Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Zoe
The apartment feels strange.
It’s exactly as I left it weeks ago. My secondhand furniture. My overflowing bookshelves. My collection of thrift store art prints on the walls. It should feel like home. It should feel like a relief to be back in my own space, away from the sleek, minimalist luxury of the Sterling penthouse.
Instead, it feels... empty. Cold. Like I’ve stepped into a museum exhibit of my former life.
I drop my suitcase just inside the door and stand there, looking around at a place that no longer feels like it belongs to me. Or maybe I’m the one who no longer belongs here.
“Stop it,” I mutter to myself, shaking my head. “This is your home. Your real home.”
I force myself to move, to go through the motions of returning. I open windows to air out the staleness. I check the fridge, grimacing at the science experiment that used to be a carton of milk. I sort through the mail that’s accumulated: bills and catalogs and junk.
Normal things. Human things. The kind of things I did every day before four alphas claimed me in a night of drunken bliss and turned my world upside down.
But the claiming marks on my neck won’t let me forget.
They throb insistently, a steady, pulsing ache that seems to grow stronger with each passing minute.
I touch them with my fingertips, half-expecting to find them inflamed, maybe even bleeding.
They’re slightly raised, warm to the touch, and suddenly tender.
A slow breath releases from my nose.
I need a shower. Need to wash away the scent of them that still clings to my skin, to my hair, to my clothes.
I strip down in my tiny bathroom, catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror.
I look... different. Not physically, exactly, but there’s something in my eyes that wasn’t there before.
I turn away from the mirror and step under the spray.
The hot water feels good on my skin, but it does nothing for the hollow ache in my chest or the sense of wrongness that persists.
I try to focus on practical things. I need to call Helen. Need to find out when the gallery will reopen. Need to arrange for a new computer, new files. Need to rebuild what Rudy destroyed.
I step out of the shower, wrapping myself in a towel that feels scratchy and thin compared to the plush, heated ones at the penthouse. I pad into my bedroom, digging through my dresser for comfortable clothes. I settle on an old NYU t-shirt and leggings, then curl up on my couch with my phone.
No missed calls. No texts. Nothing.
They haven’t even checked to see if I made it home safely. A bitter smile twists my lips. So much for their alpha protectiveness. The moment I walked out that door, I stopped being their problem. Their responsibility. Their claimed beta.
Except for these fucking marks that won’t fade.
I touch them again, wincing at the sharp jolt of tenderness that shoots through them.
Great. Instead of fading, they’re getting more tender and hot to the touch.
I frown, ghosting my fingers over the surface of one. It’s so hot I can feel the heat without directly touching it.
My phone rings, making me jump. I snatch it up, my heart racing, but the name on the screen isn’t Rett or Diego or Tristan or Dane.
It’s Leah.
“Hey,” I answer, trying to inject some normalcy into my voice.
“Where the hell have you been?” she demands, skipping any greeting. “I’ve been texting you for days! I was about to file a missing person’s report!”
I wince. In all the chaos of the last few weeks, I’ve been a terrible friend. “I’m sorry,” I say, and mean it. “It’s been... complicated.”
“Complicated how? The last I heard, you were staying with the Sterling pack because of the gallery break-in. Then radio silence. What gives?”
I take a deep breath, then let it all spill out. Everything about the static, Rudy’s arrest, and my decision to leave. By the time I finish, my throat is raw and tight, and there’s a suspicious wetness on my cheeks.
Leah is silent for a long moment, then: “Holy shit, Zoe.”
A watery laugh bubbles up. “Yeah.”
“So let me get this straight,” she says slowly. “Four insanely hot, wealthy alphas claimed you, brought you into their home, and then couldn’t articulate why they wanted you to stay beyond ‘you make the noise in our heads stop’?”
“That’s... pretty much it, yeah.”
“Men,” she sighs, the single word loaded with disgust. “Alphas or betas, they’re all emotionally constipated idiots.”
“Hey!” I hear one of her alphas, probably the one named Jude, shout from the back.
I laugh again, a real one this time. Trust Leah to make me laugh.
“So what now?” she asks.
“Now I go back to my life,” I say, trying to sound more confident than I feel. “The gallery will reopen soon. I’ll get back to work. I’ll move on.”
“And the claiming marks?”
I touch my neck again and hiss at the pain. “They’ll fade eventually.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then I’ll deal with it,” I say firmly. “I am not going to be their living, breathing aspirin, Leah. I deserve more than that.”
“Damn right you do,” she agrees. Then her voice softens. “But Zoe... what if there is more? What if they just couldn’t find the words to tell you?”
I close my eyes, remembering the raw, naked pain in their faces as I walked out the door.
“Then they’ll figure it out,” I say finally. “And they’ll come after me. But I’m not going to wait around hoping they do.”
“Fair enough,” Leah says. “So, can I come over? Bring wine? Ice cream? Both?”
I smile, grateful for her friendship. “Both. Definitely both.”
“On my way,” she promises. “And Zoe? I’m proud of you. Standing up for yourself is hard, especially against four alphas. You’re kind of a badass.”
I hang up feeling marginally better, though the hollow ache in my chest persists. I move around the apartment, trying to make it feel like home again. I light candles, turn on music, fluff the pillows on the couch. But it still feels wrong, like I’m play-acting in someone else’s life.
