Claimed By The Four Alpha Demons

8. Shattered

Callie’s POV

“You’re done for the day?”

Britta’s voice cut through the mental fog I was wading through as I trudged back into the kitchen, my cart rattling over the threshold.

“West Wing is finished,” I said, parking the cart in its designated bay. “Vents are clear. Dust is…managed.”

Britta looked up from her ledger, her sharp eyes scanning my face. “You look pale, child. Did the young masters give you trouble?”

“No,” I lied quickly, the memory of Nate’s touch, that zap of blue electricity, burning a phantom hole in my palm. “Just… ired. It’s a big house.”

“Go on then,” Britta said, waving a hand dismissively. “The fog is getting worse. Best you get down the mountain before the roads disappear entirely.”

I grabbed my coat and nodded. “See you tomorrow, Britta.”

As I stepped out of the service entrance and walked toward my car, the physical reaction was instant. It was like stepping out of a warm bath into a freezing wind.

The moment I crossed the threshold of the gates, the humming stopped.

That vibrant, buzzing energy that had filled me up in Nate’s room, the clarity that had sharpened my senses…it was severed. The world went gray and flat, and the headache that had vanished this morning came rushing back with a vengeance, throbbing behind my eyes like a bruised heartbeat.

I sat in the driver’s seat, gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white.

“It’s just adrenaline,” I told myself, my voice shaking in the silent car. “You were nervous. Now you’re crashing. It’s normal.”

But it didn’t feel normal. It felt like withdrawal. My skin felt too tight, and the silence of the woods pressed against the glass, heavy and suffocating.

After a few minutes, I started the engine and began the slow crawl down the mountain. The car felt like a cage. I needed noise. I needed distraction.

I checked my phone. Still nothing from Liam.

A sudden, fierce determination rose up in my chest, battling the exhaustion. I was done waiting. I was done staring at a blank screen and wondering if I was annoying him by existing.

We were engaged. We were partners. If he was stressed, I should be there to help him decompress. If he was busy, I should be the one bringing him coffee and telling him he was doing a great job. That’s what fiancées did, right? They didn’t sulk in drafty houses; they showed up.

“Oak Ridge,” I said aloud, forcing conviction into the air. “Grand Hotel.”

I reached the bottom of the winding drive and, instead of turning left toward town and Briarcliff, I turned right.

The drive took forty-five minutes, fighting the mist that swirled across the highway like ghosts trying to snatch the tires. By the time the neon sign of The Grand Hotel flickered into view, my stomach was tied in knots.

The hotel wasn’t…grand. It was a monolith of beige stucco and generic luxury, the kind of place that charged five dollars for a bottle of water and smelled permanently of industrial carpet cleaner.

I parked and checked my reflection in the visor mirror. I looked tired. My hair was a little frizzy from the damp air, and I was still wearing my black work tunic and trousers. Not exactly the sexy surprise I had envisioned, but it was real.

“He’ll be happy to see me,” I whispered. “He loves me.”

I marched into the lobby. It was quiet, the marble floors echoing with the click of my boots as I approached the front desk, flashing my brightest, most confident smile at the bored-looking clerk.

“Hi,” I said. “My fiancé is staying here. Liam Whitlock. I wanted to surprise him, but I left my key card in the car and it’s freezing out there. Could you just let me know which room he’s in?”

The clerk typed slowly, popping a bubble of gum. “ID?”

I fumbled for my license. She glanced at it, then back at the screen.

“Room 314,” she drawled. “Third floor. Elevators to the left.”

“Thank you,” I breathed, relief washing over me.

The elevator ride was agonizingly slow. I smoothed down my tunic, wishing I had changed, wishing I had put on lipstick, wishing I didn’t feel this gnawing, buzzing dread in the pit of my stomach that Nate had called noise.

You’re loud, he had said.

What are you trying to tell me? I asked my own brain, scratching at my collarbone where the skin felt hot and itchy.

The doors dinged open revealing a hallway was lined with patterned carpet that looked like a dizzying optical illusion. I walked down the corridor, counting the numbers. 310… 312… 314.

