CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Zoe
The first thing I notice when I open my eyes is the darkness. The second is the cold.
It’s a deep, unnatural chill that has settled into my bones, a cold that has nothing to do with the late night outside my window. I’m already buried under two thick comforters, but I’m still shivering, my teeth chattering in a relentless, punishing rhythm.
In the faint glow of the streetlights filtering through my blinds, I can see the mess my apartment has become. Stacks of art history books I’ve pulled from the shelves but haven’t had the focus to read are piled like shadowy towers on the floor. The coffee table is littered with takeout containers from meals I don’t remember ordering.
This is the third night. The third night of this suffocating silence, of this hollow, aching emptiness.
The silence presses in from all sides, making my ears ring with the absence of noise. No Tristan’s endless chatter. No Diego humming as he cooks. No Dane’s quiet, steady presence. No Rett’s deep voice commanding the room.
Just me and the claiming marks on my neck, which have gone from uncomfortable to painful in the last few hours.
I touch them gingerly and wince. They’re hot, throbbing beneath my fingertips. The skin around them feels tight, stretched, like I’ve been burned.
“This can’t be normal,” I mutter to myself, pulling the blanket tighter. Despite the layers, I can’t seem to get warm. My teeth are chattering, my whole body shivering as if I’m standing in a blizzard instead of my perfectly room-temperature apartment.
The chill isn’t coming from the room. The source of it is the empty space in my own chest, a hollowed-out cavern where the warmth of the bond used to be. It’s an ache so profound, so familiar, it tastes like the worst kind of heartbreak. It’s grief. I’m grieving something I never really had.
Them. The pack. The sense of belonging.
I shake my head, trying to clear it. This is ridiculous. I can’t be this attached. It’s just the claiming marks, just the bond playing tricks on me.
The marks throb harder, as if in disagreement.
I push myself off the couch, wobbling slightly as I stand. My limbs feel heavy, uncoordinated. I make my way to the bathroom, fumbling in the cabinet for the digital thermometer I keep for emergencies. I haven’t used it in years, but I’m pretty sure the battery still works.
It does. The thermometer beeps after a minute, and I stare at the readout.
100.2°F.
Low-grade fever. Not ideal, but not crisis levels. Just need to take some medicine, drink water, sleep it off. Probably just coming down with something. Stress weakens the immune system, after all, and the last few weeks have been nothing if not stressful.
I find some acetaminophen in the cabinet, swallow two pillswith a glass of water, and head to bed. Sleep. That’s what I need. Everything will look better in the morning.
I crawl under the covers, pulling them up to my chin, still shivering despite what should be warmth. My phone sits on the nightstand, dark and silent. No missed calls. No texts. Nothing.
They’re really letting me go.
The thought sends another wave of cold through me, so intense it makes me gasp. The marks on my neck flare, a sharp, burning pain that makes me hiss.
“Stop it,” I whisper fiercely, though I’m not sure if I’m talking to the marks or to myself. “Just stop. They’re not coming back. This isn’t a romance novel. This is real life, and in real life, people let go. They move on.”
The pain subsides slightly, but the cold remains, a relentless, creeping chill that seems to be spreading from the marks outward, through my veins, into my bones.
I close my eyes, willing sleep to come. It does, eventually, but it’s strange. I dream of the penthouse, of standing in the center of the living room, calling out for them. But no one answers. The space is empty, abandoned, with dust sheets over the furniture and a cold, eerie silence in place of their voices.
I wake with a start, my heart pounding. The clock on my nightstand reads 2:17 AM. I’ve been asleep for almost three hours, but I don’t feel rested at all. If anything, I feel worse. The shivers have given way to something else entirely. A heat that burns through me like wildfire.
I kick off the covers, gasping at the sudden change. My skin feels too tight, too sensitive. The t-shirt I’m wearing feels like sandpaper against my flesh. I’m burning up, sweat beading on my forehead, my neck, my chest.
The thermometer again. 102.7°F.
That’s... not good. Not crisis levels yet, but definitely heading there.
More water. More medicine. I stagger to the bathroom, mylegs unsteady beneath me. The world tilts and sways as I move, making me grab on to the doorframe for support.
