I laughed, a genuine sound of delight. "Wrong. I was absolutely expelled from two prep schools. Fighting, mostly. I had anger issues as a teenager."
"Then which one is the lie?" Ava demanded, frustration bleeding into her voice, her hands clenching in her lap.
"The arm," I admitted, my smile turning sharp-edged and dark. "I didn't break his arm. I broke both his arms. And three of his ribs. And his jaw." I paused, letting the words land. "He touched your hair at a coffee shop when you were nineteen. You didn't even notice him. But I did."
Ava's face went pale, her green eyes widening with horror. "You—what?"
"He was a stranger. You were waiting for your order, reading something on your phone, and he walked up behind you and touched your hair," I continued, my voice calm and conversational despite the dark satisfaction coiling in my gut. "Said something about how pretty it was. You smiled politely and stepped away. Forgot about it five minutes later."
"And you... you attacked him?" Ava breathed, her voice barely above a whisper, her hand drifting unconsciously toward her hair.
"Not right then. I followed him home first. Learned his name, his address, his habits," I explained, watching her face, drinking in every flicker of emotion. "Then I paid him a visit one night and explained, very thoroughly, why he should never touch what doesn't belong to him."
"I wasn't yours then," Ava said, her voice shaking with anger and something else—fear, maybe. Or fascination. "I didn't even know you were watching me."
"You've always been mine," I corrected gently, reaching out to tuck a strand of red hair behind her ear. She flinched butdidn't pull away. "You just didn't know it yet." Silence stretched between us. Through the bond, I felt her emotions churning, horror, confusion, and underneath it all, a reluctant flicker of something warmer. Something that responded to the intensity of my devotion, even as her mind recoiled from it.
"That's insane," Ava finally said, her voice flat with shock. "You're insane."
"Probably," I agreed cheerfully, my gray eyes crinkling with genuine amusement. "But I'm also honest. Which is more than most people can say."
"You hurt someone. For touching my hair," Ava repeated, like she was trying to make the words make sense.
"I'd do worse for less," I said simply, my smile fading into something more serious. "I'd burn the world down if anyone tried to take you from us. I'd kill without hesitation, without remorse. You're everything, Ava. Everything."
"That's not love," Ava insisted, her voice rising with desperation. "That's obsession. That's possession."
"It's all three," I acknowledged, unfazed by her accusation. "Love and obsession and possession, all tangled together until you can't tell where one ends and the others begin. That's what you are to me. What you've always been."
Ava stared at me, her green eyes huge in her pale face. I could feel her heart racing through the bond, feel the conflict tearing her apart, the part of her that was terrified and the part of her that was drawn to the intensity like a moth to flame.
"I won," I reminded her softly, reaching out to take her hand. She let me, too stunned to resist. "That means you owe me a question."
"Fine," Ava said, her voice hollow with defeat. "Ask." I considered for a moment, turning her hand over in mine, tracing the lines of her palm with my fingertip. So many questions I could ask. So many secrets I wanted to uncover.
"When we were kids," I said finally, "you used to bring me books. Fantasy novels, adventure stories, anything you thought I'd like. You'd leave them outside my door with little notes tucked inside." I looked up, meeting her eyes. "Why did you stop?"
Something flickered across Ava's face, pain, maybe. Or grief. "I presented," she said quietly, her voice barely audible.
"And?" I pressed, my thumb still tracing circles on her palm.
"And everything changed," Ava continued, her green eyes growing distant with memory. "You all looked at me differently after that. Like I was... prey. Like you'd been waiting for it. I realized that everything—the kindness, the attention, the way you made me feel special—it was all just... preparation….for this."
The word hung in the air between us.
"It wasn't just that," I said, choosing my words carefully. "We did care about you. We do care about you. We love you."
"That makes it worse," Ava whispered, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. "Don't you understand? That makes it so much worse. Because I loved you too. All of you. And then I found out it was all a lie."
"It wasn't a lie," I insisted, tightening my grip on her hand when she tried to pull away. "The love was real. Is real. The only thing that changed was that we finally had permission to show you how much."
"Permission from who?" Ava demanded, her voice cracking. "Not from me. Never from me."
"From biology," I replied quietly. "From fate. From whatever force in the universe decided that you were meant to be ours and we were meant to be yours."
"I don't believe in fate," Ava said bitterly, finally yanking her hand free from mine.
"You don't have to believe in it," I said, watching her retreat to the far corner of the couch, wrapping her arms around herself like armor. "It believes in you." She didn't respond. Just sat there, trembling slightly, staring at nothing. Through the bond, I felt her grief and rage, her horror at what I'd revealed and her reluctant understanding of what it meant.
