Chapter 13 #2
Hickeys scatter across his chest like a constellation of poor life choices—some dark purple, some still faintly red, mapping the path my mouth took last night when I was too far gone to care about leaving marks.
Bite marks decorate his shoulders, distinct impressions of teeth that I definitely don't remember leaving but clearly did.
And across his tattooed arms, angry red scratches stand out against the ink, evidence of exactly how.
.. enthusiastic things got during certain moments.
There's even a mark on his neck. Right at the junction where shoulder meets throat. The kind of mark that's impossible to miss, impossible to hide, impossible to explain away as anything other than exactly what it is.
I look like I attacked him. I literally look like I tried to eat him alive. What is wrong with me? Why did I—how did I—oh no, Elias is looking at me—
Elias's gaze tracks slowly from Tank's devastated torso to my burning face, and a grin spreads across his features that can only be described as delighted.
"Wow," he says, dragging the word out into multiple syllables. "Our coffee extraordinaire is a wild one in the bedroom, huh?"
"NO!" The word explodes out of me, high-pitched and panicked. "S-S-S-She can explain! I mean, I can explain! It wasn't—I didn't—we just—"
Tank smirks—that devastating half-smile that makes my knees want to buckle—and pushes off the doorframe to walk deeper into the kitchen. "Nah, she's exactly what you're thinking." He pauses, considering. "But worse."
"WORSE?!" I gawk at him, mortification reaching new heights. "What do you mean worse?! I'm not—I didn't—you're making it sound like I—"
"Like you tried to devour me?" Tank's smirk widens as he gestures at the marks covering his chest. "Sweetness, you absolutely did. Multiple times. I'm not complaining—in fact, I'm very much hoping for a repeat performance."
I want the floor to open up and swallow me whole. Right now. Immediately. I will accept any form of escape from this conversation.
Tank walks past me toward Elias, completely unbothered by his state of undress or the evidence of our night displayed across his skin. He pats Elias on the shoulder—a casual gesture of affection between packmates—and raises an eyebrow at the mug still sitting on the counter.
"Now why the fuck are you crying?" he asks, and despite the blunt words, there's concern beneath them. The kind of concern that only comes from knowing someone well enough to recognize when something's wrong.
Elias laughs—still a little wet, but steadier now—and offers the mug to Tank. "Try this."
Tank arches an eyebrow skeptically but accepts the cup. There's clearly only a bit left—maybe a quarter of the original drink—but he takes a sip anyway, rolling it over his tongue like he's assessing a fine wine rather than a latte.
Silence.
Not again. Please not more silence. I can't handle more silent reactions to my coffee. My heart can't take it.
Tank's expression shifts. Something flickers behind his eyes—recognition, maybe, or memory.
His jaw tightens briefly before relaxing, and when he looks at Elias, there's an understanding between them that requires no words.
The kind of silent communication that only comes from shared experience. Shared loss. Shared love.
"Damn," Tank says quietly. He takes another sip, slower this time, savoring. "We haven't tasted coffee made like this since Granny, huh?"
Elias smiles—soft and sad and grateful all at once—and nods. "Yeah. Exactly like hers."
Granny. They shared a grandmother? Or maybe it's a pack grandmother—someone who helped raise them both, who taught them both what it meant to be part of something bigger than themselves?
I think about my own grandmother—long gone now, but she was the only person in my family who ever treated me like a person rather than an asset. She used to make me hot chocolate on cold mornings and tell me that my worth wasn't determined by who wanted to claim me.
I miss her. I miss having someone who saw me clearly and loved me anyway.
The moment feels private. Sacred, almost. I suddenly feel like I'm intruding on something I shouldn't be witnessing—a grief shared between two men who clearly loved someone deeply and are still learning how to exist in a world without her.
"Wherever you found her," Elias says, and the playful tone is back in his voice but softer now, tempered by emotion, "can we tell them we're keeping her?"
My face, which had just started to cool down from the earlier embarrassment, flames red all over again.
