Seventeen
SEVENTEEN
Mia
“SORRY,” ZALEN SAID. “I’m sorry, you two. No one’s angry at you, and everything’s going to be all right. We’re going inside now.”
His voice lowered to a soothing rumble, calming my jangling nerves. After a second’s hesitation, he allowed Emiel to take Luca from him. The pair headed toward the front door with slow, hitching steps. Zalen carefully wrapped an arm around me and supported me as we followed.
I knew I should be protesting that I was okay, that I could walk—but the magnetic pull to lean against Zalen’s solid frame and let his rumbly voice and clean, reassuring scent settle my whirling thoughts was inescapable.
Except for our brief interaction in the restaurant when Zalen and Emiel had brought their prospective donors in for a meal, I hadn’t had any contact with Zalen since that very first night in the singles bar. Even then, his aura of calm tranquility paired with implacable protectiveness had made an impression on me.
This was an alpha who had experience taking care of distraught omegas. I supposed that made sense for someone who ran a center for troubled teens. Maybe that was where he’d learned the skill.
I let him guide me inside, more of the tension easing from my shoulders as I stepped into the welcoming foyer.
“Guest bathroom,” he called to Emiel, who grunted a wordless response.
The four of us followed the main ground floor hallway past the elegant living room, to a closed door across from the family room where Luca and I had watched a movie together. The bathroom was large and clean, with a shower but no bathtub.
Emiel set Luca down to sit on the toilet seat, and the look of absent blankness on both their faces made a chill run down my spine. Zalen plucked a houseplant off the seat of a spindly chair sitting in the corner next to the marble vanity and eased me onto it. I had a feeling the chair was only meant to be decorative, but I was still grateful not to have to stay upright under my own power.
“Emiel,” Zalen said, his tone carefully level. “You and I need to talk, but I’m fuckin’ pissed at you right now. I can’t deal with their injuries and yours as well.”
“Didn’t ask you to,” Emiel muttered, with no particular emotion behind the words. He turned and left, closing the door softly behind him—but his final glance at Luca and me looked haunted.
When the sound of his shuffling footsteps disappeared down the hall, Zalen took a deep breath and let it out slowly, his shoulders sagging. When he turned to me, he, too, was wearing an unreadable expression.
“Mia, are you hurt anyplace else besides your black eye?” he asked.
I startled a bit at that. Black eye? Why hadn’t I made the connection between the hot, swollen feeling and the idea that I might have a shiner?
My lips parted, but I had to work hard to call up words. “No, I’m okay.”
It wasn’t the complete truth—I was going to have a hell of a bruise on my hip where I’d hit the concrete floor. But I assumed he meant, like, broken bones or stab wounds, or that kind of thing. Serious injuries.
“All right, that’s good,” he said. “Give me just a minute and I’ll get you some frozen peas or something for the swelling.” He crossed to the toilet and crouched in front of Luca, looking up at him. “Hey. Luca. Are you with us?”
Luca closed his eyes and turned his face away.
I swallowed, wetting my cracked lips. “Two alphas grabbed him, but I didn’t see anyone hit him. He seemed to be walking okay, but he hasn’t spoken.”
“Omegas sometimes shut down for a bit after undergoing a traumatic event,” Zalen said absently. “It’s a normal response.”
“He fought back,” I said quickly, not sure why I felt the urge to leap to Luca’s defense.
“I’m guessing you both did,” said the alpha, his tone growing dry. “Hence the black eye.”
Blood rushed to my cheeks, which of course resulted in the black eye in question throbbing even hotter and achier.
“Okay.” Zalen rose, frowning down at Luca for a second before moving to the nearest sink. “I’ll be back as quick as I can. In the meantime—” He grabbed a washcloth and ran it under the tap until it was soaked, then wrung it out. “—hold this over your eye.”
He folded up the damp washcloth and handed it to me.
I took it, gingerly pressing it to the painful bruising. It was cool, but not cold, and the damp terrycloth felt surprisingly soothing.
“Thanks,” I whispered.
He nodded and ducked out of the bathroom, leaving me alone with Luca. I wanted to help him, but the few steps separating us felt insurmountable. All I could think of was how soon I’d be able to get horizontal and sleep for a week. How on earth was I going to get back to Soulard to pick up my car and drive home, when I could barely sit upright in a chair?
Good god , how was I going to get through my restaurant shift tomorrow?
Luca wrapped his arms around his torso, hugging himself as though he were freezing. I was pretty sure the bathroom was warm, but I was shivering, too.
Zalen hurried back in with a bag of frozen corn in one hand and a fleecy blanket wadded up beneath his arm. He set the blanket on the vanity a bit sheepishly.
