Chapter 47: Sweet Hickeys
Vivian Grey’s POV
"I miss him," I muttered, arms crossed over my chest like that would somehow hold me together.
Hannah just rolled her eyes and kept checking stock, scribbling something on her clipboard without even looking up. We were tucked away in the back room of her shop, where all the good stuff stayed hidden from customers. I was slouched on a stack of unopened boxes, which was about as glamorous as my morning had gotten.
"I’d be more surprised if you didn’t miss him," she said matter-of-factly. "But come on, Viv. He said he’d call the moment he landed, and then every two hours after that. Chill. You’ll hear from him soon."
"I know, I know," I sighed, shifting restlessly. "But try telling that to my wolf. She’s freaking out. She keeps feeding me all these awful images, what if there’s a storm and the plane goes down? I don’t even know if he can swim." I groaned. "Oh goddess, I didn’t even check his suitcase. What if he runs out of clothes or forgets something important? He cannot walk around naked in another country. I will murder him."
That last part came out as a grumble to myself, but Hannah heard it anyway and did not look even slightly sympathetic.
I’d never felt this wound up over someone leaving before in my entire life. The second Zaliver disappeared into that plane, it was like a cord inside me had been yanked tight, snapping against my ribs and making it hard to breathe. I knew it was irrational. Zaliver wasn’t exactly helpless. If anything, he was the kind of Alpha who could handle himself, me, and the entire plane if it came to that. But none of that logic was doing a single thing to soothe the panic clawing at me from the inside.
My wolf wasn’t helping at all. She’d been pacing since we got here, restless and edgy, occasionally throwing me disaster scenarios I hadn’t asked for and didn’t want. I shoved her back as gently as I could, which is to say, not very gently at all.
"Ugh, females," Hannah muttered, then pointed a sharp finger at me. "Breathe, Vivian. I am not going to be the one who has to explain to Alpha why his mate dropped dead of a panic attack in my stockroom. He hasn’t even properly marked you yet, but I guarantee he can still feel you spiraling like this. So either breathe in and out, or die quietly and give me enough time to get me and Mark the hell out of here before they find your body."
Her face was flushed with frustration, but behind the sass, I saw understanding in her eyes.
"Die quietly? Wow, love that support," I said sarcastically, but I took a deep breath anyway and let it out slowly, closing my eyes.
It helped a little. My wolf curled in on herself, still uneasy, but less frantic now.
"There we go. Good girl," Hannah said, patting me on the head like I was some misbehaving pup before she returned to her clipboard. "Now sit tight and let me finish this up so we can head out."
I slouched deeper into the box and let my head fall against the one beside me, my thoughts drifting.
My fingers crept up to my neck, brushing the skin where I knew the hickeys were. I couldn’t feel them raised exactly, but I knew they were there, like echoes of his touch burned into my skin. And just like that, the memory returned, warm and vivid and deeply mortifying.
"Zaliver!" I’d shouted the second I saw myself in the mirror.
He appeared behind me in a heartbeat, hands tucked into his pockets like he had all the time in the world. Dressed in his usual all-black, he somehow still managed to look unfairly perfect. Not a hair out of place. Not even slightly apologetic about what he’d done.
"Yes?" he replied, calm as ever, which only made it worse.
I whipped around and glared at him, lifting my hair to show the damage. "Do you see this? I thought you’d leave a couple! Not cover both sides of my neck like I’m your personal territory marker!"
He leaned lazily against the doorframe, arms crossed, muscles pulling tight beneath his shirt. The smug glint in his eye did absolutely nothing for my blood pressure.
"Well," he said slowly, voice low, "you didn’t seem to mind it last night."
"What’s that supposed to mean?" I narrowed my eyes, trying to recall. We’d talked. We’d kissed, sure. But I would have remembered if he’d gone full vampire on my neck, right?
His smirk deepened, like he was reading my thoughts. He stepped in close.
"You tend to get distracted when things get heated," he said.
I stared at him, jaw slack. "No way!"
He leaned closer, his mouth brushing my ear. "Can’t wait to prove you wrong."
Then he walked away with a dark smile, leaving me standing there shivering in his wake, staring at my reflection, and feeling equally furious and pleased with myself in a way I was absolutely not going to admit to him.
Back in the present, Hannah snapped her fingers in front of my face.
"Earth to Vivian."
I blinked, dropping my hand from my neck. "Sorry. Got distracted."
"I noticed." She gave me a knowing look, then turned back to her clipboard with a small smile she was clearly trying and failing to hide. "You’ve got it bad."
"I really do," I agreed, and for once I didn’t feel the need to argue about it.
He was coming back. He said a week, and then real time, no agendas, no tests, no chains. And I believed him, which was new, because I hadn’t believed much of what Zaliver said in the beginning, but somewhere along the way that had changed.
I sat there in the backroom of Hannah’s shop, surrounded by boxes and the quiet scratch of her pen, and let myself feel it without flinching.
I missed him. And he was going to come back. He’d made a deal and I’d learned, slowly, over the last strange and impossible week, that Zaliver didn’t make promises he didn’t intend to keep.
That was enough, for now.
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