Keeping her? Keeping ME? Did he just—are they seriously—what is happening right now?
"H-H-Hey!" I stutter, crossing my arms over my chest defensively. "I'm not for sale! You can't just—I'm a person, not a—not a—"
What's the word I'm looking for? A possession? A commodity? A piece of property to be claimed?
The irony isn't lost on me that just yesterday, I was worried about being exactly that. Being traded. Being collected. Being "reclaimed" by a family that never saw me as anything more than a bargaining chip.
"Can you be for sale?" Elias asks, and his grin is back to full wattage. "So you can be ours?"
Tank smirks into the coffee cup. "Fuck, I wouldn't mind. If it means waking up to the smell of breakfast every morning..." He takes another sip, closing his eyes briefly in appreciation. "Fuck, I'm hungry."
"You're both ridiculous," I manage, though my voice is still wobbling from the combined assault of embarrassment and whatever complicated feelings are swirling through my chest. "You can't just keep someone because they make good coffee."
"The breakfast was also excellent," Elias points out helpfully. "That's two points in your favor."
"And she likes Sasha," Tank adds. "Three points."
"Sasha actually likes her," Elias counters. "That's practically unheard of. Four points."
"Can't we?" Elias tilts his head, faux-innocent. "What if we ask nicely?"
"What if we beg?" Tank adds, and there's something dark and promising in his voice that makes heat pool in my stomach despite myself.
These two are going to be the death of me. Literally. I'm going to die of embarrassment right here in this kitchen, and they're going to stand over my corpse making jokes about keeping me.
I huff, trying to regain some semblance of composure. "Sit down and eat before your food gets cold," I order, pointing at the breakfast bar where the plates have been sitting neglected during this entire chaotic exchange. "Give me a second to warm things up properly."
The authority in my voice seems to surprise them both—or maybe it just amuses them, because they exchange a look that I can't quite interpret before obediently moving toward the breakfast bar.
Tank grabs Elias's plate and transfers it to the actual dining table instead, settling into one of the chairs with the kind of sprawling comfort that suggests he doesn't often have company for meals.
Elias follows, but he detours on the way—rummaging through a drawer near the refrigerator until he emerges with a bundle of fabric.
"Here," he says, holding it out to me. "This should help make sure you don't get dirty."
It's an apron. A surprisingly cute one—black with white trim and a pattern of tiny coffee cups scattered across the fabric. Nothing like the industrial-kitchen aprons I'm used to, but functional enough.
Where did he even find this? Does Tank own a cute coffee-themed apron? Why does Tank own a cute coffee-themed apron?
Maybe it was his grandmother's. The thought surfaces unexpectedly, and suddenly the apron feels more precious. More meaningful. A piece of someone they both loved, kept in a drawer in Tank's kitchen, waiting to be used again.
I don't ask. I just take the apron and tie it around my waist, grateful for the extra layer between me and the scrutiny of two Alphas who seem to find everything about me endlessly entertaining.
The apron smells faintly of lavender and something older—memories, maybe. History. The lingering presence of someone who used to wear it while making Sunday morning breakfast for the people she loved.
The food doesn't take long to warm up—a few minutes in the pan for the eggs, a quick re-crisp of the bacon in the oven, fresh pancakes from the batter I'd set aside. I work efficiently, falling into the familiar rhythm of kitchen tasks, letting the routine calm my racing heart and flushed cheeks.
Sasha has wandered in from wherever he was sleeping, drawn by the smell of food. He settles near my feet, watching me work with those intelligent amber eyes. His tail thumps against the floor when I set aside his portion—plain eggs and bacon, no seasoning.
"You're going to spoil him," Tank calls from the table.
"He deserves to be spoiled," I shoot back without thinking. "Look at this face. This is a face that deserves all the bacon."
Sasha's tail wags harder, like he understood the compliment. Maybe he did. He seems smarter than most people I've met, and certainly more emotionally intelligent than any Alpha I dated before coming to this town.
