I didn't claim Marie because I was already uncertain. Not about the scent match—the pull was real, overwhelming, consuming. But about Marie herself. About what she'd done and why.
The scent match didn't explain that. And I didn't have an answer for it.
So I waited. And called it virtue.
I push back from the desk and head down the hall to Marie's room.
I knock once. Don't wait.
She's by the window. The afternoon light catches in her hair. She's been crying, tear tracks still visible, and the familiar alpha surge rises—my pack, my omega, let me fix it—and I stamp it down.
I realize… I can do this. I couldalwaysdo this.
That's what I've been sitting with for the last few days. The fact that I could always do it and I chose not to. Every time I wanted to check on Vee and told myself to wait. Every time I heard Drake or Eli push back and used my dominance to stop them. Every time the scent match pull made me feel like I had no choice when I had the same choice I always have.
I just liked the feeling of no choice better.
"I need answers, Marie."
She barely looks at me. "What does it matter now, Ragon? It's already decided."
"It matters to me."
She doesn't respond.
"Why didn't you want to be claimed?" I ask. "During your heat. Why didn't you push for it?"
She sighs. "Because I never cared about that."
"But I thought—"
"You thought a lot of things I needed you to think."
"You begged us to bond you in for months. You tried to get us to bond you without Vee. You nagged me about it incessantly. But when it came down to it… you didn't want it?"
"You'd just found out that I lied. I was out of my mind with heat, but I knew enough to know you might claim her next. Right after me. And I couldn't—" She stops. "I didn't want that."
"So it was about keeping her out. Making sure she never got what you had."
Marie is quiet.
"That's it, isn't it?" My voice sounds hollow even to me. "You wanted to be the only one. You couldn't stand sharing us with her."
She looks at me. And there's something in her expression I can't read—not guilt exactly. Something more complicated than that.
"Sure, Ragon," she says. "That's it."
"Why? This is more than just jealousy."
She turns from the window. "Are you still sending me back?"
"Yes."
"Then it doesn't matter."
I watch her. The stillness of her form and how she's choosing what to show me and what to hold back. She's been doing it since she arrived and I was too deep in the biology to read it clearly.
"One thing I still don't understand," I say. "If it was about pushing her out, you were already winning. You had us. You had me. She was fading on her own." I pause. "So why the zoo? Why climb over a railing and risk your own neck? Why go that far?"
