"Not like this," Caleb rumbled, his deep voice tight with distress, and I could hear him shifting his weight, feel his massive presence looming nearby. "She's bleeding. You're bleeding. This isn't?—"
"This is exactly how it was always going to happen," Leo said, and there was something ancient in his gray eyes, something that had seen too much and survived anyway. His arms tightened around me, holding me close. "Ava doesn't do anything halfway. She was never going to accept us quietly. She was always going to fight until she couldn't fight anymore. And now—" He looked at me, something soft and sad in his expression, blood drying on his chin. "Now she knows the truth. The fight was never with us. It was with herself."
I stared at him, this man I'd just attacked, this man who was bleeding because of me, and I felt something crack open in my chest. He was right. He was so fucking right it made me want to scream.
I'd been fighting myself for years. Fighting the parts of me that wanted what they offered—safety, belonging, pack. Fighting the Omega inside me that craved their dominance, their possession, their love. I'd run, hidden, and built walls so high I'd forgotten there was anything on the other side. Walls that were now nothing more than rubble to be stepped over.The heat had torn them down, and there was nothing left to hide behind.
"I don't know how to do this," I admitted, my voice small and broken, barely above a whisper. "I don't know how to love people who hurt me. I don't know how to forgive what you did. I don't know how to be what you want me to be."
"We don't want you to be anything," Mason said, crouching beside us, his honey-brown eyes soft with something that looked terrifyingly like understanding, his hand hovering near my shoulder like he wanted to touch but didn't dare. "We just want you to be honest. With us. With yourself."
"And if the honest answer is that I hate you?" I asked, searching his face for the lie, the manipulation, finding only sincerity in those warm brown depths. "If the honest answer is that I'll never forgive you?"
"Then we'll live with that," Mason said simply, his voice steady, his gaze unwavering, his jaw tight with emotion he was barely containing. "We'll spend the rest of our lives trying to earn your forgiveness, even if we never get it. But at least it will be real. At least you won't be lying to yourself anymore."
I looked at him, at all of them. Mason with his patient certainty, crouched beside us with his hands on his thighs. Caleb with his gentle hope, his scarred face creased with worry, and massive hands clenched at his sides. Ethan with his clinical concern, standing slightly apart, his green eyes cataloguing every detail behind his glasses. Leo with his bloodied face and knowing eyes, still holding me in his arms like I hadn't just tried to tear him apart.
They were monsters. They'd taken me, claimed me, refused to let me go.
And I loved them anyway. The admission didn't feel like surrender. It felt like exhaustion. Like finally putting down a weight I'd been carrying for so long I'd forgotten what it felt like to stand without it.
"I need time," I said finally, my voice hoarse from crying, from screaming, from saying things I'd never meant to say out loud. "I need... I can't just pretend everything is fine. I can't go back to how things were before the heat."
"We're not asking you to," Mason said carefully, his hand finally coming up to cup my face, his touch gentle despite everything, his calloused palm warm against my tear-stained cheek. "Take all the time you need. We're not going anywhere."
"Neither am I," I whispered, and the words felt like a confession, like a prayer, like the most terrifying thing I'd ever said.
Because it was true. For better or worse, I wasn't going anywhere.
I was theirs…but it didn’t mean I couldn’t give them hell for how things played out.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
AVA
I woke up terrified.
Not of them, of myself. Of what I'd said. Of the words that had poured out of me like blood from a wound, impossible to take back, impossible to unsay. I love you. I'd said it to all of them. Over and over. Like a prayer. Like a confession. Like the most dangerous truth I'd ever spoken.
The morning light filtered through the curtains, soft and gray, and I lay perfectly still in the nest I'd rebuilt, surrounded by warmth and the mingled scents of four Alphas. Leo was pressed against my back, his arm heavy across my waist. Caleb's massive form was curled at my feet, one hand wrapped around my ankle like he was afraid I'd disappear. Ethan sat propped against the headboard, awake and watching me with those sharp green eyes behind his glasses. And Mason...
Mason was right in front of me. Watching. Waiting.
"You're awake," Mason said quietly, his honey-brown eyes searching my face, reading every microexpression like a book he'd memorized. "How do you feel?"
Terrified. Exposed. Like I'd handed them a weapon and was waiting for them to use it.
"Fine," I lied, my voice rough with sleep. "I'm fine." His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. I watched as his scent change, the warm honey darkening, smoke and pine intensifying until it filled my lungs with every breath.
"Don't lie to me, Avalon," Mason said, his voice dropping into something rougher, more Alpha. "I can smell your fear. I can feel it through the bond." The bond. That was the problem, wasn't it? I could feel them too. All of them. Four distinct presences in my chest, four threads connecting me to four men I'd never asked for and couldn't seem to escape. I sat up slowly, pulling away from Leo's arm, putting distance between myself and Mason. I needed space. Needed to think to figure out how to take back what I'd said.
"Last night," I started, my voice carefully controlled, my hands twisting in my lap. "I was overwhelmed. The breakdown, everything with Leo, I didn't mean what I said. It was just... emotion. Heat of the moment."
Silence. Mason's eyes went flat. Behind me, I felt Leo tense, his body going rigid against my back. Caleb's hand tightened around my ankle, not painful, but present. Claiming.
"You didn't mean it," Mason repeated, his voice dangerously soft, each word precisely clipped. "When you said you loved us. When you said you were ours. You didn't mean it."
"I was upset. I wasn't thinking clearly?—"
