Claimed By the Rockstars, Part Two (Fameverse #5)

Chapter 1 – Bells

BELLS

It's been five days since I went into heat at that industry party.

Since Phoenix and Rafael learned I'm not just a girl, but a fucking omega, and we spent two days in a hotel room doing things that rewired my entire understanding of what my body is capable of doing and feeling.

And now I know they're both my scent matches, even if I still don't know what the fuck that actually means for us.

Phoenix keeps finding excuses to be in whatever room I'm in. He's been bringing me food, too, things like chocolate-covered pretzels and nuts. Sometimes I wonder if he thinks omegas are woodland creatures, but it's sweet.

Rafael's less obvious about it. I catch him watching me sometimes when he thinks I'm not paying attention, always with a vaguely wistful look in those dark eyes.

Rex, meanwhile, has perfected the art of existing in the same space while being completely fucking absent.

I've seen him exactly four times since Phoenix, Rafael, and I stumbled into the penthouse after being gone, and all four were glances in passing.

Always moving, always just out of reach.

The recording studio has become his second home. Or maybe his first home, and the penthouse is just where he occasionally sleeps. Phoenix says Rex's been there every day, sometimes all night, and they don't even know what he's doing.

I do.

He's avoiding me.

And I get it. I do. Especially since our war has gotten exponentially more fucked up since I realized he's my scent match and he has no goddamn clue because he doesn't know I'm an omega.

Just that I'm a girl he apparently finds attractive enough to get jealous over, if his reaction to Jamie's threesome proposition was any indication.

Or he's in denial.

I'm curled up on the sectional couch with my laptop, trying to finish lyrics for a new song Phoenix wants to workshop tomorrow, when Rex suddenly materializes like a ghost.

Speak of the fucking devil.

He's wearing all black—surprise, surprise—with the simple mask he prefers when he's not performing.

His dyed black hair is disheveled like he's been running his hands through it all day.

The tension in his shoulders and in the lines of his muscled back, visible even through his shirt, suggests he's been doing that a lot lately.

"You okay?" The question slips out before I can stop it.

Rex freezes mid-step and turns his head slowly to look at me like I just tried to put a spell on him. Or maybe a curse.

"What?" His voice is flat and suspicious.

"You seem stressed," I say, shrugging.

His visible eye narrows. "I'm fine."

"Right. And I'm the Queen of England."

That earns me a snort that could be amusement or annoyance. With Rex, it's usually both.

"Why?" he asks.

"Why what?"

"Why do you care if I'm okay?"

It's a fair question. We’re mortal enemies. Concern isn't exactly part of our dynamic.

Except it kind of is now, isn't it?

Ever since he gave me his room. Ever since the hospital. Ever since everything got complicated in ways I don't have the emotional bandwidth to unpack.

"Uh… professional courtesy?" I offer, going for flippant. "Can't have my blackmailer stress himself into an early grave before I finish paying off my debt."

I wink at him and give him finger guns.

I must be seeing things, because something that looks weirdly like sadness flickers across the half of his face that isn't masked. It's there and gone so fast, I almost miss it.

Aww, fuck.

"Okay, okay. You caught me," I say with a melodramatic sigh, flinging myself backward on the couch with my hand bent against my forehead like a Victorian peasant with the vapors. "You caught me red-handed actually caring about you a little bit. Happy now, Sherlock?"

"I'm fine," he repeats, turning away. "Anything else?"

Well, I tried.

"Actually, yeah." I close my laptop, setting it aside. "Jamie's been texting me."

Rex goes completely still.

"Has he."

"Yeah. He's pretty insistent about giving me the mask in person.

" I watch Rex carefully, looking for any hint of what's going on behind that perpetually unreadable expression that has fuck all to do with the mask hiding half of it.

The half I can see might as well be a statue.

"He wants to grab coffee at the same time.

Hang out with no alphas around, which I appreciate given my whole.

.." I gesture vaguely at myself. "Situation. "

There it is. A flash in that ice-blue eye, gone before I can name it, but definitely there. He may be in clear denial that I'm his scent match, but it's probably driving him absolutely insane and he has no fucking clue why.

Now that going through heat with Phoenix and Raf effectively reset my body and my suppressants have slammed my scent back into place, I'm going to have to tell him eventually. I can't just… never tell him we're fucking scent matches.

That doesn't mean I have to tell him yet.

