Page 249 of Unmarked
“Bitch, you BETTER still be alive because I am halfway to locating this so-called safehouse and coming for them all with pepper spray, a taser, and emotional damage.”
“Did you seriously get heat-kidnapped and not even TEXT?”
Oh god.
My best friend is going to stab someone.
Possibly me.
Tears prick, sharp and immediate. Not because she’s mad, but because she’s right. She’s always shown up. She’s always pulled me out of the fire, even when I wouldn’t admit I was burning. And what did I do?
I bonded with four alphas, got wrecked sideways on a kitchen table, and ghosted her like a feral cautionary tale.
What kind of friend does that?
I stare at the keyboard, thumb hovering. There is no good way to textHey, sorry, I went into unmedicated heat, accidentally soul-bonded to a warlord and his emotional support pack, and forgot to update my emergency contact.
Eventually, I settle on:
I’m safe. I promise. I’m sorry. Kai wasn’t lying. I’ll explain everything soon. Love you. Please don’t murder anyone.
I hit send before I can second-guess it.
The moment it leaves my screen, I feel a little lighter. Still on Lexi’s shit list?Definitely.But maybe now I won’t have to duck if she throws a sandal at me. Small wins.
I set the phone down like it's sacred and turn to the other half of my old life: my camera.
The moment I pick it up, something inside me quiets. The weight of it, the smooth familiar grip, the little scratches and dings along the frame - it’s like grabbing the hand of the version of me that existed before all of this. Not the heat, not the bonds, not the chaos. Just… Rhea. The photographer. The beta-pretending-to-be-fine girl who made meaning out of what she saw, not what she was.
And weirdly? I don’t want to let her go.
I want to bring her with me.
Because yeah, I’m bonded, and now halfway to a pack with more emotional baggage than a therapy convention, but I’m stillme.Still the girl who chases light through a lens, who finds beauty in broken things.
And who’s going to have one hell of a story to tell Lexi over brunch - as long as she doesn’t strangle me with a camera strap first.
I flick the camera on. The screen stutters to life like it’s just as emotionally exhausted as I am.
The first photo flashes - overexposed, completely useless.
Perfect metaphor for my mental state, honestly.
I scroll.
Another blurry shot. Another angle of someone's elbow. A very dramatic shadow that, in hindsight, might be my own foot.
I know what I’m looking for. Even if I don’t really want to admit it to myself.
And then -
There he is.
Lucian.
Frozen mid-stride, suit tailored within an inch of its life, gaze unreadable and jaw clenched like someone just told him the champagne was domestic. He looks like he’s about to sue the room.
And yet, even then, before the bond, before the bite of instinct or the slow collapse of logic, I was drawn to him. I knew it. Somewhere under the layers of fear and stubbornness, my body already recognized what my mind refused to admit.
