Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
Alfie
The silence in the back lounge wasn’t the empty, terrifying kind I was used to, the kind that screams before a drop or echoes after a door slams shut. It was heavy. It was humid. It tasted like ozone and citrus syrup, thick enough to coat the back of my throat.
I lay perfectly still, which, for the record, is a state of being I usually only achieve when I’m unconscious or dead. But right now, moving felt like blasphemy. Moving meant disturbing the ecosystem we’d built out of discarded heavy-knit sweaters, Euan’s spare duvet, and four exhausted bodies.
My face was pressed against the soft cotton of a t-shirt, Kit’s, judging by the faint smell of espresso and Old Holborn tobacco clinging to the fibers, but the skin underneath it was Zia’s.
My nose was buried right in the curve of her hip bone, my arm draped heavily over her legs to weigh her down. To keep her here.
I breathed in. God.
The scent wasn't just on her; it was woven into the molecules of the air. The scrubbers were off, Euan had kept his word, and the result was a biological fog of neon grapefruit and lightning mixed with the dark, heavy aftermath of three Alphas who’d finally been allowed to break the glass.
It smelled like ruin. It smelled like home.
"Heavy," a voice grumbled from above me.
I cracked one eye open. The indigo floor lights were still pulsing, casting long, strange shadows across the nest. Zia was shifting, or trying to.
"Alfie," she rasped, her voice wrecked, sounding like she’d smoked a pack a day for a decade. "You’re heavier than you look. Move your head."
"Negative," I mumbled into her hip, tightening my grip. "I’m structural support now. Load-bearing Alpha."
"You’re an overweight golden retriever," she corrected, but her hand drifted down, fingers threading through my messy hair. She scratched my scalp, right at the base of the skull, and a purr rumbled in my chest before I could stop it.
"Status check," Euan whispered from the other side of the pile.
Leave it to Euan to wake up sounding like a motherboard booting up.
He was curled around Zia’s back, his long frame folded impossibly small to fit the space, his nose pressed against her shoulder blades.
He looked disheveled, hair sticking up, eyes sleepy and soft, but his hand was already on her waist, undoubtedly checking her respiration rate.
"Status is... sticky," Zia murmured, shifting her legs. She winced, just a flicker of movement in her eyes. "And sore. Definitely sore."
Kit, the Great Wall of Manchester, stirred behind me. He was the outer perimeter, his massive back shielding us from the door, but he rolled over now, reaching a long arm across the pile to rest a hand on Zia’s stomach.
"Water," Kit rumbled, his voice dropping so low it vibrated the floorboards. "Hydration protocol. Don't move."
He sat up, the duvet pooling around his waist, revealing the fresh scratches on his shoulders. Zia’s work. I stared at the red welts against his ink, a flash of jealousy and pride mixing in my gut. We were all marked. My lip was split. Euan had a bruise on his hip the shape of her heel.
Kit grabbed the water bottle from the nightstand and cracked the seal. He handed it to Zia, helping her sit up slightly, supporting her head.
She drank like she’d been in a desert. Water spilled down her chin, and without thinking, I reached up and thumbed it away, licking the drop from my skin. It tasted like her sweat.
"Better?" Kit asked, taking the bottle back.
"No longer lump. Am human again," she whispered. She leaned back against Euan, who immediately adjusted to support her weight.
She looked at us. Properly looked at us.
Her hair was a disaster, a purple-black bird's nest. Her lips were swollen, bruised a dark rose. She was wearing Euan’s t-shirt, pulled askew, revealing the bite mark I’d left near her collarbone—not a Claiming bite, not yet, but a promise. A placeholder.
"You stayed," she said softly.
It wasn't an accusation. It was wonder.
"Where else would we be, fox?" I pushed myself up on my elbows, the movement making my own muscles protest. "This is the bus. We live here."
"You know what I mean," she said, tracing the letters on my thumb with her eyes. ASK. "The post-coital sprint. The awkward morning after where everyone remembers you’re the employee and we’re the employers."
"Don't," Euan said sharply, tightening his arm around her. "Do not categorize last night as a transaction."
"It wasn't a transaction," Kit agreed, leaning in to press a kiss to her knee. "It was a revelation."
"You’re cheesy," she muttered, but she was smiling. A real smile. Not the polite producer smile, but a soft, sleepy expression that made my heart do a kick-flip in my chest. "And you’re all staring."
"Can't help it," I confessed, resting my chin on her thigh. "Triple match, remember? Now that the dam’s broken, the signal is... loud. Very loud."
"And the Do-Nothing Protocol?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Overwritten," I said immediately. "New firmware installed. Do-Everything-You-Ask Protocol is now live."
"Option B," she whispered, the memory of the text message hanging in the air.
"Option B," I echoed.
The bus hit a pothole, the suspension groaning as we sped north through the rain. The vibration traveled through the mattress, shaking us all together like loose change in a pocket.
I felt... complete.
It was a terrifying feeling. Usually, I felt like a jagged edge looking for a surface to cut, or a frequency trying to find a phase that didn't cancel me out.
But right now? Sandwiched between my best mates and the woman who smelled like lightning, with the scent of sex and safety heavy in the air? I was solid. I was gold.
"Right," Zia said, slapping my shoulder gently. "I need the bathroom. And if you all try to carry me there, I will invoke the Exit Card."
"Card's on the table," Euan noted, pointing to where she'd flipped it. "But the threat is acknowledged."
"I'll clear the path," Kit said, standing up and pulling on his boxers. "Make sure Cal isn't in the corridor. Give you privacy."
