Chapter 35
THIRTY-FIVE
Zia
"Pause the track."
The voice cut through the static in the room like a fader slamming to zero.
Alfie froze, his breath hot against the scent gland on my neck, his teeth grazing the skin but not yet breaking it. We both blinked, the heavy, golden haze of the moment fracturing just enough to let reality leak in.
Rowan stood in the doorway of the kitchen. She wasn't holding a tablet. She wasn't holding a contract. She was holding a garment bag, and she looked like she was about to break up a high school party, but with affection.
"Not here," Rowan said, stepping into the room. Her heels clicked on the tile. "Not over a plate of half-eaten pancakes with bacon grease in the air. If we’re doing this, we’re doing it with the respect the paperwork demands."
"Rowan," Alfie whined, his forehead resting against my shoulder. "I was there. I was right there."
"And you'll get back there," she promised, her voice softening. She looked at me. "Zia. A word. In the lounge."
I gently detangled myself from Alfie’s arms. He let me go, though he looked like I was taking his oxygen with me.
"I'll be back," I promised him. "Don't go anywhere."
"Furniture," Kit grunted from the table, though he was watching Rowan with a narrowed, calculating gaze.
I followed Rowan into the front lounge. She closed the door, sealing us off from the heavy wall of Alpha pheromones in the kitchen. The air here was cooler, cleaner.
She didn't sit. She hung the garment bag on the curtain rail and turned to me. Her eyes, usually sharp enough to cut glass, scanned my face with a terrifying intensity.
"This is the exit interview," she said quietly. "Before the lock-in. Are you lucid, Zia? Truly?"
"I'm lucid," I said. I felt steady. Grounded. "The fever's gone. The heat broke hours ago. I'm just... sure."
"This isn't a rider clause we can edit later," she warned, crossing her arms. "A triple claim is heavy biology. It changes your chemical baseline. It changes how the world smells to you, how it feels and appears. It changes how you hear the music. If you have even one percent of doubt, we stop."
I listened to the hum of the London traffic outside. I thought about the colors in my head, indigo, slate, umber. They were vibrant, waiting to be mixed.
"I don't have doubt," I said. "I have fear. But the fear is about losing them, not keeping them."
Rowan let out a long breath, her shoulders dropping half an inch. The devastatingly professional mask cracked, revealing the woman who had threatened to resign rather than let a label exploit me.
"Good," she whispered. She reached out, brushing a strand of hair from my face. "God, look at you. You survived them."
"I metabolized them," I corrected with a small smile.
Rowan laughed, a rare, bright sound. "I have two younger brothers, you know. Useless, the pair of them." She hesitated, her hand lingering on my cheek. "I never had a sister. But watching you navigate those three idiots... I feel very protective. I wanted this moment to be..."
She gestured to the garment bag.
"Not bacon grease," she finished.
She unzipped the bag. Inside was a slip dress of liquid silver silk. It looked like moonlight woven into fabric.
"I picked this up in Manchester," she admitted. "Just in case the 'Option B' scenario evolved into 'Option Forever'."
My throat went tight. "Rowan."
"Go on," she shooed me toward the small bathroom. "Put it on. Fix your hair. If you're going to be the Queen of Riot Theory, look the part."
When I walked out of the bathroom, the silence in the collab house loft was profound.
The silver silk flowed over my skin like cool water, a stark contrast to the bruised, swollen feeling of my body underneath. I felt raw and regal all at once.
Rowan led me up the spiral stairs to the main studio floor.
They had moved.
The guys were standing in the center of the room, near the grand piano. They had cleaned up. Gone were the sweatpants and hoodies.
Alfie was wearing a fitted black suit with a sheer shirt underneath, his hair tamed into artful chaos.
Euan was in a sharp charcoal waistcoat and trousers, sleeves rolled to the elbows, precise and devastating.
Kit wore black combat trousers and a black button-down, unbuttoned enough to show the ink creeping up his chest.
And there were flowers.
Everywhere. Not a florist's arrangement, but a chaotic explosion of wildflowers, dandelions, ivy, overgrown roses, strewn across the piano, the floor, the mixing desk.
"Where did you get these?" I asked, stepping into the room.
Alfie looked up. His scent spiked, burnt sugar flaring into caramel. He looked like he was about to drop to his knees.
"Garden," Kit rumbled, shifting his weight. "Ran down. Hopped the fence. Might have upset a neighbor."
"Use the legal fund," Rowan murmured from behind me, moving to the side where Cal stood.
Cal was guarding the heavy steel door, arms crossed, a fresh pot of tea on a tray next to him. He nodded to me, solemn and steady. The witness. The gatekeeper.
I walked into the circle. The air pressure dropped. The world narrowed down to the three of them.
