Ours, my alpha sighed, the possessiveness softening into something more tender.Protect. Keep. Love.
Love. The word settled over me like a weight, heavy and undeniable. I slipped out of the nest room, pulling the door mostly closed, and found the others already gathered in the living room. Waiting. They'd known, somehow. Pack instinct, maybe. Or just years of reading each other.
"She's asleep?" Min-jun asked quietly, his dark eyes serious, his usual gentle demeanor sharpened with focus, his body tense where he sat on the edge of the couch.
"Out like a light." I settled onto the couch, suddenly feeling every one of my twenty-seven years pressing down on my shoulders, the cushions sinking beneath my weight.
"Her scent's changing." Jin-ho said, direct as always, cutting straight to the point, his expression unreadable but his voice tight with controlled tension.
"I noticed." Tae-min's usual playfulness was absent, replaced by something more serious, his jaw tight with tension as he leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
"Pre-heat." Hwan's voice was uncharacteristically subdued, his golden eyes dark with something that looked almost like worry, his fingers fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. "It's starting, isn't it?"
"Soon." I confirmed, the word heavy in the quiet room, settling over us like a blanket. "A few days, maybe a week. It's hard to say exactly."
Silence fell over us, thick with unspoken thoughts.
"We need to talk to her." Min-jun said finally, his voice gentle but firm, his hands clasped together in his lap. "Beforeit happens. She needs to understand what it means. What her options are."
"The bonds will complete if we..." Tae-min trailed off, the words sticking in his throat, his expression pained as he struggled to finish the sentence.
"If we spend her heat with her, yes." Jin-ho finished, his voice carefully neutral, his dark eyes fixed on some point in the middle distance. "There's no going back after that. The connection becomes permanent."
"The marks….pack and mate marks" Hwan added, his hand unconsciously touching his own neck, his fingers brushing over the unblemished skin there. "That's a separate choice. She needs to know that too."
I nodded slowly, feeling the weight of it all pressing down on me. This wasn't just about us anymore. It never had been, really. But now the stakes felt impossibly high.
"We need to tell her something else first." I said, and four pairs of eyes turned to me, waiting, their attention absolute. "We need to tell her how we feel. Not just the biological stuff. The real thing."
"You mean..." Tae-min started, something vulnerable flickering in his expression, his voice barely above a whisper.
"I love her." I said the words out loud, let them hang in the air between us, feeling the truth of them settle into my bones. "I'm in love with her. Not just the bond. Not just the instincts. Her. The way she laughs at Tae-min's terrible jokes. The way she argues with Jin-ho about lyrics. The way she takes care of us when we forget to take care of ourselves."
The silence stretched, but it wasn't uncomfortable. It was the silence of recognition.
"I love her too." Hwan said quietly, his usual brightness dimmed to something more sincere, his voice rough with emotion, his golden eyes shining in the low light. "I didn't expectto so quickly. I thought the bond would feel like an obligation. Something we had to do. But she's... she's everything."
"She sees us." Jin-ho added, his voice low and intense, his dark eyes fixed on some middle distance, his jaw tight with feeling. "Not SIREN. Not the image. Us. She chose to stay."
"She makes me want to be better." Tae-min admitted, running a hand through his hair, looking younger than his twenty-three years in that moment, his voice cracking slightly. "Not just for her. For myself. Because she believes I can be."
"She's gentle." Min-jun said softly, his dimples absent for once, his expression serious and open, his hands still clasped tightly in his lap. "With all of us. Even when we don't deserve it. She makes this place feel like home."
Mine,my alpha whispered, but softer now, shared.Pack's. Ours to protect. Ours to love. Ours to keep.
"So we're all on the same page." I looked around the room, meeting each pair of eyes in turn, searching for doubt and finding none. "We love her. We want to complete the bonds. But only if she wants it too."
"How do we do this right?" Hwan asked, and the vulnerability in his voice made something in my chest clench, his usual confidence stripped away to reveal the uncertainty beneath. "How do we make sure she knows it's her choice?"
"We tell her the truth." I said simply, my voice steady despite the gravity of the moment. "All of it. The biology, the options, the consequences. And then we tell her how we feel. And then we wait for her answer."
"If she says no?" Tae-min's voice was barely above a whisper, the fear evident in every syllable, his hands clenched into fists on his knees.
"Then we respect that." The words hurt to say, but they were necessary, each one landing like a stone in still water. "We figureout how to manage incomplete bonds. We give her space if she needs it. We never, ever make her feel pressured or obligated."
"We won't." Jin-ho said firmly, and the others nodded, their expressions set with determination, a silent vow passing between us. I looked toward the hallway, toward the nest room where she slept, peaceful and unaware of the conversation happening without her.
Tomorrow. We'd tell her tomorrow. Give her time to process before her heat hit, before biology made everything more complicated.