I stood outside the door for a long moment. I could hear the faint murmur of a TV inside. He was there. He was relaxing. Probably in his pajamas, going over case files.

Taking a big breath, I raised my hand and knocked. Three sharp raps.

“Room service!” I called out playfully, trying to force the cheerfulness into my voice.

The murmuring inside stopped.

There was a shuffle of movement, a pause, and then the sound of the lock disengaging before the door swung open.

“We didn’t order—”

Liam stopped.

He was standing there, breathless, his face flushed a mottled red. He was shirtless, and his chest, usually pale, was sheened with a thin layer of sweat. A white hotel towel was wrapped hastily around his waist, sitting low on his hips.

“Callie?”

His voice was a strangled squeak. His eyes bulged, darting from my face to the hallway behind me, as if checking for witnesses.

“Surprise,” I said, though the word came out flat, dead on arrival.

My eyes dropped to his chest. To the scratch there. A fresh, red line running from his collarbone to his n****e.

“What are you doing here?” Liam demanded, his shock quickly hardening into aggression. He gripped the doorframe, effectively blocking my view of the room. “I told you I was working. I told you I’d be back tomorrow.”

“I wanted to see you,” I said, my voice sounding distant to my own ears. The buzzing in my head kicked up a notch. It sounded like a swarm of bees. “You didn’t answer my calls. I was worried.”

“I was in the shower,” he snapped. “Obviously.”

“With the TV on?” I asked, nodding toward the sound of a news anchor’s voice drifting from inside.

“I like background noise,” he said. “Look, Cal, this isn’t a good time. I’m prepping for a deposition. The room is a mess—”

“Liam?”

The voice didn’t come from him. It came from the room behind him.

It was a woman’s voice. Smoky. Bored.

Liam flinched as if he’d been slapped. He tried to step back to close the door, but I was faster. The adrenaline that had been dormant all drive spiked, turning into something hotter. Something…sharper.

I shoved past him. He was stronger than me, but he was off-balance and clutching a towel, so he stumbled back, and I stepped into the room.

The air inside the room was thick. It smelled of s*x. Musk, sweat, and a cloying, expensive perfume that stung my nose.

And there she was.

She was sitting up in the king-sized bed, the sheets pulled up to her chest, though they did little to hide the fact that she was naked underneath. She was stunning in a sharp, dangerous way…platinum blonde hair cut into a severe bob, high cheekbones, and eyes that were a piercing, unnatural shade of blue.

She didn’t look embarrassed. She didn’t even scramble for her clothes. She simply picked up a glass of wine from the nightstand and took a slow sip, looking at me over the rim with mild amusement.

“So,” the woman drawled, her gaze flicking to my work uniform. “This is the little renovation project.”

My world tilted on its axis.

The buzzing in my head, the noise Nate had heard, the static I had blamed on stress, erupted. It wasn’t a sound anymore. It was a physical pressure, expanding behind my eyes, pushing against my skull.

“Who is she?” I whispered, pointing a shaking finger at the woman.

“Callie, wait,” Liam stammered, grabbing my arm, and I recoiled from his touch like he was acid.

“Don’t touch me,” I hissed. “Who is she, Liam?”

The bedside lamp flickered. Once. Twice.

“She’s a client,” he said, the lie so absurd, so pathetic, that I almost laughed. “We were…discussing the case. It got late. We had wine. Things got confused.”

“Confused?” I repeated. The air in the room suddenly felt heavy, charged with static causing the hair on my arms to stand up. “You’re naked. She’s naked. That looks pretty clear to me.”

“It’s not what you think!” he yelled, his face twisting into that familiar mask of condescension. “You’re overreacting. You always do this. You get hysterical over nothing.”

Hysterical.

The word struck a match inside me.

“Hysterical?” I stepped back, my back hitting the doorframe. The buzzing was a roar now. “I drive forty minutes to surprise my fiancé and find him in bed with another woman, and I’m hysterical?”

The TV screen behind him went fuzzy, the image distorting into jagged lines of gray static.

“You shouldn’t have come here uninvited!” he shouted back, abandoning the ‘client’ lie for pure attack. He took a step toward me, looming over me. “I’m doing this for us! Do you have any idea the pressure I’m under? Trying to save that rot-infested money pit you call a house? I need release, Callie! I need stress relief!”