The marks on my neck throb harder now, and I catch myself touching them again. I force my hand back down to my side.
“Stop it,” I mutter to myself. “They’re just marks. They’ll fade.”
Leah arrives in record time, armed with two bottles of wine and a bag from the corner market that contains not one but three pints of ice cream.
“I didn’t know which kind to get,” she explains as she sets them on my tiny kitchen counter. “So I got chocolate therapy, mint chocolate chip, and cookie dough.”
“You’re the best,” I tell her, genuinely touched.
“I know.” She turns to me, her usual teasing energy softening as she takes in my appearance. Her eyes flick to my pale face, the dark circles under my eyes I couldn’t hide with concealer. “Oh, Zo.”
Before she can say anything else, I notice something. “Wait,” I say, looking past her to the empty hallway. “Where are the babies?”
“With Mason,” she says, waving a dismissive hand, though a soft, fond smile touches her lips. “He took one look at my face after our call and basically ordered me out of the house. Said he’d handle the ‘tiny queens’ and that I was not to come home until you were properly drunk and feeling better.”
I smile at the image of Leah’s calm, steady beta managing the chaos of twin infants so she could race to my side. “He’s a good one.”
“He’s the best,” she agrees. Then her expression turns serious again, and she opens her arms. “Now, come here.”
I step into her hug, letting myself be enveloped in the comfort of friendship. It’s not the same as the four pairs of arms I’ve grown accustomed to, but it’s warm and real and exactly what I need right now.
“You look like hell,” she says when she pulls back, her honesty as refreshing as always.
“Thanks,” I say dryly. “You really know how to make a girl feel special.”
She shrugs, already opening a bottle of wine. “That’s what friends are for. Now, sit. Drink. Tell me everything again, but this time with all the juicy details you left out.”
I obey, curling up on the couch while she pours generous glasses of red wine. “What juicy details?”
She gives me a look that says she’s not buying my innocent act. “Please. You lived with four extremely hot alphas for weeks. Something happened. Spill.”
I take a long sip of wine, feeling the warmth spread through me. “Nothing happened,” I insist, but the heat rising in my cheeks gives me away.
“Liar,” she says, but there’s no judgment in her voice, only curiosity. “Was it Rett? I bet it was Rett. He has that whole brooding, dominant alpha vibe going on.”
The memory of Rett’s mouth on mine, his hands in my hair, his body pressing me against the SUV in the grocery store parking lot flashes through my mind.
And then, more vividly, the memory of that night in my bedroom.
His tongue between my thighs. His voice telling me exactly what he wanted: “Scream for me, Zoe.”
I take another, larger sip of wine.
“Oh my god, it was,” Leah says, her eyes widening. “You slept with Rett Sterling!”
“I didn’t say that,” I protest weakly.
“You didn’t have to. Your face is redder than this wine.” She leans forward, her expression a mixture of awe and disbelief. “What was it like? Is he as intense in bed as he seems? Did he, you know...” She makes a vague gesture that could mean anything.
“I am not discussing this with you,” I say firmly, but I can’t help the small smile that tugs at my lips.
“Fine, keep your secrets,” she says, settling back into the couch. “But at least tell me if it was good.”
I think about that night, about the raw, unguarded look in Rett’s eyes as he moved above me. The way he watched me, as if memorizing every expression, every sound, every reaction.
“It was...” I pause, searching for the right word. “It was very good.”
Leah grins, raising her glass in a toast. “To good alpha sex,” she says. “May we all be so lucky.”
I clink my glass against hers, unable to stop the laugh that bubbles up. For a moment, the hollow ache in my chest eases, replaced by a warm, gentle fondness for this woman who has been my friend through thick and thin.
“So what’s the plan now?” she asks after we’ve both taken healthy sips. “Besides drinking this excellent wine and devouring ice cream?”
I shrug. “Go back to work. Get on with my life.”
“And the alphas?”
“What about them?”
“Are you going to wait for them to come to their senses, or are you going to move on completely?”
It’s the question I’ve been avoiding asking myself. The one that’s been lurking at the edges of my mind since I walked out of Sterling Tower.
“I don’t know,” I admit, my voice small. “I just... I couldn’t stay there, being their living medicine. But I also can’t...”
“Can’t what?” she prompts gently when I trail off.
“Can’t stop thinking about them,” I whisper, the admission feeling like a defeat.
“All of them. The way Diego looks at me when he thinks I’m not watching, like I’m some precious, fragile thing he’s afraid to break.
The way Tristan makes me laugh, even when I’m determined to be angry with him.
The way Dane just... knows, without me having to say anything. ”
Leah watches me, her expression softening. “Oh, honey,” she says. “You’re in deep, aren’t you?”
I nod, unable to speak past the lump in my throat.
“Well,” she says, filling our glasses again, “we have wine and sugar and each other. That’s not nothing.”
She’s right. It’s not nothing. It’s friendship, and comfort, and the kind of unconditional support that has nothing to do with claiming marks or alpha commands or pack bonds.
But as we settle in for a night of drinking and eating our feelings, the marks on my neck continue to throb, harder than they’ve ever throbbed before.
“So,” Leah says, digging her spoon into a pint of mint chocolate chip, “on a scale of one to ‘ruined for all other men,’ how good was the sex?”
I throw a pillow at her, but I’m laughing as I do it. And for a moment, just a moment, the world feels a little less empty.