The Alphas' Legacy (Alpha Eyes: Book 3)

Chapter 24

Zoey

He'd vanished. In the middle of my dream, something had swept in to protect me, and Jax vanished. He returned for a moment; but when he vanished the second time, he never came back to torture me. I'd slept deeply, peacefully for the first time in months.

When I woke, I instantly recognized that I was not on the couch. This was most definitely the bed. Question was: how did I get here? Oh gosh... did I sleepwalk? That was the last thing I needed to be dealing with right now. But if I didn't sleepwalk...

I slowly sat up and glanced over at the couch. From the looks of it, someone had pulled me off the couch when I was sleeping. Who would do that? Certainly not Van. He'd told me on Day 1 that there'd be serious issues if I ever dared getting close to his bed. His double meaning was loud and clear.

Just out of curiosity, I sniffed my shirt to see if I could pick up on anyone's scent to give me a hint as to who had moved me. Van's scent flooded my nose, making me jump. Of course I'd smell like him. I'd been all but swaddled in his sheets. That would have to be remedied immediately.

I whipped the sheets off, snatched some clothes out of my bag, and darted into the bathroom. The scent was only surface-level, so a shower and washing machine would get rid of it. I'd have the sheets washed too, in case my scent rubbed off on them.

After a shower and change of clothes, I returned to the bedroom to strip the bed. I'd barely pulled the comforter back when the door opened behind me.

"What are you doing?"

I swallowed and turned to face Van. The truth would be better than nothing.

"I was going to change the sheets. I must have sleepwalked to the bed and climbed in, so I wanted to wash the sheets in case my scent got on them. I'm so sorry. I know what you told me about sleeping in your bed, but I swear that I was on the couch when I fell asleep."

His gaze darted from my face, to the bed, and back again. "Don't worry about it. It's fine."

Fine? Really?

"At least you took a shower to get my scent off you," he continued. "Having you smell like me would be extremely awkward to explain to everyone else."

Indeed it would. Even though we'd spent that time in the bunker together, very few people knew about it. From the sounds of it, the guys weren't planning to share the fact that a spy had sneaked into the territory. That—and all of the other details—was going to stay with those who currently knew it.

"It won't happen again," I assured him, quickly puling the sheets into place.

"If you say so," he muttered as he headed to his closet.

I waited until he'd left the room completely before piling a load of my clothes for the wash. It had been a while, and I wondered if all of my stuff was beginning to smell like him. Wouldn't that be fabulous. Having my own scent masked was good protection against someone "outside" being able to track me; but within the pack, it could easily be taken as something other than what it was.

Remembering my run date with Luna, I laid out my running gear on the couch for later and headed downstairs for breakfast. Stitch met me at the bottom of the stairs with a smile.

"Good morning, Zoey. How are you feeling today?"

I paused on the bottom stair and did a quick scan of myself. Waking up in the bed had taken up all my mental capacity, so I hadn't even noticed if I was still sore from yesterday's workout. Now that I paid a little attention to my muscles, I could recognize the impact of pushing myself.