"You meant every word," Mason cut me off, his voice hard now, sharp as a blade. "We felt it through the bond, Avalon. All of us. Your walls came down and we felt the truth. You can't take that back."
"I can feel whatever I want," I snapped, the old defiance surging up, familiar and comfortable. "You don't get to tell me what I feel." I pulled away from Caleb's grip on my ankle,scooting backward in the nest, trying to create distance. Trying to rebuild the walls I'd let crumble.
Bad idea. Mason moved so fast I didn't see it coming. One moment he was sitting across from me, the next he was right there, his hand on my throat, not squeezing, not hurting, just present. Claiming. His eyes had gone dark, pupils blown wide, and a low growl rumbled from his chest.
"Don't," Mason growled, the sound vibrating through his palm into my skin, making something deep in my hindbrain go still and quiet. "Don't pull away from me." I froze. Every muscle in my body locked up, my Omega instincts screaming at me to submit, to bare my throat, to yield to the Alpha in front of me.
"Mason—" I started, but my voice came out breathy, weak.
"You keep doing this," Mason said, his thumb stroking along my pulse point, feeling it race beneath my skin. "You let us in, and then you try to run. You say you love us, and then you try to take it back. Do you have any idea what that does to us?" I didn't answer. Couldn't answer. His hand on my throat was scrambling my thoughts, making it hard to think about anything except how much I wanted to lean into his touch.
"Our Alphas can't handle it," Ethan said quietly from behind Mason. He'd moved closer, his hand coming to rest on my knee, warm through the thin fabric of my sleep pants. "When you reject the bond, when you pull away, our instincts go into overdrive. We can't help it, Ava. The need to claim you, to prove ourselves worthy, to make you stay — it's overwhelming."
"So it's my fault?" I managed, some spark of defiance still flickering. "Your possessiveness is my fault?"
"It's biology," Ethan said simply, his green eyes holding mine behind his glasses, his fingers tightening slightly on my knee. "You're our Omega. We're your Alphas. The bond exists whether you acknowledge it or not. When you fight it, we all suffer."
Leo pressed against my back, his chest warm and solid, his breath hot against my ear. "We're not trying to control you, Red," Leo murmured, his voice rough with something that sounded like pain. "But every time you pull away, something in here—" He took my hand, pressed it to his chest, let me feel his heart pounding. "Something in here goes crazy. Like you're dying. Like we're losing you."
Caleb had moved too, his massive form settling beside me, one huge hand coming up to cup my face with impossible gentleness. His ice-blue eyes were soft, pleading.
"Please," Caleb said quietly, his deep voice barely above a whisper, his scarred face open and vulnerable in a way I'd rarely seen. "Please don't take it back. Even if you didn't mean it — let us pretend. Let us have this."
Something cracked in my chest. They weren't angry. They were desperate. Scared. The big bad Alphas who had kidnapped me, claimed me, refused to let me go, they were terrified that I didn't love them back.
Mason's hand was still on my throat, but the grip had softened, his thumb tracing gentle circles on my skin. "I'm not trying to control you," Mason said, echoing Leo's words, his voice rough with emotion he rarely showed. "I'm trying to hold onto you. There's a difference."
I looked at him, really looked. At the tension in his jaw, the fear in his eyes, the way his hand trembled slightly against my throat. He was afraid. Mason Harper, the leader, the controlled one, the man who had orchestrated my kidnapping with cold precision — he was afraid of losing me.
They all were.
"The more you fight, the more our Alphas surge," Ethan said quietly, his hand sliding up my thigh in a touch that was more grounding than sexual. "It's a cycle. You resist, we respond. You pull away, we pull closer. The only way to break it is..."
"To stop fighting," I finished, the words tasting like surrender on my tongue.
"To stop running," Mason corrected, his hand sliding from my throat to cup my face, tilting my head so I had to meet his eyes. "There's a difference. We don't want a puppet, Avalon. We don't want you broken and compliant. We want you — fierce and stubborn and ours. We just need you to stop trying to escape every time you feel something real."
I didn't know what to say. Didn't know how to process the raw need in his voice, the desperate hope in all their eyes. I tried something different. Instead of pulling away, instead of rebuilding my walls, I... let go. I relaxed into Mason's touch. Let my body soften against Leo's chest. Didn't flinch when Caleb's massive hand stroked through my hair. Let Ethan's grip on my thigh anchor me.
The effect was immediate. The tension drained out of Mason's shoulders. The growl in his chest shifted into something softer, not quite a purr, but close. His hand on my face became a caress instead of a claim.
"There," Mason murmured, his honey-brown eyes warming, the fear receding like a tide going out. "That's better. Just let us have you, sweetheart. Stop fighting."
I didn't trust my voice, so I just nodded. Leo buried his face in my neck, inhaling deeply, scenting me. His arms wrapped tighter around my waist, but it didn't feel suffocating anymore. It felt like being held.
"Fuck, Red," Leo breathed against my skin, his voice shaky with relief. "Do you have any idea how good you smell right now? When you relax, when you let us in — it's like sunshine. Like home."
Caleb was purring. The deep rumble vibrated through his massive chest, through the hand in my hair, through every pointwhere his body touched mine. He didn't say anything — he didn't need to. The sound said everything.
Ethan's grip on my thigh loosened, his thumb rubbing soothing circles through the fabric. "There you go," Ethan murmured, and there was warmth in his voice now, something soft beneath his usual composure. "Your heart rate's already coming down. This is what your body needs, Ava. This is what the bond needs."
I should have hated it, should have resented the fact that my own biology was being used against me, that my body responded to their touch whether I wanted it to or not. I was so tired of fighting. They kept touching me. All morning, all afternoon — someone was always there. A hand on my back while I ate breakfast. Fingers tangled in my hair while we sat on the couch. A warm body pressed against mine wherever I went.
At first it felt like surveillance. Like possession. But as the hours passed and I stopped flinching away from every touch, something shifted. It started to feel like care.
Mason fed me pieces of fruit from his fingers during lunch, his eyes soft as he watched me accept each bite. "Good girl," he murmured when I didn't pull away, and the praise sent warmth flooding through my chest despite my best efforts to remain unaffected.
Caleb carried me from the couch to the kitchen when I mentioned I was thirsty, ignoring my protests that I could walk perfectly fine. "I know you can," Caleb rumbled, his deep voice vibrating through my body as he held me against his chest. "I like carrying you. Let me."
