Chapter 40 – Bells
BELLS
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Okay.
That has to be the most annoying fucking noise I've ever heard.
Beep beep beep.
My eyelids are glued shut. It takes genuine effort to pry them open, and when I do, the lights overhead stab directly into my brain through my pupils.
I close them again immediately.
"Ow," I whisper.
My throat feels like I’ve been gargling sandpaper dicks. Every swallow is a conscious effort. There's something in my nose that pinches a little and both arms are tangled in IV lines.
I'm in the fucking hospital.
Great. My favorite place. Yay. Lucky me.
I try again with the eyes.
The ceiling resolves into acoustic tiles. Water stains everywhere, one shaped like a dick, which is… fitting, somehow. A sprinkler head that's slightly off-center in a way that would bother me if I had the energy to care.
Okay, yeah, it's bothering me.
The last thing I remember is the moon.
Full and white and impossibly bright above a burning opera house while my three alphas held me on a rooftop and the whole world caught fire.
I turn my head. Slowly, because everything hurts.
Phoenix is asleep in the chair beside my bed, folded in half with his enormous body crammed into a space designed for someone two-thirds his size.
His blond mane is loose around his face, one arm dangling off the armrest, his mouth slightly open.
He looks like a golden retriever that fell asleep in a laundry basket.
Raf is on the floor, his back against the wall with his legs stretched across the tile and his head tipped back against Phoenix's thigh. There's a bruise on his jaw that wasn't there yesterday.
Was it yesterday?
How long have I been out?
I push myself up on my elbows and the room tilts violently. My stomach lurches. I grip the bed rail until the spinning stops, breathing through my nose even though there's a fucking tube in it and it keeps pinching me.
The world steadies.
I look down at myself.
Hospital gown. Thin. Paper-like. My chest is unbound for the first time in public since… since I don't even know. My breasts are right there under the fabric, visible and unmistakable.
My hand flies to my throat.
The leather collar is gone, too.
My fingers find the scar. The crescent moon that Bryan—Stephen—bit into my neck years ago in a dressing room. It's raised and hot under my fingertips.
Tender, but...
Different.
The constant low-grade agony that's lived under that scar since the night he bit me, the biological tether connecting me to a man I never chose, is silent. For the first time in years, the tissue under my fingers is just tissue.
Inflamed, yes. Sore, absolutely. But the bond is dead.
Stephen is dead.
I killed him.
I drove my grandfather's knife into his throat and watched him fall.
A laugh and a sob try to claw out of my chest at the same time and I shove it all down because I am not doing this right now.
I scan the room. No phone in sight, which makes me feel weirdly naked. The tray table has a plastic cup of water, a small stack of papers, and a business card with Carmine's name on it and his surprisingly messy handwriting.
Confiscated your phone for your own good.
Do NOT go online.
I mean it, Bells.
Oh, that's not ominous at all.
I grab the papers.
The top sheet is a printout, timestamped six hours ago.
brEAKING: VESPYR FRONTMAN "BELLS" CONFIRMED AS MISSING POP STAR ISABEL FROST
Oh.
FUCK!
I keep reading because I'm a fucking masochist.
...sources within Seattle General Hospital have confirmed that Vespyr's enigmatic lead singer, known publicly as "Bells," is in fact Isabel Frost, the former pop sensation who vanished from public life years ago.
Frost, believed by fans and industry insiders to be a male beta, has been revealed to be female.
My hands are shaking.
The revelation comes in the wake of a violent confrontation at the historic Leroux Opera House, which was destroyed by fire during what police are describing as a kidnapping and hostage situation involving The Reverie manager Stephen Hughes...
I put the paper down.
Pick it up again.
...concert footage showing the dramatic unmasking of Vespyr guitarist Hendrix "Rex" Steele has gone viral, amassing over forty million views in under twelve hours.
The footage captures the moment Frost removes Steele's trademark mask, revealing extensive disfigurement, followed by an onstage kiss that has been described as. ..
I stop reading.
