"Zia," Kit said, standing up and moving toward her. "If we do this... we're locking the door. There's no undo button."
"I don't want an undo button," she said. "I want a Save button."
She held out her hand. "Come here," she commanded. "And finish the job."
I didn't walk. I ran.
I crashed into her, burying my face in her neck, inhaling the scent that belonged to me, to us, to the music we made in the dark.
"Copy that," I whispered against her skin. "Loud and clear."
THIRTY-FIVE
Zia
"Pause the track."
The voice cut through the static in the room like a fader slamming to zero.
Alfie froze, his breath hot against the scent gland on my neck, his teeth grazing the skin but not yet breaking it. We both blinked, the heavy, golden haze of the moment fracturing just enough to let reality leak in.
Rowan stood in the doorway of the kitchen. She wasn't holding a tablet. She wasn't holding a contract. She was holding a garment bag, and she looked like she was about to break up a high school party, but with affection.
"Not here," Rowan said, stepping into the room. Her heels clicked on the tile. "Not over a plate of half-eaten pancakes with bacon grease in the air. If we’re doing this, we’re doing it with the respect the paperwork demands."
"Rowan," Alfie whined, his forehead resting against my shoulder. "I wasthere. I was right there."
"And you'll get back there," she promised, her voice softening. She looked at me. "Zia. A word. In the lounge."
I gently detangled myself from Alfie’s arms. He let me go, though he looked like I was taking his oxygen with me.
"I'll be back," I promised him. "Don't go anywhere."
"Furniture," Kit grunted from the table, though he was watching Rowan with a narrowed, calculating gaze.
I followed Rowan into the front lounge. She closed the door, sealing us off from the heavy wall of Alpha pheromones in the kitchen. The air here was cooler, cleaner.
She didn't sit. She hung the garment bag on the curtain rail and turned to me. Her eyes, usually sharp enough to cut glass, scanned my face with a terrifying intensity.
"This is the exit interview," she said quietly. "Before the lock-in. Are you lucid, Zia? Truly?"
"I'm lucid," I said. I felt steady. Grounded. "The fever's gone. The heat broke hours ago. I'm just... sure."
"This isn't a rider clause we can edit later," she warned, crossing her arms. "A triple claim is heavy biology. It changes your chemical baseline. It changes how the world smells to you, how it feels and appears. It changes how you hear the music. If you have even one percent of doubt, we stop."
I listened to the hum of the London traffic outside. I thought about the colors in my head, indigo, slate, umber. They were vibrant, waiting to be mixed.
"I don't have doubt," I said. "I have fear. But the fear is about losing them, not keeping them."
Rowan let out a long breath, her shoulders dropping half an inch. The devastatingly professional mask cracked, revealing the woman who had threatened to resign rather than let a label exploit me.
"Good," she whispered. She reached out, brushing a strand of hair from my face. "God, look at you. You survived them."
"I metabolized them," I corrected with a small smile.
Rowan laughed, a rare, bright sound. "I have two younger brothers, you know. Useless, the pair of them." She hesitated, her hand lingering on my cheek. "I never had a sister. But watching you navigate those three idiots... I feel very protective. I wanted this moment to be..."
She gestured to the garment bag.
