Mom says the suppressants will make it better. She says I can have a normal life. I don't think anything will ever be normal again.
I didn't write about how my heart had raced when they looked at me. About the way something deep inside me had responded to their hunger with a hunger of its own.
I didn't write about how, for one terrifying moment, I had wanted to go to them. That was the secret I would carry for years. The shame I would bury so deep I almost convinced myself it didn't exist.
But they knew. Even then, they knew. And they’d never stopped waiting.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
AVA
I learned the rules. I followed them…mostly.
I sat at the table for meals. I ate what they put in front of me. I slept in the nest, alone, curled into a ball at the center of the soft things I'd unconsciously gathered.
I found ways to resist. Small rebellions. Tiny acts of defiance that probably meant nothing to them but meant everything to me. I sat as far from them as the table would allow. I ate in silence, never meeting their eyes. I flinched away from casual touches, a hand on my shoulder, fingers brushing mine when passing the salt.
I stayed in my nest as much as possible, emerging only for meals, retreating immediately after. The nest was mine. The one space they'd promised not to invade without permission. It had become my sanctuary, my fortress, the only place in this cabin where I could pretend I was still a person instead of a possession.
For two days, it worked. Sort of.
I could feel them through the bonds, of course. Their presence was a constant hum in the back of my mind, Mason's warmth, Ethan's cool focus, Leo's restless energy, Caleb's patient intensity. I couldn't escape them entirely. But I could minimize contact. I could keep physical distance. I could maintain at least the illusion of autonomy.
On the morning of day three, I woke up wrong. Not wrong like my presentation all those years ago. Different. My head was pounding, a vicious throb behind my eyes that made the dim morning light feel like knives. My stomach churned with nausea, and when I tried to sit up, the room spun so violently I had to grab the edge of the nest to keep from falling.
"What the hell," I muttered, pressing my palm to my forehead, my voice rough and groggy. I was clammy, my skin covered in a thin sheen of sweat despite the cool air. My hands were trembling.
I felt like I had the flu. Except I'd been perfectly healthy yesterday, tired and miserable, but healthy. Through the bonds, I felt them react to my distress. Four flickers of attention, four presences pressing closer against my consciousness.
I pushed them away. Or tried to. The door opened. Ethan stood in the doorway, fully dressed in slacks and a button-down despite the early hour, his green eyes sharp as they swept over me.
"You look terrible," Ethan observed, his voice clinical and detached, his head tilting slightly as he studied me like a specimen under glass.
"Thanks. That's exactly what every girl wants to hear," I croaked, my voice coming out rough and scratchy, my throat dry and aching.
"When did the symptoms start?" Ethan asked, stepping into the room but stopping several feet from the nest, his handsclasped behind his back, respecting the boundary even as his eyes catalogued every visible sign of my deterioration.
"What symptoms? I'm fine. Just tired," I said, my jaw tightening with stubborn denial even though I knew exactly what he was talking about.
"You're not fine," Ethan corrected, his tone matter-of-fact, his green eyes never leaving my face, missing nothing. "You're experiencing bond-separation symptoms. Headache, nausea, tremors, fever. Classic presentation for an Omega who's been avoiding physical contact with her bonded Alphas."
The words landed like stones in my churning stomach. Bond-separation symptoms. The same thing that had happened in the bathroom, but worse. So much worse.
"I've been following your rules. I eat with you. I sleep in the nest. I don't try to escape," I said through gritted teeth, my hands clenching in the soft blankets of my nest, my knuckles going white.
"You've been avoiding touch," Ethan countered, his posture straight and controlled, his voice as level as if he were discussing the weather. "Flinching away whenever one of us reaches for you. Keeping physical distance during meals. Retreating to your nest the moment you're allowed to leave."
"That's not against the rules," I pointed out, a bitter edge sharpening my voice.
"No. It's not. It's a clever workaround," Ethan agreed, a hint of something—admiration? amusement?—flickering in his green eyes, the corner of his mouth twitching almost imperceptibly. "But the bonds don't care about clever workarounds, Avalon. They need physical reinforcement. Skin-to-skin contact. Proximity to your Alphas."
"So I'm addicted to you. That's what you're saying. My body is physically addicted to your touch," I said bitterly, the wordstasting like poison on my tongue, my stomach lurching with revulsion.
"In a manner of speaking, yes," Ethan confirmed, no apology in his tone, no shame in his expression, just that clinical detachment that made me want to scream. "The claiming bite creates a physiological dependency. Your body now requires contact with us to maintain homeostasis. Deny it that contact, and it will punish you."
"That's sick," I spat, disgust dripping from every syllable, my lip curling with revulsion.
"That's biology," Ethan replied with a slight shrug, his shoulders lifting and falling with casual indifference. "It's designed to keep bonded pairs together. To prevent separation. It's actually quite elegant from an evolutionary perspective."
