CHAPTER 38: A TRIP WITH THE ALPHA

🌙 𝐋𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐡

I woke to pain.

A sharp crack jolted through my skull, white-hot, as my forehead collided with something solid—stone, maybe, or wall. The impact rattled me awake in an instant, tearing me out of whatever half-world had wrapped me in its haze.

My hands shot out, palms slapping against the cold surface before me. Breath punched from my lungs, shallow and panicked, as I staggered back. The ache bloomed fast, throbbing, and for a moment I thought I might still be dreaming—because why the hell was I standing?

The last thing I remembered was lying in bed.

My eyes darted around the room, perplexed before it dawned on me.

I slept walk again.

First time in more than a year.

Despair wrapped itself around my throat, a noose thar had loosened once before but now refused to relent. I thought I was finally over this... disorder of mine. Just another thing in a long list of ghosts that they had left behind.

Tears stung my eyes but like always I let out an empty cackle that crawled it’s way out of my throat. My laughter scraped out of me, hollow and jagged, until it dissolved into silence. My chest heaved, breaths shallow, my pulse still skittering from the shock of waking the way I had. I dragged my palms across my damp face, smearing tears into my hairline, when—

A sound cut through the dark.

A low tune. Faint, muffled, mechanical.

I froze, every nerve in my body jerking taut. It was coming from behind me. From the dresser.

The melody pulsed, eerie in the stillness, far too calm for the way it set my heart thrashing against my ribs. My feet carried me before I could think better of it, steps uneven, the ache in my skull echoing with each jolt.

The closer I came, the louder it grew, until the sound was pressed against my eardrums. My fingers hovered over the drawer handle, trembling.

Don’t.

But I did.

I yanked it open, quick and jerky, bracing for something to explode, for the room to go up in shards of fire and glass.

Nothing.

The music kept playing.

I stumbled back a step, chest tight, my eyes locked on the drawer as though it might still bite. Then slowly, carefully, I leaned in, peering over the edge.

My breath hitched.

Lying there vibrating was a phone.

Not mine. Not anyone’s I recognized.

It was sleek and metallic, too polished, too premium. The kind of device that looked like it would cost a kidney, and all my arms.

The tune still played from its speaker, steady and unnerving, as though it had been waiting.

Waiting for me.

The tune stopped the moment my fingers closed around the phone. The silence that followed rang louder in my ears than the music had. My thumb hovered uncertainly over the screen before it lit up on its own, a cascade of messages blinking into existence.

My heart stuttered as I read the name.

Vladimir.

The threat has been removed from the premises.

You are safe now.

My breath caught. Safe. He said it like a decree, like safety was something he could command into being.

Another message buzzed onto the screen before I could even finish absorbing the first.

At first light, we leave.

Be ready. Your ladies-in-waiting will attend you again. They will help you into something appropriate.

My stomach twisted at the formality of it, the cool precision in his words. The incident flooding back sensations I could not put a name too. He did not refer to it all. It was water under the bridge for him. It didn’t matter. While his groans echoed in my head. His corded neck glistening with sweat as he gaze up at me, icy blues revealing red.

I shook myself back to reality.

I was far from over it and now I was going to have to travel with him tomorrow. And if the ’threat’ namely Veronique was out of the picture, I would have to be alone, in a car with him.

My fingers tightened around the phone, knuckles blanching as though I could wring answers out of the cold metal. Panic pulsed in my chest—sharp, erratic, refusing to settle. The messages felt like chains disguised as reassurance, every word a tether that bound me tighter to him.

Safe now.

I almost laughed. Safety wasn’t supposed to make your stomach twist into knots or your breath stumble on its way out. Safety wasn’t supposed to sound like command.

But there was something else too, beneath the panic. Something I couldn’t name. It wasn’t comfort, wasn’t relief—more like a dangerous spark flaring low, unbidden. The memory of his groan clawed through me again, raw and unyielding, dragging with it the sight of his throat tipped back, cords taut, sweat glistening under low light, silver eyes burning red.