"We need words," I said. The Producer voice was back, but it was soft. Intimate. "We need to set the parameters."
"We have them," Euan said. He took a step forward. "We drafted the verbal contract while you were changing."
"Say them?" I asked.
Alfie stepped in. He took my left hand.
"Consent is ongoing," he whispered, his thumb rubbing over my knuckles. "Today, tomorrow, ten years from now. You own the 'yes'."
Euan took my right hand.
"Your 'no' outranks my biology," he stated, his grey eyes fierce and clear. "Logic dictates you lead. Instinct follows."
Kit moved behind me, his chest pressing against my back, his hands resting on my hips, heavy and claiming.
"We are pack on our terms," he growled into my ear. "Not the industry's. Ours. The bubble holds."
I closed my eyes. The vow resonated in my chest, a perfect, resolving chord.
"Okay," I breathed. "Sequence is active."
I looked at them. I chose the order.
"Alfie," I said. "Front and center."
Alfie moved. He was shaking. Tremors running through his frame. He looked terrified and ecstatic, a golden retriever realizing the ball was about to be thrown for real.
"You sure, fox?" he whispered, leaning his forehead against mine. "Really sure? Copy that?"
"Yes, Alfie," I laughed, a wet, teary sound. "Bite. That's a direct order."
He let out a sob that sounded like a laugh. He tilted my head back, exposing the junction of my neck and shoulder. He didn't hesitate this time. He sank his teeth in.
The pain was sharp, sudden, and shocking.
It flashed white-hot, then flooded with endorphins.
I gasped, clutching his jacket. He groaned against my skin, his scent flooding my senses, blackberries and crème br?lée, as he locked his jaw, pouring his claim into the wound.
He held it there, marking me, sobbing softly against my neck until the bond settled into a hum.
When he pulled back, he licked the mark, sealing it. He looked wrecked.
"Euan," I gasped, the endorphins making the room swim.
Euan stepped in as Alfie moved to my side, holding my hand to ground me.
Euan was clinical reverence. He didn't just grab; he framed my face with his hands. He tilted my chin to the other side.
"Angle here," I directed, tapping the spot on the left. "Pressure now."
"Acknowledged," he murmured.
He obeyed. He mirrored Alfie’s mark perfectly, sinking his teeth into the muscle with surgical precision. His low Scots rumble cracked against my skin as he bit down.
"Euan," I moaned his name, a command and a plea.
He held the bite until I felt the second lock engage, a cool, slate-grey stability settling over the chaotic gold of Alfie’s mark.
"Kit," I whispered. "Anchor me."
Kit didn't move to the side. He stayed behind me. He swept my hair forward, exposing the nape of my neck, the most vulnerable spot. The vertebrae.
"I've got you," he said, his voice wrapping around me like a physical weight. "Deep breath. In."
I inhaled.
"Out."
He bit down on the exhale. It was heavy. It was a mountain landing on my shoulders.
"I'm right here. Good girl. Take my mark," he narrated, wrapping me tightly in his arms. "Pressure." His teeth sank into the sensitive flesh at the back of my neck.
I clawed at his forearms where they crossed my chest, my knees buckling. He held me up, taking my weight entirely.
"Mine," he nearly broke on the word, the growl vibrating through his teeth into my spine.
"Yours," I sobbed back. "Yours."
He released, soothing the bite with his tongue.
I stood there, swaying, marked three times, my blood singing with a chemical cocktail that made the colors of the room vibrant enough to hurt.
"My turn," I rasped.
Alfie’s eyes widened. "Z?"
"Two constraints, remember?" I said, turning in Kit’s arms to face them. "No hierarchy. And I want the full spectrum."
I grabbed Alfie by the lapels. I pulled him down. I didn't ask. I found the spot where his pulse hammered under the thin skin of his neck, right next to his scent gland.
I bit him.
He screamed, a shocked, delighted sound, and arched into me. The taste hit my tongue instantly. Burnt sugar, fizzy soda, spiced rum. I drank it down, letting the flavor map itself onto my DNA, and I marked him.
I turned to Euan. He was watching with wide, dark eyes, his collar already unbuttoned.
I pushed him back against the piano. I buried my face in his neck snf bit.
Toasted rice. Maple glaze. Smoke. The taste of him was clean and savory. He hissed through his teeth, his hands gripping the edge of the piano so hard the wood creaked, trembling as I claimed him back.
Then Kit.
He dropped to his knees before I could ask. He knelt on the floor, offering his neck, baring the thick muscle of his traps.
I leaned down.
My neck throbbed. It wasn't a sharp pain, like a soldering iron slip or a cable pinch; it was a deep, rhythmic resonance, a bass drum kicked at 60 beats per minute, reminding me with every pulse that my structural integrity had been fundamentally altered.