"Thank you," she said.
I watched her extricate herself from the tangle of sheets. She moved gingerly, her legs looking a bit shaky, and the possessive roar in my head was a physical sound. We did that. We wrecked her and she liked it.
When the bathroom door clicked shut down the hall, the three of us slumped back against the pillows.
"Jesus," Kit breathed, rubbing his face with both hands. "Did that actually happen?"
"Data confirms," Euan said, closing his eyes. "We bonded. We didn't Claim, the bite wasn't sunk deep enough for the permanent physiological shift, but the energetic bond is sealed."
"She didn't run," I said to the ceiling. "She opened the door. She unlocked it."
"She let us knot," Kit pointed out, looking at me with a grin that was all sharp teeth. "You look like the cat that got the cream, Riot."
"I feel like the cat that got the cream, the fish, and the cushion," I shot back, stretching my arms over my head. My joints popped. "I feel amazing. I feel like I could sing for three days straight."
"You sang plenty last night," Euan muttered, though there was no heat in it. "Your vocal cords are going to be shredded for the Manchester gig."
"Worth it," I said. "Whatever. I'll hum."
I rolled out of the nest, needing to find my phone. I hadn't checked it since we left the stage at the Barrowlands. I needed to see the schedule, check in with Rowan, maybe send a smug text to nobody in particular.
My leather trousers were in a heap by the door. I fished my phone out of the back pocket.
The screen lit up.
And kept lighting up.
Notifications were cascading down the glass like rain. Text messages. Twitter mentions. Instagram tags. Missed calls from Rowan. Missed calls from the label.
My stomach dropped. The warm, golden glow of the morning evaporated, replaced by the cold, acrid taste of adrenaline.
"Lads," I said, my voice tight.
"What?" Kit looked up from pulling on his jeans.
"Phone's blowing up."
"Ignore it," Kit said. "We're in the bubble."
"I can't," I said, unlocking the screen. "It's Rowan. Ten missed calls. And a text from Gareth Blake, which usually means the apocalypse has started."
I opened Rowan's message thread.
(07:30 AM): Alfie. Call me.
(07:45 AM): Do not open Twitter. Do not post.
(08:15 AM): We have a containment breach.
(08:17 AM): You changed the lyrics, Alfred.
I froze.
The Barrowlands. The encore. The "heartbeat" song.
I saw the lightning strike the ground...
We want to learn, not take.
We want to build, not break.
I had pulled Euan and Kit into the narrative. I had broadcasted our collective obsession to a room full of two thousand people and a global livestream audience. In the heat of the moment, desperate to reach Zia, I hadn't thought about the millions of other ears tuned in.
I opened Twitter against Rowan's orders.
Trending in United Kingdom:
#RiotTheory
#TheEngineer
#WeWantToBuild
#FurnitureOrWall
I clicked the hashtag.
@MusicJournoUK: Riot Theory's frontman breaks script at Barrowlands, turning solo ballad into collective plea. Who is the 'Ghost in the Machine'? Speculation mounts on the mystery "Engineer."
@RiotStan4Eva: DID YOU HEAR HIM? "We wait. Furniture or wall." That's not a lyric, that's a code. He was talking to someone specific. Someone they ALL want. #PolyamPack?
@IndustryInsider: Sources say Riot Theory touring with uncredited Omega producer. Audio analysis of the live feed catches Euan Onyx labeling a channel 'Fox'. Is the 'Engineer Who Ran' safely in the bus, or running for her life?
And then, the one that made my blood run cold.
@GarethBlake_Official: Love seeing the boys passionate about their team! Romance sells records, eh? Watch this space for exclusive BTS content. #RiotRomance
"Alfie?" Euan was standing next to me now, fully dressed, sensing the shift in my scent. "Pulse elevated. Distress signal detected. What is it?"
I held up the phone. My hand was shaking. Not the good kind of shaking.
"I think I messed up," I whispered. "I think I aimed the spotlight right at the door we just promised to keep locked."
Euan took the phone. He scanned the data, his eyes jumping back and forth. His expression went flat, cold, calculating.
"Speculation storm," Euan diagnosed. "Viral trajectory. They are dissecting the lyrical shift. They have identified the 'Furniture or Wall' phrase as non-standard syntax."
"She’s in the bathroom," I said, panic rising in my throat like bile. "She’s finally safe. She finally let the walls down. And I just invited the entire world to bang on the windows."
"We mitigate," Kit said, stepping in, grabbing the phone from Euan and tossing it onto the sofa like it was a grenade. "We control the narrative before she sees it."
"She has a phone, Kit," I snapped. "She has Callie. She has the internet. She’s going to see it."
The bathroom door clicked open down the hall.
Soft footsteps on the carpet.
"Hey," Zia’s voice called out, cleaner now, a little brighter. "There's no hot water left, which one of you drained the tank?"
I looked at the doorway. I looked at the nest we’d built.
I remembered the fear in her eyes in Seattle. The industry eats Omegas.
I had just rung the dinner bell.
"Alfie?" Zia appeared in the doorway, scrubbing her hair with a towel, wearing one of my oversized hoodies now. She stopped. She looked at me, then at Kit, then at Euan. She smelled the burnt sugar spiking in the air.
"What?" she asked, lowering the towel. Her eyes narrowed. The softness from five minutes ago vanished, replaced by the sharp, analytical gaze of a producer tracing a fault in the line. "What happened?"
I swallowed hard. The taste of citrus and ozone was still on my tongue, but now it tasted like a goodbye.
"I sang too loud," I whispered.