I set the papers face down on the tray table and stare at the ceiling tiles and breathe.
Everyone knows.
The whole world knows everything.
Isabel Frost. Alive. Not dead, not in witness protection, not in rehab, not any of the thousand theories that circulated after I disappeared.
Alive, and female, and standing on a stage in leather pants with a silicone dick in her jeans, fronting a masked rock band, kissing a scarred alpha while the pyrotechnics exploded around them.
Okay. They don't know everything.
The article didn't mention I'm a fucking omega.
I press my palms over my eyes and laugh.
It comes out cracked and wet and borderline hysterical and it wakes Phoenix, whose blond head snaps up so fast he nearly topples the chair.
"Bells?" He's on his feet instantly, his huge hands finding my shoulders. "Hey. Hey, you're awake."
"Yep. I'm awake." My voice sounds like I ate gravel. "How long?"
"A little over a day." His blue eyes are scanning my face, my arms, the monitors, everything. "How do you feel?"
"Like I got kidnapped, drugged, locked in a cage, and set an opera house on fire?"
"So... accurate."
"Where's Rex?"
Phoenix's expression shifts and he takes a deep breath. "He's alive. Surgery went well. The bullet's out. No spinal damage."
The relief hits me so hard my arms give out and I drop back against the pillows. The ceiling blurs and I blink rapidly because I am still not doing this right now.
"He's two floors up," Phoenix continues. "Separate room. They've got him on enforced bed rest."
"I need to see him."
"You need to rest. Your oxygen levels—"
"Phoenix."
He stops.
"I need to see him."
Raf stirs on the floor. His dark eyes open, instantly alert in the way of someone who hasn't actually been sleeping deeply. He takes one look at my face and sighs.
"She's going to discharge herself," Raf says flatly.
"I'm going to discharge myself," I confirm.
"You are not," Phoenix says, drawing himself up to his full massive height. "The doctors said your lungs—"
"My lungs are fine."
"Your lungs are full of smoke."
"Your lungs are going to be full of my silicone dick if you try to stop me," I mutter, already prying the IV tape off.
Ow. OW OW OW.
I rip the IV out of my left arm. I'm stupid enough from sleep and whatever they gave me that I was kind of hoping blood would spray dramatically like in the movies, but all I get is a pathetic little dribble.
"Bells. Bells. Please—"
"I'll sign whatever form. AMA, right? Against medical advice?" I pull the second IV and a thin line of blood tracks down my forearm. I press the bedsheet against it. "Where are my clothes?"
"Destroyed," Raf says, rising to his feet. He rubs his jaw and winces at the bruise. "You were covered in blood and soot. The nurses cut everything off."
"So I'm going in the gown. Everyone already knows I'm a fucking girl."
"Bells…" Phoenix tries again.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed. The tile is freezing against my bare feet. The room does its spinning thing again and I grip the mattress edge until it stops, my knuckles white.
Phoenix hovers, both hands out, ready to catch me.
I stand.
My knees hold.
Barely.
"You're insane," Raf says. But he's moving toward the door, which means he's already accepted the inevitable.
"Tell me something I don't already know."
Phoenix scrubs both hands through his hair, making it wilder than it already is. "At least let me get a wheelchair."
"No."
"Bells."
"I'm walking to Rex's room on my own two feet, Phoenix. You two can walk next to me in case I fall over so I don't eat linoleum. That's the compromise."
He stares at me.
I stare back.
"Fine," he mutters, throwing his hands up. "Fine."
The hallway is bright enough I have to squint as I make my way up the hall. It fucking reeks in here and I'm acutely aware of air on my ass. Raf helpfully points out I'm flashing everyone, so I stop to let him tie it, but I'm already walking again the moment he finishes.
Phoenix flanks my left side. Raf takes the right. Two massive alphas escorting a barefoot omega in a hospital gown through the ICU in the middle of the night.
We look ridiculous.
A nurse at the station looks up, sees us, and opens her mouth.
"AMA," I say before she can speak. "I'll sign whatever you want on my way back."
