primal alpha instinct around omegas—he walked away from that omega Marie Antoinette after all. The alpha will not be able to tell that Blaise is omega anyway: his tattoos, his bulky frame, his lack of scent.

Blaise takes a longer drink, licks his lips, focusing on the heat of the whiskey heavy in his chest. ‘You couldn’t have chosen an easier costume?’

‘What, this mask doesn’t look cool?’ The other man chuckles, a pleasant sound that prickles against Blaise’s skin. ‘I was hoping to do an homage to the profession, a hark back to the ancient days when it was taboo for actors to act without masks.’

‘You’re an actor then? You are … Hector? I heard her say so earlier. Hector the actor,’ he snorts.

The alpha shrugs again. ‘I didn’t catch your name.’

‘Blaise.’ He raises his half-empty glass. ‘Cheers, mate.’

Tips the rest of his glass down his throat, setting it down with a loud thunk and tinkling ice. Across from him, the old man’s inscrutable mask judges him. Looking down, a flush in his cheeks, he starts rising to his feet: ‘Well, I had better—’

‘Another drink?’ Hector interrupts, holding up the bottle of whiskey. ‘You haven’t let me squeal about how much I love Empire of Chains yet, Blaise.’

Blaise blinks. His hand has slipped against the table’s edge, while he was pushing himself up, and he has been caught, uncertain.

‘I didn’t think there would be anyone that big of an Empire fan—a Nireus fan even—to get a tattoo like that,’ the alpha continues, already mixing a second cup. ‘This is the first time I’ve seen you at one of Simon’s parties. You’re not an actor. You’re crew?’

Blaise sits, taking the drink the alpha holds out. ‘No, no, I’m not in the industry. I’m a tattoo artist—Ironworks Ink down at Rivereast and Jordan. I’m here with Thalia. Thalia Montgomery? She was in The Two Queens. It’s on the telly.’

‘Oh, Thalia, yes, I’ve seen The Two Queens. She steals every scene she appears in. Brilliant acting,’ Hector says warmly. ‘You’re friends with her?’

‘Best friends,’ he corrects with a grin.

Who has not heard of The Two Queens at this point? The show has evoked obsession with the House of Tudor how Bridgerton has for the Regency era—and Thalia’s star has risen with it. This stranger would not know how Thalia fell ill juggling her shifts at the bakery and prepping for auditions, nearly missing the one for The Two Queens.

Brushing hair back from her tear-stained face, Blaise told her, hey, hey, it’s all right, love. It’s all right, yeah? Because I’ve got you, and we’ll get you through this. Cas and I’ll cover rent and food for the next three months. Quit the bakery. No, shut up, don’t argue, it’s all right, I’ve got savings and I’m booked ‘til the end of the year, we’ll be fine.

 And she got the role on The Two Queens, a small role at first, but the director and producers were so dazzled by her on-screen chemistry with the actress who plays Elizabeth I, they wrote her a bigger role, because everyone could see Thalia Montgomery is a star in the making.

She has dazzled him from the moment they met in kindergarten, and he has always known that the rest of the world would one day see it too.

‘And you? What have you appeared in?’

‘A few movies,’ the alpha replies, his tone airy. ‘Are the rest of your tattoos literary references too? Where did you get them done?’

Blaise blinks, bemused. The bloke must be some kind of bit actor then, no roles to brag about. He finishes the last of his drink, the ice cubes clinking against the glass. Hector’s dark eyes are fixed on him through the eye-slits of the mask.

He smiles slow and languorous, feeling generous since the alpha has acknowledged Thalia’s ascendancy. ‘Make me another drink, and I’ll tell you.’