"Your mother had a soulmate she didn't want. She broke the bond. The breaking killed her." Jeni leaned forward, her elbows planted on the scarred wood sticky with years of spilled coffee, her dark eyes sharp with concentration. "But Keira... that's not the same as what's happening to you. Is it?"
The question hit me like a bucket of ice water thrown in my face.
"What do you mean?" I asked, my voice smaller than I intended, younger, like the twelve-year-old girl who'd sat beside her mother's deathbed.
"You've been telling me about your mother like her story is your story. But you're not trying to break your bonds — you're running from completing them." Jeni's gaze bore into mine, unflinching, her jaw set with determination. "Those are opposite things."
I stared at her, my mouth opening to argue, to explain why she was wrong —
I couldn't find the words, because she had a point. My mother had died from breaking her bond. From ripping her soul in half to escape something she didn't want. The wound that killed her wasn't from having a soulmate — it was from refusing to have one, from severing a connection that was never meant to be severed.
I wasn't trying to break my bonds. I was trying to avoid completing them. Were those really the same thing?
"There's more," I said quietly, my voice barely above a whisper. "Something's happened since I showed you the mark."
Jeni's expression sharpened, her whole body going alert. "What do you mean? What's happened?"
"Two of them have triggered." I pulled down my sweater collar with trembling fingers, revealing the mark she'd seen before — but different now. "Look."
Jeni leaned closer, her eyes widening as she took in the changes. Where before all five flowers had been grey and dormant, now two of them glowed with color — golden amber and deep violet, side by side, pulsing gently with the bonds they represented.
"Oh god," she breathed, her hand coming up to cover her mouth, her voice faint with shock. "Two of them? Already? When?—"
"The golden one was two days ago. I ran into him outside a café — literally collided with him on the sidewalk. Our eyes met, and the bond just... triggered." I swallowed hard, pulling my collar back up. "The violet one was yesterday. A meeting at work. Same thing — eyes met, bond triggered. Both times, I ran."
"You ran from your soulmates," Jeni repeated slowly, shaking her head, a strand of dark hair escaping her ponytail to frame her face. "Twice. Who are they? Do you know?"
This was the part I'd been dreading.
"SIREN," I said flatly, watching her face carefully. "The idol group. My five soulmates are the members of SIREN." For a long moment, Jeni just stared at me, her mouth opening and closing soundlessly like a fish gasping for air.
"SIREN," she finally repeated, her voice barely above a whisper, her expression cycling through disbelief and something that looked almost like hysterical laughter. "The most famous alpha pack in the country. The idols everyone is obsessed with."
"Hwan and Jin-ho," I confirmed, staring into my water glass. "Those are the two who've triggered. Three more waiting."
"And you ran from them," Jeni said, her voice still slightly dazed. "You ran from two members of SIREN after your soulmate bonds triggered. Keira, do you understand what most omegas would give?—"
"Most omegas didn't watch their mother die from bond complications," I cut her off, sharper than I intended, the wordscoming out with edges that cut, then immediately softened as guilt washed over me. "I'm sorry. I'm not angry at you. I'm just terrified."
"Because you think what happened to your mother is going to happen to you," Jeni finished gently, her expression softening with understanding, her dark eyes filled with a compassion that made my chest ache.
"I'm dying, Jeni," I whispered, the confession falling from my lips before I could stop it. "Soul sickness from incomplete bonds. Two triggered in less than two days, and I can already feel my body failing. The fever, the weakness, the way everything hurts. Three more waiting to trigger. The research says omegas don't survive five incomplete pack bonds."
Jeni's face went pale as fresh snow, her grip on the table tightening until her knuckles turned white as bone. "Then you have to complete them. If incomplete bonds are killing you?—"
"And become someone else? Lose myself to the bond the way my mother was afraid of?" I shook my head, tears burning behind my eyes. "She said it felt like drowning?—"
"Your mother's bond was with an alpha she hated," Jeni interrupted firmly, her dark eyes blazing with fierce protectiveness, her jaw set with determination. "An alpha who wanted to cage her and control her. That's not the same thing. You don't know what kind of alphas they are."
"Exactly. I don't know them." My voice cracked on the words. "How am I supposed to trust five strangers with my soul?"
Jeni was quiet for a moment, her thumbs tracing circles on the table's worn surface, the silver of her rings catching the light with each small movement. The café noise swelled around us — the hiss of the espresso machine, the clatter of cups, the murmur of conversations — before fading again as she gathered her thoughts.
"You can't trust them yet," she admitted finally, her voice soft but unwavering, steady as bedrock beneath shifting sand. "Trust is earned, not given. But Keira — running is killing you. Literally killing you. And breaking the bonds would be suicide." She reached across and took my hands again, her cool fingers wrapping around my fevered ones, squeezing tightly enough to hurt. "You need to stop running long enough to find out who they actually are. Not who you're afraid they might be. Who they are."
"If they're terrible?" I asked, voicing the fear that had driven every step of my flight. "If they're exactly what my mother's soulmate was?"
"Then you deal with that when you have actual information instead of borrowed fears," Jeni said firmly, her eyes never leaving mine. "Right now, you're killing yourself to avoid a future you invented based on your mother's experience with a completely different alpha."
