Page 226 of His Drama Queen

And we're winning.

Not in the way Eleanor Ashworth predicted we'd fail. Not by crawling back begging for help. By building something real, one choice at a time.

The Drama Desk Awards are in three weeks. I probably won't win. But I'll be there, in a dress that costs more than our monthly grocery budget, with three Alphas marked by my teeth, showing everyone what choosing yourself over expectations looks like.

Eleanor can watch from Connecticut and realize what she lost by trying to cage her son.

The industry can see what happens when you give an Omega a platform.

And I can stand on that stage—nominated, recognized, successful—and know I earned every single moment.

Not because I was manageable.

Because I refused to be.

Vespera

Epilogue

TwoyearsafterNorthwood,and I'm standing in the wings of the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre on Broadway.

Actual fucking Broadway.

The cast is doing vocal warm-ups around me, the stage manager is calling five minutes, and I'm trying to remember how to breathe. This is different from Off-Broadway. Different from the Drama Desk nomination that I didn't win but that led to more auditions, more roles, more chances to prove myself.

This is the dream. The one I had at seventeen when I applied to Northwood. The one that Eleanor Ashworth tried to kill. The one I claimed for myself with teeth and blood and stubbornness.

"Ms. Levine." Vivian Strasberg appears beside me, resplendent in designer everything. "How are you feeling?"

"Terrified," I admit.

"Good. Terror means you give a shit." She adjusts my costume—Emma, the role I was born to play, now on Broadway. "Thereviews will post tonight. They'll either love you or destroy you. Nothing in between."

"That's not reassuring."

"It's not meant to be." She smiles. "But for what it's worth, I've been in this business for thirty years. I've never seen an opening night performance as strong as your dress rehearsal yesterday. You're going to be magnificent."

"Or I'll vomit in the wings."

"Do it after curtain," she advises, and disappears to take her seat.

I peek through the curtain gap. The theater is packed—over a thousand people in velvet seats, the kind of Broadway audience that expects perfection. I spot the pack in the third row—Dorian in a suit that actually fits his theater salary now, Oakley still in his restaurant server shirt because he came straight from his shift, Corvus looking like he walked out of a business magazine cover.

My pack. My Alphas. My choice.

And beside them—Eleanor and Harrison Ashworth. Two years of slow, careful reconciliation means they're here tonight. Not hidden in the back. Third row, visible, showing support. Monthly dinners became weekly. The trust fund restored eighteen months ago. Slow rebuilding of a relationship that almost broke permanently.

They're trying. Actually trying. And Dorian is letting them.

Two seats down from the Ashworths—gray hair, kind eyes, hands clutching a playbill.

My father.

He made it. After saying for weeks he wasn't sure he could get off work, couldn't afford the trip, couldn't handle New York. He's here.

"Places," the stage manager calls. "This is places for Act One."

I take my position in the darkness. The overture begins—no music in this production, just the sound of breathing, heartbeat, existence. Then the lights come up and I'm not Vespera anymore.