Chapter 20 #2
She nods, a faint flush spreading across her cheeks. “It’s my favorite.”
“I’ll remember that,” I say, placing it in the cart.
The flutter of her pulse at the base of her throat, right where one of our claiming marks sits, is mesmerizing. I want to press my lips to that spot, to feel her heartbeat against my tongue.
“Brrr,” Tristan exaggerates, appearing at the end of the aisle with an armful of frozen pizzas. “It’s freezing in here. Or is that just the sexual tension?”
Zoe rolls her eyes, the moment broken. “The only tension I feel is my patience wearing thin. How many pizzas do you need?”
“All of them,” he says seriously.
“Put half of those back,” she instructs, turning to the next freezer section. “And get at least one with vegetables on it.”
“Vegetables,” Tristan mutters, reluctantly returning some boxes. “On pizza. It’s like she wants us to suffer.”
Zoe just laughs, the sound like a spark against my frayed nerves.
I jerk back a step, the cold air of the aisle hitting the space where her warmth had been.
My wrists tighten, and I realize I’m clenching my fists.
The ghost of her body against the freezer door is a brand on my front.
My lungs burn with the need to close the distance again, to breathe her in until the scent of her is the only thing left in the world.
Fuck…
“Okay, breakfast,” she says, oblivious to the internal war I’m waging. She points a finger down the next aisle. “And before you even ask, Tristan, the answer is no.”
“Huh? I haven’t even said anything yet!” he protests, following her.
“You were going to ask for five boxes of Lucky Charms,” she calls over her shoulder, not breaking stride. “I can see it in your eyes.”
“What about three?” he bargains, catching up to her. “Plus one grown-up cereal, like Raisin Bran, to maintain the illusion that we’re responsible adults?”
She stops, turning to face him and pretending to mull it over. “Two boxes of Lucky Charms. And the grown-up cereal has to have the word ‘fiber’ in bold on the front of the box.”
“You drive a hard bargain, Clarke,” Tristan says, clutching his chest in mock pain as he tosses two boxes of Lucky Charms into our cart. “But for the promise of magically delicious marshmallows, I accept.”
Zoe laughs again, and the sound is a bright, clear note in the dull hum of the grocery store. It’s a sound I’m quickly becoming addicted to.
It’s that sound, that moment of her unguarded joy, that makes the hair on my arms stand up a half-second later.
My head snaps up, my senses instantly on high alert.
It’s an old, familiar instinct. Something I can’t explain.
My eyes scan the aisle, past beta families and other bored shoppers, and lock onto the source.
A beta at the far end of the aisle. He’s not just looking.
He’s staring. At Zoe. His gaze is hungry, speculative.
A low, vicious growl builds in my chest, a sound I have to physically swallow back down. My hand tightens on the handle of our cart, the metal groaning under the pressure. Mine.
I don’t have to look at my brothers to know they’ve felt it too.
The shift in the air. The threat. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Diego’s easy smile vanish, replaced by a watchful stillness.
Tristan subtly pivots, his body becoming a casual but solid barrier on her left.
And then Dane is just... there. Moving with a silent, unnerving grace to block the man’s line of sight from the other side.
He freezes. Absolutely, completely still.
The easy confidence he held a moment ago vanishes, replaced by the rigid, wide-eyed stillness of a prey animal that has just heard a twig snap in the darkness.
He pales, gives a jerky nod to no one in particular, and then turns and practically flees down the aisle.
A dark, deeply satisfying heat curls through me. Good. Let the world see. She is claimed. She is protected. She is ours.
I look at Zoe, expecting to see annoyance. Instead, I catch a faint, reluctant flush creeping up her neck, a slight quickening of her breath. She noticed. And something in her responded to our protection.
Victory. My alpha purrs.
“I think we have enough cereal to last through the apocalypse,” she says, clearing her throat and pointedly ignoring what just happened. “Let’s get bread next.”
She leads Dane’s cart away, and we follow, the tension slowly bleeding out of the air.
The bread aisle, thankfully, is empty. Zoe immediately grabs a loaf of whole wheat and a package of English muffins. “Okay, what else? Bagels!”
“And sourdough,” I add. “For toast.”
“Brioche,” Diego grabs a bag. “For French toast. The non-carbonized version.”
“The cheapest, squishiest white bread they have,” Tristan grabs a loaf that looks like it’s made of pure air. “For grilled cheese.”
“That’s not bread,” Dane says, his voice full of quiet disdain. “It’s a sponge.”
Tristan simply grins back. “It’s a vessel for melted cheese.”
Zoe just watches this exchange, a look of profound bemusement on her face.
She shakes her head, a real smile playing on her lips, and tosses all four loaves into the cart.
“Fine. We’ll get all of it.” She turns the now-overflowing cart toward the front of the store.
“I think we’re done here. Before you guys start a gang war over rye versus pumpernickel. ”
The cashier’s eyes widen comically as we approach with our convoy of overflowing carts.
“Big... family?” she asks as she openly scans the claiming marks on Zoe’s neck and then back to the four of us, her eyebrows climbing halfway up her forehead.
“Something like that,” Zoe says, already starting to unload items onto the conveyor belt. Tristan and Dane immediately take over.
