I grabbed the edge of the nest — the pillows I'd arranged into protective walls, the blankets I'd layered just right according to instincts I'd spent years suppressing — and held on until the dizziness passed. My fingers dug into the soft fabric, knuckles white with effort, and I could feel my pulse pounding in my temples like a drum announcing my own deterioration. The world tilted and swayed, and for one terrifying moment I thought I might vomit, might collapse back into the nest and never find the strength to leave it again.
The walk to the bathroom felt like crossing a desert under a merciless sun.
Each step required conscious effort, a deliberate command from my brain to my body:lift foot, move forward, put foot down, repeat. The hallway that connected my bedroom to the bathroom had never seemed so long, stretching before me like a tunnel with no end in sight. The hardwood floor was cool beneath my bare feet, a small comfort against the fever burning through me, and I used the wall for support as I walked, my palm leaving damp prints on the pale paint.
When I finally reached the bathroom and caught my reflection in the mirror, I barely recognized the woman staring back at me.
My grey eyes were too bright, almost feverish, the silver tones more pronounced than I'd ever seen them. They seemed to glow in the harsh fluorescent light, catching and reflecting like something that didn't quite belong in a human face, like windows into a soul that was slowly being consumed by forces beyond its control. Dark circles bruised the hollows beneath them, purple-black shadows that spoke of sleepless nights and cellular exhaustion that went far deeper than a single restless sleep. They looked like bruises, like someone had pressed their thumbs beneath my eyes and left their mark there.
My skin was pale — not the healthy fairness I'd inherited from my mother, but a sickly pallor that made the flush of fever across my cheekbones stand out like warning flags. The contrast was alarming, the white and red painting me as something fragile, something breaking, something that needed help it wasn't willing to accept. My dark hair was tangled and limp, plastered against my forehead with dried sweat, the teal streaks I'd been so proud of looking dull and faded against the black like dying flowers in a neglected garden.
I looked sick.
Because I was sick.
We need them, my omega whispered, pressing against my consciousness with desperate urgency that made my chest ache with something beyond the physical fever. Her voice was gentler than before, almost pleading, like a child asking for something she knew she wouldn't receive but couldn't stop hoping for anyway.The bonds need completion. We're falling apart without them. Can't you feel it? The sickness in our blood, the weakness in our bones? This is what happens when you run from your own soul.
"I know," I said out loud, and my voice cracked on the words, breaking apart like my reflection seemed to be breaking apart in the mirror before me. "I know what we need. That doesn't mean I can give it to us."
I turned on the shower as hot as I could stand, the ancient pipes groaning in protest before releasing a spray of water that took too long to warm. When it finally did, I stepped under the cascade and let it pound against my skin, turning the flesh pink with heat, filling the small bathroom with steam that clouded the mirror and softened the edges of reality into something almost bearable. I stood there for longer than I should have, letting the pounding water loosen some of the stiffness in my muscles and clear the fog from my head enough to form coherent thoughts.
I had to meet Jeni in less than two hours.
The thought of going out there — into the city that now felt like a minefield, where SIREN was probably going about their day in their expensive dorm somewhere across Seoul, where any one of the remaining three alphas could be around any corner waiting to trigger another bond — made my stomach clench with fear so intense it bordered on nausea. The streets of Seoul had never seemed so dangerous. Every café could hide a soulmate. Every crowd could contain a bond waiting to trigger. The world that had once been my home, my playground, the backdrop of the life I'd carefully constructed, now felt like a trap slowly closing around me with teeth I couldn't see until they bit.
But I needed Jeni.
I needed someone to tell me I wasn't going insane, that the ground really was shifting beneath my feet and I wasn't just imagining the earthquake. Someone grounded and practical who could look at this situation from outside the chaos of bonds and omega instincts and tell me what they saw with clear eyes. Someone who knew me — the real me, the person I'd been before the mark appeared and rewrote everything I thought Iunderstood about my own future — well enough to tell me the truth even if I didn't want to hear it.
I got out of the shower and wrapped myself in a towel, the terry cloth rough against skin that felt too sensitive, too aware of every texture and temperature. The mirror was fogged over, hiding my reflection in a veil of condensation, and I was grateful for the small mercy. I didn't want to see myself right now. Didn't want to watch my own deterioration in real time like some kind of morbid documentary about an omega who thought she could outrun fate.
My hand reached for my suppressants out of habit before I could stop it.
The little orange bottle sat on the bathroom counter where it had lived for seven years, innocuous and familiar as an old friend. The label was worn from the over handling, the pharmacy name barely legible anymore, the instructions I'd memorized so long ago I didn't need to read them. My daily ritual. My chemical cage. I shook one pill into my palm without thinking, the small white tablet sitting there like an old friend I couldn't quite trust anymore — a friend who had promised to protect me and was now showing the first signs of betrayal.
Then I stopped.
What was the point?
They hadn't worked yesterday. The bond had broken through whatever chemical barriers the suppressants created like they were made of paper and wishes and desperate hope, and my omega had woken up fully for the first time in seven years. Taking another pill wasn't going to change that. Wasn't going to put the genie back in the bottle or rebuild the walls that had already crumbled into dust beneath the weight of two triggered bonds.
I took it anyway.
Swallowed it dry, grimacing at the bitter taste that coated my tongue and the back of my throat like a reminder of all the years I'd spent hiding from myself, and waited for the familiar numbing sensation to spread through my body. The slight dulling of senses. The quieting of instincts. The artificial calm that had been my constant companion since I was sixteen, the blanket I'd wrapped around my omega nature to smother it into submission.
Nothing happened.
If anything, my omega felt more present than ever. More awake. More aware. She stretched inside my consciousness like a cat claiming a sunbeam, settling into spaces she'd been locked out of for years with an almost smug satisfaction that made me want to scream.
Told you, she observed, and there was something almost sad in her voice rather than the smugness I'd expected, a melancholy acceptance that made my chest tight with something other than fever.Can't cage us anymore. The bonds broke us free. The suppressants were always temporary, always borrowed time. You knew that. Deep down, you always knew.
Fear spiked through me — real, genuine, bone-deep fear that had nothing to do with the bonds and everything to do with losing control of something I'd fought so hard to contain.
I'd spent six years controlling my omega. Suppressing her urges, ignoring her instincts, pretending she didn't exist except as an inconvenient biological fact I had to manage like a chronic condition that required daily medication. That control had kept me safe. Kept me independent. Kept me from becoming the soft, needy, dependent omega that society expected me to be, that my mother had been before she'd torn herself apart trying to escape.
Now that control was slipping like sand through my fingers, grain by grain, impossible to hold no matter how tightly I triedto grasp. I didn't know who I'd become when it was gone completely.
Before getting dressed, I sat down at my desk, the wooden chair hard and unforgiving against my aching body.