“Right, let me wrap this bag in a dry towel and trade you for the washcloth.” He rummaged for a clean hand towel and suited action to word.
It took a moment for the cold to permeate through the towel when I pressed it to my tender skin, but once it did, I groaned in relief. The sharp chill felt divine .
“Keep it there for fifteen minutes,” Zalen said. “I need to make sure Luca isn’t physically hurt. After that, you both need sleep. Do you need to call anyone and let them know where you are? Or have me call for you?”
It took a minute for the sense of the words to make its way through to my brain. When it did, my relief that no one expected me to show up at my house tonight warred with a faintly queasy feeling. Nat—assuming he was even home—would figure I was off screwing an alpha. This alpha.
There was literally no one who’d think it was odd if I was gone all night. If I’d been kidnapped or murdered at the old factory, I wouldn’t have been missed until I failed to show up at the restaurant tomorrow.
“No, it’s fine,” I said hoarsely.
“I can make up a guest room for you,” Zalen began, “but if you’re comfortable sharing a nest with Luca, that might be better for both of you. I’d really rather he wasn’t alone in his room when he’s like this...” He hesitated. “But... uh, it probably shouldn’t be an alpha with him.”
I was missing subtext here, and I didn’t have the brainpower to try and figure it out right now. “Okay,” I said. God , I just wanted to sleep.
I braced my elbow on the edge of the vanity to keep the frozen corn pressed to my eye, as I let my head fall back against the wall, my good eye closing. I could hear Zalen speaking to Luca in that low, soothing tone of his, talking him through pulling off his shapeless hoodie and lifting his arms one at a time to be checked.
At some point, I must’ve dozed off. A hand on my shoulder brought me back to awareness, with my jaw hanging slack and the towel-wrapped corn sitting in my lap. Luca was gone from the room, and I blinked up at Zalen in confusion.
“He’s in his nest,” Zalen said, as though reading my unspoken question. “Come on, you need sleep.”
I wasn’t sure how I was going to get from here to there, especially if Luca’s bedroom was on the second floor. That question was answered a moment later when Zalen leaned down and scooped me off the chair as though I weighed nothing.
I squeaked in surprise, clutching the frozen corn in one hand. The bruise on my hip throbbed in discontent, but Zalen shifted me into a more comfortable position, and then we were off. It was a testament to how far gone I was that the gentle rocking motion of being carried nearly sent me right back to sleep.
It seemed as though no time at all had passed when Zalen squeezed us sideways into a cozy room, dimly lit with red and orange fairy lights. There were cushions and pieces of soft furniture everywhere—the sort of nest every teenage omega dreamed of having. Zalen set me down on a pile of cushions next to Luca, who was curled on his side, making himself small.
The alpha cleared his throat and grabbed a blanket off the back of a nearby chair. It was the same one he’d brought into the bathroom earlier.
“I, uh, thought this might help,” he said awkwardly. “But just kick it aside if you don’t want it.”
He shook out the fleecy throw and settled it over the two of us. Immediately, the scent of lime and vanilla surrounded me.
“Thank you,” I managed, resisting the urge to bury my face in the soft fleece while Zalen was here to see it.
“Don’t mention it,” he said. “Yell if you need anything. I’d keep watch outside the door tonight... but I’m pretty sure Emiel’s got a concussion and at least one cracked rib. I’m pissed off at him, but I can’t actually leave him alone with those injuries. I’ll hear if you call out, though.”
I bit my lower lip, not sure how to respond to that.
With a strained smile, he turned on his heel and waded out of the sea of pillows, closing the door gently as he left. I wanted to try and check on Luca again, but it was too late. Sleep was already pulling me under.
When I woke from a hazy nightmare sometime later, it felt like hours had passed, but also no time at all. I was disoriented. My swollen eye hurt. I sucked in a gasping breath, and was immediately wreathed in vanilla and lime, cut grass and honeysuckle.
Luca’s nest.
Zalen’s blanket.
The cage fight, and everything that had come after.
A stifled, choked noise came from somewhere on my right. I rolled onto my side and saw Luca, still curled into a tense comma shape as he shook with nearly silent tears.
“Luca,” I rasped, not sure if I should reach out and touch him. “It’s okay. We’re okay now.”
Wet green eyes met mine in the warm, womblike lighting of the nest.
“It’s not,” Luca said in an unsteady voice. “It’s not . I’m so sorry, Mia. I should never have asked you to come to that place last night. Christ . You were almost—”
He cut himself off and shook his head sharply, a tortured expression twisting his fine-boned, angular features.