I reach for my wallet, but Zoe shakes her head. “Oh no. This isn’t your treat, CEO. This is a shared expense.”
I stare at her, genuinely confused. “You want to... split the bill? Five ways?”
“No,” she says patiently, as if explaining a complex concept to a child. “I want to pay for my stuff, and you guys can pay for yours.”
I look at the conveyor belt, now covered in a jumble of groceries. “And how exactly do we determine which items belong to whom?”
She pauses, clearly not having thought this through. “Well... the ice cream is mine. And the bagels.”
“The bagels you specifically told me I needed in my life or I’d remain emotionally stunted?” I counter, raising an eyebrow.
“And the cereal we spent twenty minutes debating?” Tristan adds. “I feel like that was a group decision.”
Zoe’s brow furrows as she looks at the growing pile of groceries being scanned. “Okay, so maybe this is more complicated than I thought.”
“How about I get this one,” I suggest, already handing my card to the cashier, “and you can get the next one?”
She opens her mouth to argue, then closes it again, a hint of pink rising in her cheeks. “Fine. But I’m paying next time. And it’s going to be something ridiculously expensive to make up for this.”
“Deal,” I agree, suppressing a smile at her determined expression. I’m not letting her pay for shit. Ever.
The cashier runs my card, her eyes widening slightly at the total. “Would you like help out to your car?”
“We’ve got it,” Dane says, already gathering bags.
Outside, the bright sun is warm on our backs as we load the groceries into the SUV. The air smells of fresh bread from the bakery next door and exhaust from the traffic. I notice Zoe checking her phone, her brow furrowing slightly.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“Just a missed call from Helen,” she says, tucking the phone back into her pocket. “I’ll call her back when we get home.”
Home. She said it so casually. Our home. Even if it’s temporary, even if it’s under less than ideal circumstances, she’s starting to think of the penthouse as home?
Another small victory.
I look up from the trunk at my pack. At our pack.
Diego is laughing, trying to wrestle a bag of chips away from Tristan, who is holding it over his head like a trophy.
Dane is just watching them, a rare, almost imperceptible smile touching the corners of his mouth.
And Zoe... Zoe is standing in the middle of it all, shaking her head at their antics, a real, unguarded smile on her face.
For a second, a perfect, crystalline moment, everything is quiet. And I don’t mean the absence of the static. I mean the quiet of contentment. Of belonging.
And then I hear it. Two women, a beta and an omega, are walking by, one pushing a stroller. Their voices are hushed, but I hear every venomous word.
“...that’s them. The Sterling pack.”
“Oh my god, you’re right. And is that... her? The beta from PackTrackr?”
“I think so. She looks so... plain. I don’t get it. Why her?”
“It has to be a PR stunt. A fake claiming to make them seem more... accessible or something.”
I see Zoe freeze, a bag of bagels clutched in her hand. Her shoulders go rigid. She holds her head high, pretending she hasn’t heard, but I see the way her throat moves as she swallows hard.
The casual joy of our shopping trip suddenly evaporates.
“Right,” she says, her voice a brittle whisper meant only for herself. “A nice dose of reality.”
The sound of her hurt, the sight of that pain—it’s like a lit match to gasoline. My alpha roars to life. Before I’ve even made a conscious decision, I’m moving. Every ounce of my carefully constructed control incinerates.
I’m on her in two long strides, backing her against the cool, dark metal of the SUV, my hands coming up to cage her head. Her eyes are wide, startled, a question in their brown depths.
“Rett, what are you—”
“I can’t,” I bite out, the words a low, rough growl torn from my throat. “I can’t stand here and let them talk about you like that. Not for one second.”
My thumb brushes her lower lip, and a shudder runs through her. Her lips part on a sharp, indrawn breath. That’s it. That’s all the permission I need.
“Zoe,” I growl against her mouth, and then I’m kissing her.
My mouth crashes down on hers, and it’s not gentle.
It’s a collision. My hand fists in her hair, tilting her head back to take the kiss deeper.
I can taste the sharp gasp of her surprise, the faint sweetness of her lip gloss.
A low growl vibrates in my chest, swallowed by the connection of our mouths.
For a heartbeat, she is rigid in my arms. Then a shudder wracks her frame.
Her lips part on a broken sigh, and she surrenders to the kiss, her body going soft and pliant against mine.
Her hands come up to clutch at my shoulders, her fingers digging into the fabric of my shirt.
The hesitant touch of her tongue against mine is the first crack in a dam that has been holding back a flood.
I crush her closer, my other arm banding around her waist, sealing her against me until there’s no space, no world beyond the two of us.
When I finally pull back, we’re both breathless. Her brown eyes are wide, dark, and dazed. Her lips are swollen and wet from mine. Her scent, a heady mix of her own clean fragrance and arousal, is flooding my senses.
I look over her shoulder. The two women are gone. I hadn’t even noticed them leave. I don’t give a damn about them.
My gaze drops back to Zoe. Her hand is pressed against her chest, right over her racing heart.
“What...” she whispers, her voice shaky. “What was that?”
I lean in, my forehead resting against hers, my lips brushing her ear.
“That,” I murmur, my voice rough, “was for me. Because I’ve been dying to do that since the moment I saw you in that goddamn dive bar.”