"You know what Chase told me to do during Marie's heat," I say. "He told me to stay in that room. To keep Ragon from bonding Marie. I had my hand on the door—I was going to leave; I was going to go check on Vee—and Ragon threatened to kick me out again. Chase sent me the text after I asked and I stayed."
"Yes," Arden says. "That part I know."
"What I've never told Chase," I say. "What I've never told anyone…"
Arden waits.
"The rut hit me," I say flatly. "I'd been in that room for days with Marie's heat hormones. Three alphas already deep in it. And Ragon—" I stop. Exhale. "He saw it happening and he used it. He pushed Marie toward me and she was in heat and I was already—"
I stop.
My hands are shaking. I press them flat against my thighs.
"I slept with her," I say. The confession hangs in the air between us, heavy and irretrievable. "I broke our promise. The one the three of us made. That we'd never sleep with an omega. Not unless she was ours."
The silence after that is a different kind.
Arden doesn't move.
"I know what that promise meant," I say. "I know what it cost all three of us to make it. I know how long you and Chase have held to it." I sound like I’m fraying at the edges now. "I believed in it. Istillbelieve in it. The idea that there's something sacred about saving that for the person you're supposed to have. That it means something." I shake my head. "And I broke it. In a rut, in a room I shouldn't have been in, with an omega who wasn't mine. Because I wasn't strong enough."
Arden is still standing in front of me. Still not moving.
"So not only did I stand by and fail Vee," I continue, "not only did I keep myself at arm's length from her because I was scared and I called it principle when it was cowardice—" My voice drops. "I ruined myself anyway. For nothing. For an omega I didn't even love."
I look up at him.
"You and Chase deserve an omega. You've waited for her. You've held to the promise. You've done everything right." My throat closes. "I won't stand in your pack as the alpha who failed and make you carry that weight when you could have something clean. I won't take that from you."
For a long moment Arden doesn't speak.
Then he moves.
He's in front of me in two steps and his hands frame my face before I can draw another breath.
"Stop," he says.
Low. Controlled. The register he keeps beneath everything else, the one that makes the air in the room change.
"Arden—"
"Stop talking and listen to me."
His thumbs press against my jaw. His eyes are right there, close enough that I can see all of it—the anger, the grief, and something underneath both that I don't have a name for.
"You listen to me," he says. "Because I am only going to say this once and you are going to hear it."
I wait.
"You were in an impossible situation. You were in rut, in a room full of heat hormones, with two alphas already gone and a pack lead who deliberately engineered the conditions to break you." He sounds controlled but barely. "If it had been me in that room, if it had been Chase… do you think the result would have been different?"
"You're stronger than—"
"I am not stronger than a rut I didn't choose in a situation I couldn't control." His grip tightens slightly. "And if the positions were reversed, if it had been me or Chase who'd broken the promise under those exact conditions—would you be sitting here telling us to leave the pack? Would you, Jas?"
The question hits.
I don't answer.
