I want to feel this. Even if it scares me. Even if it's dangerous.
Even if three alphas in the house can smell exactly what I've done. Because I know it’s leaking out. There’s no hiding what’s happening to me again.
The water catches the last of the light. I press my palms against my thighs and breathe and wait.
Zero arrives first.
Because Zero always knows.
I hear him before I see him—footsteps on the slope, unhurried, the tread of a man who's been tracking a scent and isn't surprised by where it led. He stops at the top of the hill. Hands in his pockets. Dark silhouette against the darkening sky. He doesn't speak. Just stands there, watching me, the dying light catching his jaw and his cheekbones and those dark eyes that see everything I try to hide.
Bane next. From the tree line on the east side. Quieter. I catch his scent before his shape—amber and sandalwood drifting through the evening air, warm and grounding. He steps out of the shadows and stops ten feet away. Close but not touching. Every line of his body says he wants to close the distance.
He doesn't.
He looks at me. The hazel eyes open and searching. Asking the question with his body that he won't ask with his mouth:are you okay? Do you need me? Can I come closer?
Atlas last.
He comes up the path from the house, still in the shirt he wore to dinner, sleeves rolled to the elbows. Slower than the others. More deliberate. He stops behind them. Arms at his sides. Gray eyes on me.
My chest tightens. Atlas has been the hardest to read since the night I told him about Bane. The composure locked down tighter than before, the touches fewer, the conversations shorter. He hasn't pulled away exactly—he's still there, still present, still the steady hand on the wheel. But there's a distance that wasn't there before. A coolness I can't tell is restraint or retreat. And I've been lying awake at three in the morningwondering if I've already lost him. If my honesty cost me his affection.
He stands at the edge of the path and looks at me and I can't read his face. Can't tell if he came down here because he wants to be here or because the scent dragged him.
Both, maybe. Atlas has always been both.
The four of us. The pond. The last of the light. Three brothers in a line behind me, drawn to me just as fiercely as I’m drawn to each of them.
Zero breaks the silence.
“You stopped taking them."
His head tilts. And the words land differently with all three of them here—Atlas's chin lifting, Bane's posture going rigid, the shared understanding settling over them at once.
The omega's suppressants are in a dresser drawer. The omega chose this.
Nobody asks why. Nobody moves closer. They hold their positions—hill, tree line, path—and wait. Giving me the space I didn't ask for. The space that's harder to navigate than any of their hands ever were.
"I know what's been happening." My voice comes out rough. I clear my throat. Try again. "Between you three. I've seen it."
I run my fingers through my hair, trying to let out the nervous energy. It’s no use.
"I've seen the way you look at each other when you think I'm not paying attention. Bane's jaw when Zero gets close to me. Atlas going still when Bane makes me laugh. Zero watching both of you from doorways." I swallow. "I've been reading this room since the day I walked into it."
My hands are shaking. I press them against my thighs.
"I've been trying to choose." The words taste like ash. "I thought that's what I was supposed to do. Pick one. Let theothers go. Be normal about it." A breath that shakes on the way out. "Whatever normal means when you're in love with your stepbrothers."
The word lands.Love.I didn't plan to say it. Didn't rehearse it. It just fell out, and now it's sitting in the air between us and I can't shove it back in. I clench my jaw.
Push through it.
"I tried. I've been lying in my room running the math, trying to figure out which one of you I could walk away from. And I can't. I can't do it." I stop. Start over. "Atlas, you—" I look at him on the path. He's so still. "You're the only person who's ever made me believe that staying somewhere was worth the risk."
His jaw tightens. Barely. But I see it. Hands clenched. Eyes burning.
"Zero." The silhouette on the hill. "You know me. The real version, not the one I show people. And you're still here."