Elias laughs. "Oh, she's definitely a keeper."
Behind me, Tank and Elias are bickering about something—I catch fragments about a poker game, someone named Julian who apparently cheated, and whether or not Sasha has been getting enough exercise.
It's domestic in a way that makes my chest ache.
The easy back-and-forth of people who know each other well, who've built something together, who have history and inside jokes and shared memories.
Julian. That name again. They've mentioned him twice now—once in the context of bodyguard work, and now about a poker game. How many people are in this pack? How many more Alphas am I going to encounter before this morning is over?
I've never had that. Not really. My ex-pack was all performance and control—nothing genuine, nothing warm. And before them, my family was too busy treating me like a commodity to be traded rather than a person to be loved.
This is what a real pack looks like, isn't it? This easy comfort. This affection buried beneath teasing and banter. This sense that everyone belongs exactly where they are.
What would it be like to belong somewhere like this? To have people who tease you and protect you and share their grandmother's memory with you over coffee?
I finish plating the food—generous portions for both of them, because I still have no idea how much Alphas of their size actually eat—and turn to bring the plates to the table.
That's when the front door opens.
I freeze, plates in hand, as footsteps sound in the entryway. Heavy. Deliberate. The stride of someone who knows this house as well as Tank does, who doesn't feel the need to announce themselves because they belong here.
Tank and Elias both look up, but neither seems alarmed. If anything, Tank just rolls his eyes and mutters something about "timing" under his breath while Elias grins like he's expecting entertainment.
But before I see him, I smell him.
Patchouli. Rich and earthy, the kind that costs more per ounce than most people's monthly grocery budgets.
Vanilla—warm and complex, aged rather than synthetic.
Cardamom, because apparently that's a theme today.
And beneath it all, dark florals and polished woods that speak of old money and older manners.
I know this scent.
I know this scent because it wrapped around me in a gym at 4:47 in the morning, when I was spiraling and couldn't catch my breath and a stranger with kind eyes talked me down from the edge of panic.
I know it because I've thought about it more times than I care to admit since that morning.
Because it made me feel safe in a way that nothing has made me feel safe in years.
My heart stutters in my chest.
No. No way. It can't be—the odds of that are—there's no possible way—
A man rounds the corner into the kitchen, and—
Oh. Oh God. It's him.
He's taller than I remember—6'2" of lean, elegant Alpha in a suit that probably cost more than my car.
He's walking with the kind of sophisticated irritation that suggests his morning has not gone well.
His suit is impeccable—clearly bespoke, probably worth more than everything I own combined—in a shade of charcoal that makes his green eyes look even more striking than I remember.
His dark blond hair is styled with deliberate carelessness, and his jaw is set in a way that broadcasts his annoyance to anyone paying attention.
Julian. The man from the gym. The man who gave me iron gummies and noticed I was spiraling before I did. The man whose scent made me forget, just for a moment, that all Alphas were dangerous. The man I haven't been able to stop thinking about since that morning.
He looks pissed. Genuinely, thoroughly pissed about something.
But then his eyes lift from whatever mental calculation he was running, and they land on me.
He stops mid-step.
Blinks.
And his entire expression transforms.
The irritation melts away completely, replaced by something I can't quite identify. Surprise, definitely. Recognition—deep and immediate, the kind that comes from a memory that's been replayed many times. And beneath that, something softer. Something that looks almost like... wonder.
He remembers me. He actually remembers me from the gym. It wasn't just a forgettable interaction for him—he remembered my face, my scent, the nickname he gave me when I was spiraling too hard to even protest being called "ditzy."
Three Alphas. Three incredible, confusing, terrifyingly attractive men who've crossed my path in the last few days.
And somehow, impossibly, they all know each other.
They're all connected. They're all standing in this kitchen, looking at me like I'm something unexpected and fascinating and maybe—just maybe—worth keeping.
What the hell is happening to my life? What cosmic joke is this?
"It's Sweet Ditzy."