"That's fine," Rex says, and his voice is so controlled it's basically a weapon. "Go have fun with Jamie."

"Really?" I can't help the note of surprise. "You're not going to give me shit about security or make sure I'm not planning to run away or—"

"I don't own you." He cuts me off, still not looking at me. "I own your voice. Nothing else. You can make your own choices about who you spend time with."

"Wow," I mutter. "Character development. Who are you and what have you done with Rex Steele?"

His jaw tightens. "Was there anything else?"

Before I can respond, the penthouse door opens and Phoenix and Rafael tumble in, their energy filling the space immediately.

Phoenix is laughing at something Rafael said, that booming sound that makes me smile involuntarily.

Rafael's grinning, cheeks flushed from the rain outside, looking more relaxed than I've seen him in days.

It's good to see the two alphas are back to being besties again.

They've been acting awkward as fuck after everything that happened at the hotel. Like if they exist in the same room for more than five minutes, they'll go nuclear and spontaneously combust.

I'm assuming that's why they haven't been sleeping in the same room like they were before. I'm still in Rex's fortress, and Rex is still in Raf's room while Nash's room remains an untouched shrine. Raf has been on the couch for the past few nights.

His scent is all over it.

I love it.

They both spot me on the couch and their expressions shift subtly. Not obviously enough that Rex would notice from across the room, but I catch the way Phoenix's eyes soften and how Rafael's smile widens.

Scent match bullshit is real and apparently very obvious when you know what to look for.

"Hey," Phoenix says, shrugging out of his wet jacket. "We grabbed Thai food. You hungry?"

"Always," I say, stretching like a cat on the couch, because it's true. My appetite's been fucking wild since the heat, my body trying to replenish everything it burned through.

Rafael holds up a bag. "Got you pad thai and those spring rolls you liked last time."

"You're my favorite," I tell him, and his grin gets impossibly wider.

"Your favorite, huh?" Phoenix challenges.

Before Rex can turn around fully to give him a suspicious look this time, I shake my head and hands fast at Phoenix, miming at him to stop making it so fucking obvious we have something going on.

"What?" Phoenix asks me, oblivious as usual. Luckily for us all, when he catches Rex staring at him with a narrowed eye, he changes the subject organically. "Oh, hey Rex. Didn't see you there. We got enough for everyone if you want—"

"I'm good," Rex says flatly, slipping out of the living room and going into the kitchen instead with a forlorn glance toward the hall. He looks like he'd rather go to Raf's room and lock himself away, but then he'd have to walk past Raf and Phoenix.

Am I living with alphas or feral cats?

"Suit yourself," Rafael says with a shrug, already unpacking containers on the coffee table.

I grab my laptop and move to join them, settling cross-legged on a round throw pillow on the floor because the coffee table is too low to eat comfortably from the couch.

Phoenix immediately positions himself next to me, close enough that our shoulders brush.

Rafael takes my other side, and suddenly I'm sandwiched between two alphas who are starting to smell like home.

Rex's eye tracks the movement from the kitchen. I don't have to look close to know he's watching, probably finding more things to add to his mental list of reasons to hate me so he can justify why he avoids me like he's developed an allergy.

Except he doesn't look like he hates me.

He looks... conflicted.

"Can we bring you a plate?" I call to him.

He vanishes. Don't know where, but… he vanishes.

I sigh and stuff a spring roll into my mouth to distract myself from the weird urge to follow him and tell him humans can't survive on spite alone. That he needs to eat something, and the pad thai from this place is damn good.

But that really would give him a reason to hate me.

"So," Phoenix says around a mouthful of pad see ew, stabbing at his plate like he's trying to kill it. "Who's this Jamie?"

I almost choke on my spring roll.

They're jealous too. Both of them. And they're doing a terrible job of hiding it.

This is ridiculous.

This is absolutely fucking ridiculous and hilarious.

"Jamie is the maskmaker," I explain, keeping my voice neutral even though I want to laugh at these alphas.

All of them, including the one lurking somewhere by the kitchen because he can't get past Phoenix without being harassed about having some food.

"And a tiger dad, apparently. Lives in this tower in the woods with his mate Orion. They're really sweet."

Phoenix's shoulders relax slightly. "Ohhh. That Jamie."

I take another bite, watching both their faces carefully because I'm a fucking troll. "They propositioned me for a threesome, actually."

Rafael chokes on his noodles. Phoenix's fork clatters against his container.