Heat flushed through me before I could stop it. My pulse tripped over itself, tangled in the haze of sensations I didn’t understand. Panic. Longing. Fear. Craving. They tangled together until I couldn’t separate one from the other, couldn’t even name what they made of me.

And tomorrow—tomorrow I’d be alone with him. No Veronique. No barrier. Just Vladimir and the memory of the sound he made when I touched him.

The thought hollowed me out and set me alight all at once.

I shoved the phone back into the drawer and slammed it shut, pressing my back to the dresser as if I could pin the chaos inside. But it came with me anyway, curling into my lungs, pressing against my ribs until I could hardly breathe.

---

☀️ The Next Morning

The same women as before descended on me, their faces sharp, their movements efficient, their distaste painted in every brush of fabric and pull of thread. They didn’t need words to make me feel unwanted. Their silence was enough.

They draped me in a dress that fell just below the knees, tailored but not extravagant—a deep wine-colored fabric cinched neatly at the waist, its simplicity offset by a thin belt of braided leather. The neckline was modest, the sleeves light, but it clung in ways that reminded me this wasn’t comfort wear. It was presentation. A costume to stand beside him without shaming him.

I was probably overthinking.

One woman tugged at the hem, smoothing it unnecessarily. The other leaned closer, pinning a strand of my hair back, her voice low but sharp as a blade slipping between ribs.

"The Beta is no longer in the mansion." Her eyes flicked to mine, gleaming with something like accusation. "You must be proud. Everyone knows you’re the reason."

The words landed like stones, hard and cold.

I sat frozen as her hands kept working, their touch mechanical, their disdain barely veiled. My throat tightened, but I refused to give them the satisfaction of seeing me flinch.

If Veronique hated me before, she would now want my head.

The women left me polished into someone else’s reflection—hair pinned, dress smoothed, lips bitten raw behind a forced calm. Their disdain still clung to me like a second skin as I descended the stairs.

He was waiting.

Vladimir stood at the foot of the staircase, an immovable shadow in an all-black suit. The fabric yielded to him as though it had been spun for his body alone, draping sharp over broad shoulders, tapering against the strength of his waist. It didn’t wear him—he owned it. The sight hit me like a fist to the chest.

My traitorous mind betrayed me, conjuring the flash of him bare beneath my hands only hours ago—the hard chest, the inked scars alive under my fingertips, the sound he made when restraint slipped. Heat surged up my throat, threatening to stain my cheeks. I forced it back, biting down hard on my lip.

What the hell was this man doing to me?

For years, there had been no one but Caesar. Through school, through my career, through every stadium I stepped into—I had never faltered, never so much as glanced at another man. Not even when half the sports industry threw themselves into my orbit. My heart had been locked to one, unyielding, devoted.

But now?

Now, one look at Vladimir and my pulse stumbled, my body betraying me with a hunger I couldn’t name.

And Kaia—sneaky, silent Kaia—had nothing to say. Not a word. Not even a reprimand. Her voice had screamed in my head when Veronique’s fingers clamped around my throat, desperate to keep me alive, but now? Nothing.

If not for her, I’d be dead. I could still hear her panicked cry, reverberating in the marrow of my bones: Breathe, Lili. Just breathe.

I reached the bottom step, steadying myself. Vladimir moved toward me with unhurried precision, like every shift of his body bent the room to him. Without a word, he lifted something over his arm and swept it across my shoulders—a heavy fur coat, soft and warm, swallowing the tension in its embrace.

"It will be chilly," he said simply.

Our hands brushed as the coat settled.

A jolt shot through me—sharp, electric, impossible to ignore. I startled, my breath catching, eyes darting up to his face in alarm. But his expression didn’t flicker. Stoic. Controlled. Carved of ice.

Had he felt it too?

I couldn’t tell. And that uncertainty burned worse than the spark itself.