The heat is over. I knew it the moment I woke up—that desperate, clawing need that’s been driving me for days is just... gone. No burning under my skin. No hollow emptiness demanding to be filled. Just a bone-deep exhaustion and an ache between my thighs that reminds me exactly how thoroughly I’ve been used.
And my brain. My brain is back online for the first time in what feels like forever, which means I can’t hide behind biology anymore.
When the lights flicker on and the refrigerator hums to life, I nearly cry with relief.
“Power’s back,” Ben mumbles against my hair, arm tightening around my waist.
“Mmm.” I keep my voice neutral. Sleepy. “I’m going to shower.”
He makes a sound of acknowledgment and lets me go. I slip out of the nest carefully, avoiding Milo’s outstretched hand and Elijah’s leg, and pad across the floor to the bathroom.
The door clicks shut behind me, and I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
The face in the mirror stops me cold.
I look... wrecked. My hair is a tangled disaster. My lips are swollen, bitten red. There are shadows under my eyes from barely sleeping, but my skin is flushed, almost glowing in a way I’ve never seen before.
And the marks.
God, the marks.
There’s a hickey on my neck the size of a golf ball—Ben’s work, I think, though it’s hard to keep track. When I let my shirt fall, I can see more scattered across my chest like a constellation. Fingertip bruises on my hips, purple and tender. Beard burn on my inner thighs that makes me wince just looking at it.
I look like a woman who’s been claimed. Thoroughly, repeatedly, by three different alphas.
Because I have been.
The hot water is a revelation.
I stand under the spray for a long time, letting it wash away the sweat and the dried slick and the scent of three different alphas that’s been layered into my skin for days. I scrub myself clean—maybe too clean, maybe trying to scrub away more than just the physical evidence of what happened. The soap stings against the marks, but I don’t stop.
By the time I step out, steam filling the small bathroom, I almost feel like myself again.
Almost.
Because the heat might be over, but I remember everything. Every touch. Every whispered word. Every moment where I stopped being Tessa-the-event-planner and became something else entirely. Someone who begged. Someone who needed. Someone who let three alphas see her completely unraveled.
I grip the edge of the sink and force myself to breathe.
I can do this. I can walk out there and be normal. Professional. I’ve coordinated events through worse than this. I’ve managed crises, soothed egos, juggled impossible schedules. I can handle one awkward morning-after conversation.
I get dressed in my clothes—wrinkled, but now dry—and finger-comb my damp hair into something presentable. The hickey on my neck is impossible to hide without a scarf, but I don’t have one. I’ll just have to brazen it out.
Deep breath. Shoulders back.
Time to face them.
The main roomis quiet when I emerge. Ben is in the kitchen, making coffee, his movements a little too careful. Milo is folding blankets from the nest, not meeting anyone’s eyes. Elijah is by the window, staring out at the snow-covered landscape like it holds the answers to questions no one’s asking.
They all turn to look at me.
The silence stretches.
I can feel it—the weight of everything we’re not saying. Now we’re... what? I don’t even have a word for it.
“Coffee?” Ben offers, his voice a little too casual. A little too bright.
“Please.”
