"Why I am the way I am." He met my eyes, and for once there was no clinical detachment, no careful control. Just raw, unguarded truth, his green eyes blazing with an intensity that made my breath catch. "I grew up watching my father struggle with a woman who didn't want to be kept. Who resented everything he offered her. Who took and took and gave nothing back, not even loyalty."
His hand tightened on mine. "I swore I would never make his mistakes. Never claim someone who didn't want to be claimed. Never force a bond on someone who would only resent it." He paused, his throat working. "And then I met you."
"I was ten," I said softly, remembering.
"You were ten," he confirmed. "And I was sixteen, and I was this awkward, too-smart kid who everyone treated like a freak or a tool. The other Harpers wanted me for my brain. The staff walked on eggshells around me because I was David's son. Everyone had an agenda."
He released my hand and stood abruptly, moving to the window, his back to me. "But you... you just talked to me. Like I was normal. You asked me about the book I was reading and actually listened to the answer. You told me about your school and your friends and this stray cat you'd been feeding." A rough laugh escaped him. "You treated me like a person, not a Harper. I don't think you have any idea how rare that was. How much it meant."
"I didn't know," I said quietly, my heart aching for the lonely teenage boy he must have been.
"How could you? You were ten." He turned to face me, silhouetted against the gray winter light, his features cast in shadow. "But I remembered. And when you presented at fifteen, when I realized what you were, what you could be to us... I told myself to wait. You were too young, too unaware of what you were. I told myself that when you understood, you'd come to us willingly. That we'd have time to court you properly, show you what we could offer."
"But I ran," I said, the words heavy with understanding now, with the weight of choices I couldn't take back.
"But you ran." His voice was rough, raw with old pain. "And suddenly I was watching my father's story play out all over again. A woman who didn't want to be kept. Who would rather destroy herself than accept what we were offering."
"It wasn't about rejecting you," I said, standing from the chair, moving toward him without consciously deciding to. "It was about choosing myself. Having a life that was mine."
"I know that now." He reached out and caught my hand as I approached, pulling me gently closer. "I didn't know it then. Then, I just knew you were dying, and I couldn't stop it, and every week I updated those charts—" He gestured at the wall with his free hand. "Every week I watched your health decline and I couldn't do anything about it."
"So you did all this." I looked around at the room — the research, the charts, the years of obsessive documentation. "You studied me like a case file because you couldn't actually reach me."
"I needed to do something," he admitted, his voice rough. "I needed to feel like I had some control over the situation, even when I had none. The research was... it was how I coped. How I channeled the fear into something productive." Iunderstood that. More than I wanted to admit. My own coping mechanisms had been different, running, hiding, suppressing, but the underlying impulse was the same. The need to feel in control when everything was spinning out of it.
"The data saved your life," Ethan continued, pulling me closer still, until I was standing between his legs as he leaned against the windowsill. "When we finally brought you here, I knew exactly what your body needed to recover. What nutrients you were deficient in, what supplements would help rebuild your bone density, what foods would support your liver function. I had a complete treatment protocol ready before you ever set foot in this cabin."
"That's why you've been monitoring everything," I realized. "The food, the water, the sleep. You've been tracking my recovery."
"Every day." His hands came up to frame my face, tilting it so I had to meet his eyes. "And you're doing well, Ava. Better than I projected. Your hormone levels are stabilizing. Your organ function is improving. Your body is healing."
"Because of you," I said, my voice soft with something that might have been gratitude.
"Because of all of us." His thumb stroked across my cheekbone, feather-light, reverent. "The bond helps. The contact, the pheromones, the... everything. Pack care is essential for Omega recovery. It's not just emotional, it's physiological. Your body needs us to heal."
I should have bristled at that. At the clinical reduction of my feelings to hormones and physiology. But I was tired of fighting the truth, and the truth was that I felt better than I had in years. Stronger. Healthier. More alive.
"I still don't know if I can forgive you," I said honestly, my hands coming up to rest on his chest. "For taking me. For not giving me a choice."
"I know." He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to mine, his breath warm on my lips. "I'm not asking for forgiveness. I'm asking for time. For the chance to show you that this can work. That we can be good for you — not just physiologically, but in every way that matters."
"And if I decide it can't work? If I decide I can't do this?" I asked, needing to know, needing to hear him say it.
His jaw tightened, but his voice remained steady, his green eyes never leaving mine. "Then we'll figure something out. Some way for you to survive without us. I won't let you die, Ava. Even if you hate me for it."
"I don't hate you," I whispered, and it was true. I didn't. I didn't know what I felt — it was all tangled up, complicated, too big to fit into simple words — but hatred wasn't part of it.
"I love you," Ethan said, so quietly I almost missed it. "I have for years. I know you're not ready to hear that, not ready to say it back. But I need you to know. Everything I've done, the research, the waiting, the planning, it was all because I love you. It's always been because I love you."
The words hung in the air between us, fragile and heavy at the same time.
"Ethan..." I started, my voice catching, but I didn't know how to finish. The words tangled in my throat, too many feelings fighting for space.
"You don't have to say anything." He pulled back slightly, his hands sliding from my face to my shoulders, then down my arms to catch my hands, his touch gentle but firm. "Just... stay. Let me show you the rest of the data, if you want. Or we can do something else. Read. Talk. Whatever you need."
I looked around the room again, at the evidence of his obsession, his fear, his love. It should have been creepy. Maybe it was creepy. But it was also, undeniably, proof of how much hecared. How much he'd cared for years, in the only way he knew how.
"Show me," I said finally, surprising myself with the decision. "All of it. I want to understand."
