Chapter 44: Closer
Vivian Grey’s POV
Vivian,
I know you’re bored out of your mind, so here’s something to keep you entertained. It’s fully set up. Just stay away from any social media for now. I’m trusting you.
I’ll see you at nine.
You will be marked.
P.S. Next time, lock the damn door when you shower. If I hadn’t told the others to stay away from this floor, I don’t need to finish that thought.
You have a stunning figure, my dear.
You are mine.
Zaliver.
I didn’t know what my face looked like, but it had to be a mix of at least seven emotions, shock, embarrassment, fury, relief, amusement, joy, and then more mortification. He’d been here. While I was showering. And he saw me? I could feel my whole face heating up, like my skin had caught fire.
"Oh my goddess," I groaned, squeezing my eyes shut.
He was here. While I was in the shower. The realization hit in waves. First, the horror. Second, the embarrassment. Third, the deeply inconvenient awareness that he’d called it stunning and not, say, average, or fine, or any of the other things I’d told myself in bathroom mirrors over the years. I pressed the back of my hand to my face. It was on fire.
"I can’t believe he peeked," I muttered, eyes wide with disbelief.
Sure, back home I never had to lock a door. Nobody barged into your bathroom in a house where privacy was a given. But clearly those days were behind me. New territory, new rules, new man who apparently had zero respect for closed doors and a very specific opinion about what he saw behind them. I made a mental note to start locking the outer door from now on, even if it meant dragging the chains with me to do it.
Still, I couldn’t help the little giggle that escaped when I read the ending again. You are mine. The possessiveness in those words should’ve made me angry. Instead, it sent a thrill right through me, straight down to my toes, and I hated how much I didn’t hate it.
He’s not going to try to mark you, my wolf chimed in, her tone light and buzzing with excitement. He’s going to. It’s happening.
I swallowed, nerves tangling with anticipation. The way she said it left no room for denial. Nine o’clock. That was just hours away.
The marking. I’d been trying not to think about it too directly, the same way you don’t look straight at the sun. I knew it was there. I knew it was coming. And I knew that once it happened, something about the shape of my life would change permanently. Whether that change was terrifying or wonderful or both was something I hadn’t worked out yet.
Probably both.
I shook the thought away and walked to the closet. My fingers brushed over the clothes I’d picked up the day before, settling on a sleeveless navy dress that was both soft and easy to move in. Zaliver’s oversized shirts were comfy, sure, but I needed to feel like me again.
Matching underwear, thank goddess I’d bought a set yesterday. How else would I have managed with these stupid chains dragging on everything? The bra was a pain though, the straps kept tugging awkwardly at my shoulders, so I unhooked them and wore it strapless. Small victories.
After pulling on some socks, I made my way to the bed and sat down in front of the laptop. The chains settled around my ankles with a familiar clink. I’d almost stopped noticing the sound, which was either a sign that I was adapting or a sign that something was deeply wrong with me. Probably the latter.
I thought about what Hannah had said this morning, about phones, about reaching out. I thought about my parents, who I hadn’t spoken to since the night my mother pressed that worn-out map into my palm and let me go. I thought about Gwen, holding a pack together without an Alpha. And I thought about what Zaliver had said, that eventually he’d let me call them. If I behaved.
I was on my best behavior. Mostly. The chains were helping with that, whether I liked it or not.
I booted the laptop up, watching the screen flicker to life.
But the background, it wasn’t just some generic wallpaper or a company logo like I’d expected.
It was something different. Something chosen. Deliberate.
I leaned in to take a better look.
The image was a photograph, or something close to it. A wolf, but not just any wolf. She was enormous, elegant, and luminous, her coat a deep caramel that darkened toward her tail until it was nearly black. A single patch of ebony fur marked the tip of her left ear.
I went very still.
That was me.
Not a picture anyone had taken of me, obviously. I’d never shifted anywhere with a camera nearby, and even if I had, nobody knew what my wolf looked like except Zaliver. This was something else, a painting or a digital rendering, impossibly detailed, impossibly accurate. Every marking exact. Every shade of my coat right. The wolf in the image sat on a high rock, looking out over dark water, and despite the stillness of the pose, she looked anything but tame. She looked powerful. Certain of herself in a way I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt in my human skin.
She looked like she belonged to herself.
I sat back slowly, chest doing something complicated that I didn’t have a name for yet.
He’d had this made. He’d had someone recreate what he saw when I shifted, put it on this laptop, and left it here for me to find. He didn’t write that in the note. He didn’t explain it or make a speech about it. He just left it, quiet and deliberate, the way he did everything that actually cost him something to show.
I read the note one more time, slower now.
You are mine.
Maybe. But looking at that wolf on the screen, calm and strong and completely herself, I thought, just quietly, just to myself:
You are also mine, Zaliver.
And I had a feeling nine o’clock was going to change a lot of things for both of us.
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