Year One.
I started sending the gifts.
Anonymous, of course. Untraceable. Little things that would appeal to her Omega instincts even through the suppressants. A cashmere throw in exactly the right shade of cream. Pillows that were softer than anything she could afford. A weighted blanket that arrived on her doorstep the week after I noticed her searching for one online.
She never questioned where they came from. Never wondered why she kept finding perfect things at prices she could afford, in stores she just happened to walk past, at exactly the moments she needed them most. She just accepted them. Brought them home. Added them to the nests she built and dismantled and rebuilt, never understanding why she couldn't stop.
I watched her curl up in that cashmere throw every night for two years. Watched her bury her face in it when she cried. Watched her reach for it in her sleep, clutching it like a lifeline. She didn't know it smelled like Mason. The scent was faint—we'd been careful about that, not wanting to trigger conscious recognition, but it was there. Sinking into her subconscious. Teaching her body to associate comfort with pack, safety with Alpha, home with us.
By the time she realized what we'd done, it would be too late.
Year Two.
The suppressant tampering began. This was the part I'd spent the most time on. The research. The calculations. The precise calibration of compounds and dosages designed to accelerate her body's natural resistance without triggering any alarm bells.
It had to be gradual. Too fast, and she'd notice the symptoms, go to a doctor, get a new prescription from a pharmacy we didn't control. Too slow, and we'd be waiting another five years for her system to break down on its own. I settled on eighteen months. Eighteen months of slowly reducing efficacy, slowly introducing compounds that would make her body fight the suppressants harder, slowly pushing her toward the edge of a cliff she didn't even know she was standing on.
The math was beautiful. The execution was flawless.
And the results...
I pulled up her most recent medical data, obtained through channels that were technically illegal but practically untraceable. Her hormone levels were through the roof. Her body was producing slick at ten times the normal rate for a suppressed Omega. Her scent was leaking through every blocker she applied, growing stronger by the day.
She was ripe. Ready. Teetering on the edge of a heat that would hit like a freight train and wouldn't stop until she'd been thoroughly, completely, irrevocably claimed.
Forty-eight hours. Maybe less. I smiled at the data, feeling the satisfaction of a plan perfectly executed.
Year Three.
The trap.
"Aunt Carol" had been Leo's idea, actually. He'd suggested using someone from her past, a familiar voice to lower her defenses. I'd done the research, found a friend of her mother's who'd moved away when Ava was young, and hired an actress to play the role.
The script was mine, though. Every word, carefully chosen to hit her weak points. The loneliness. The grief over her mother. The desperate, aching need for connection that three years of isolation had carved into her soul. She'd agreed to the trip within ten minutes of the phone call. I'd been watching through her laptop camera, another modification I'd made in year one, and I'd seen the war on her face. The suspicion fighting the hope. The fear fighting the need.
The need had won. It always did, with Omegas. They weren't built for solitude. They were built for pack, for connection, for the warm tangle of bodies and scents and bonds that made life worth living. Ava had been denying that need for six years. Her resistance was impressive. Admirable, even.
It was also over.
On the monitors, she'd stopped crying. She was sitting up in the nest now, looking around the room with those sharp green eyes, cataloging her surroundings. Looking for weaknesses. Looking for escape routes. She wouldn't find any. I'd designed this room specifically for her, using everything I'd learned in three years of observation. The reinforced windows. The electronic locks. The heated floors, because I knew she rancold. The soft lighting, because I knew harsh light gave her headaches. The nesting materials, carefully curated to match her preferences in texture and color and weight.
It was a cage, yes. But it was a cage built with love. A cage designed to break her as gently as possible, to strip away her resistance without destroying the fire underneath. Because that was the thing about Ava. The thing that had drawn me to her from the very beginning, back when she was a sharp-eyed ten-year-old asking me about quantum mechanics and actually understanding my answers.
She burned.
Not obviously, not loudly, not the way Leo burned with his easy charm and dangerous smile. Ava's fire was quieter. Deeper. The kind that would keep you warm for a lifetime if you could just get close enough to feel it.
I wanted to feel it. I wanted to bask in it. I wanted to spend the rest of my life learning every shade and flicker of her flame. I was going to. Starting now. I saved my files and closed my laptop, then stood and stretched. It was nearly noon. Time to check on our guest.
The walk to her room took me through the heart of the cabin, past the kitchen where Mason was preparing lunch, past the living room where Leo was pretending to read while actually watching the security feeds on his phone, past the gym where Caleb was punishing a heavy bag like it had personally offended him.
"How is she?" Caleb asked without breaking his rhythm. Thud. Thud. Thud. Each blow sent the bag swinging, chains rattling.
"Settling," I said. "Still fighting, but the heat's building. She won't be able to hold out much longer."
Caleb's next punch nearly tore the bag from its chains. "Good."
I understood his frustration. Out of all of us, Caleb had struggled the most with the waiting. He wasn't built for patience, for subtlety, for the long game. He was built for action, for claiming, for the primal simplicity of taking what was his and daring anyone to try and stop him. Three years of watching Ava through screens while she slept alone, cried alone, built nests that should have been for him, it had nearly broken him. More than once, Mason had to physically restrain him from getting on a plane and dragging her home.