“Release?” I choked out.

“And frankly,” he sneered, looking down at my uniform with open disgust, “you haven’t exactly been available, have you? Too busy playing maid for the freak show on the hill! You smell like bleach and desperation, Callie. Look at you. You’re a mess.”

Crack.

The sound was sharp and loud, like a gunshot as the mirror above the dresser shattered.

Glass rained down onto the carpet. Liam jumped, spinning around, his face pale. “What the hell?”

“I…” I stared at the broken glass, my heart hammering against my ribs. “I didn’t…”

“You threw something!” Liam accused, turning back to me, his eyes wild. “You crazy b***h, you threw something at me!”

“I didn’t touch it!” I screamed.

The bedside lamp exploded.

Sparks showered down onto the carpet. The woman in the bed finally lost her composure, shrieking and scrambling back against the headboard as the room plunged into semi-darkness, lit only by the flickering strobe of the dying TV.

I could feel it now. The energy. It wasn’t just a headache. It was pouring out of me, a tidal wave of invisible force that responded to every throb of hurt, every spike of anger. The air around me was vibrating, hot and ozone-scented.

“What are you doing?” Liam whispered, backing away from me, his arrogance replaced by fear. “Callie, stop it.”

“I can’t,” I gasped, clutching my chest. “I don’t know what’s happening!”

The window panes rattled in their frames, shaking violently as if a hurricane were battering them from the outside. But there was no wind. The force was coming from inside. From me.

“Get out!” the woman on the bed yelled, clutching the sheet to her throat. “Get her out of here, Liam! She’s a freak!”

“We’re done, Liam,” I said, my voice trembling, but carrying a weird, distorted echo that wasn’t mine. “Don’t come to Briarcliff. Don’t call me.”

I reached into my pocket, my fingers brushing the metal of his apartment key. A spark jumped from my finger to the metal, shocking me. I yelped and threw the keys at him.

They didn’t just fall. They flew and hit his chest with enough force to make him grunt and stumble backward into the dresser.

“Callie!” he shouted, terrified now.

I turned and ran.

I didn’t wait for the elevator. I slammed through the stairwell door, the heavy metal groaning under my hand as if I’d dented it.

I took the stairs two at a time, stumbling, gasping for air. The lights in the stairwell flickered as I passed them, buzzing angrily.

Pop. Pop. Pop.

Three bulbs blew out in succession as I sprinted past, showering the concrete steps in darkness and glass.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god,” I sobbed, bursting into the lobby.

The receptionist looked up, her eyes widening as I sprinted past. “Ma’am? Are you okay? The lights just—”

I ignored her and shoved through the front doors into the freezing night.

I made it to my car, fumbled with the keys, and locked the doors.

My eyes moved to look at my hands. They were shaking violently, and faint blue sparks were dancing between my fingertips, visible even in the dim light of the parking lot.

“What am I?” I whispered, staring at the electricity arcing across my skin. “What is wrong with me?”

A monster.

I was a monster. I had to be. I had just blown up a hotel room because I was angry.

I sat there for a long time, watching the blue sparks fade, leaving my skin raw and tingling. The silence of the car felt like a tomb.

I couldn’t go home. Briarcliff was too quiet, too empty. If I went there now, I would just sit in the dark and replay the loop of Liam’s sneer and the sound of shattering glass. I would go crazy.

And I definitely couldn’t go back to Grimstone Hall. Not like this. Not when I felt like a live wire that had been stripped of its insulation. Nate would hear me coming from a mile away.

I needed noise. I needed people. I needed something to drown out the buzzing that was still echoing in my skull.

I put the car in gear, my hands still trembling on the wheel.

“A drink,” I murmured, my voice cracking. “I just need a drink.”

I steered the car away from the mountain road, toward a flickering neon sign I’d passed on the way in. It was a dive bar on the edge of town, the kind of place where nobody asked questions and the music was loud enough to kill thought.

It wasn’t a solution. But for tonight, it was the only place I could think of where being a mess didn’t feel like a crime.