She looks at Phoenix and Raf and doesn't stop me.
The elevator takes us up two floors. Phoenix keeps his hand near the small of my back the entire time without touching, hovering and radiating anxious energy.
"You need to rest," he says again.
"I will. In Rex's bed."
"That's not what the doctors—"
"Phoenix." I look up at him. I must look as fucked up as I feel because his protest dies mid-sentence. "Please."
Raf gives him a look.
Phoenix's jaw works, but he nods once.
The elevator opens into another hallway.
This time Raf handles the nurses' station with a charming smile and some smooth bullshit about being a pack even though I'm not even marked yet, and the nurse waves us through with the exhausted resignation of someone who has already given up on enforcing visiting hours tonight.
I push Rex's door open.
He's lying on his side, face turned toward the window, his dyed black hair messy and the platinum roots showing more than ever under the harsh lights.
The scarred side of his face is pressed into the pillow, hidden by habit even in sleep, and his bare back is visible above the blanket.
It's bandaged heavily around the left shoulder blade where the bullet was, the burn scars webbing across his skin.
"You're supposed to be in bed," he mutters.
"I am." I pad across the cold tile. "Yours."
I'm already climbing in and he's already growling at me.
The bed is not designed for two people. Definitely not designed for an alpha the size of Rex and his still-kinda-drugged omega.
I wedge myself into the space between his body and the bed rail, careful of his bandaged back, careful of the lines running from his arm to the IV stand and taking care not to look at his face.
"You're a fucking psycho," he grumbles.
"Noted."
My body finds his like it was designed to. My shoulder slots under his arm. My hip presses against his hip. My forehead finds the curve of his neck, the warm skin below his jaw, and I breathe in his cold, familiar scent.
Despite the growling, his arm settles over me, heavy and tentative, like he's still not sure he's allowed to do this.
"We'll be in the hall," Phoenix says softly.
They leave me alone with Rex.
Rex's chest expands against mine, a deep, careful breath that he lets out slowly through his nose.
"The mark is gone," I murmur.
Silence.
"The scar is still there. It'll always be there. But the tether… it severed when he died. I can't feel him anymore. There's nothing pulling at me. It's just..." I swallow. "Quiet."
Rex doesn't speak.
But his arm shifts and his hand comes up to my throat. His fingers gently move my hair away from the scar and trace the crescent shape, the rough pads of his guitar-playing fingers soft against the inflamed tissue.
"Are you ready?" I ask quietly. "For what comes next?"
His breath comes out rough and exhausted, but it's close to a laugh.
"I have never," he whispers into my hair, "been ready for a single fucking thing that's happened since you walked into my life."
I press closer, my fingers curling into the fabric of his hospital gown.
"I'm not going anywhere, Rex."
His hand stills on my neck. "You should."
"Yeah, well. I'm not known for making smart decisions. I joined a band run by a guy who blackmailed me, so."
Another rough exhale. His fingers resume their slow tracing of the scar. "I've been a fucking dick."
"Understatement of the century."
"I know."
"You threatened to ruin my life. You terrorized me in my dressing room—"
"I didn't know you were a girl," he mutters.
"I'm not finished. You called me Cardboard, you made me go through song after song until I thought I was going to puke to find out what had been stolen—"
"I get it."
"—you had a white rabbit mask made for me you thought I would hate—and I didn't, by the way, it's fucking perfect—"
"I get it."
I tilt my head back so I can see the one blue eye watching me. The good side of his mouth is pressed thin, his jaw tight. The scarred side is pressed against the hospital pillow, hidden from me.
"You have the rest of our lives to make it up to me, scent match." I grin, tapping his nose. He crinkles it with another low growl. "But I kind of like the angry hate sex. So don't get too reformed."
His eye narrows. "You're deranged."
"You love me. Remember?"
He blows a puff of air through his nose.
But I've never seen his eye look so soft.
I reach up and curl my hand around the back of his head and pull him down. His lips meet mine, careful and slow, and I sink against him.