Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
FINN
I know something’s wrong the moment I step inside.
Not because anyone says anything. Not because the house is loud or tense or obviously fractured. It’s subtler than that. The air feels…occupied. Like it’s been claimed in a way I didn’t witness but can still feel echoing through the walls.
I stop just inside the door, keys still in my hand.
An omega’s scent hits me.
Not sharp. Not aggressive. Soft. Warmed by skin and fabric and security. It threads straight through my chest and settles low, tight enough that I have to brace myself against the doorframe.
Fuck.
I shut my eyes and breathe through it slowly, deliberately. This isn’t real. It can’t be. The guys warned me Lani was staying here, but that heavenly smell can not be coming from her.
She’s been sick. Fevered. Vulnerable. She’s a beta. My instincts are misfiring because that’s what instincts do when they don’t have enough information.
That’s what I tell myself.
It doesn’t help.
I move further into the house with care, like the wrong step might trigger something I won’t be able to put back in its box. Voices drift from upstairs – hers among them, clearer than I expect. Stronger.
She’s awake.
I don’t go to her room. I don’t even go up the stairs. I hover at the bottom, listening like a coward, cataloguing without engaging.
She laughs at something – quiet, dry, unmistakably her – and my body reacts like I’ve been waiting for that sound without knowing it.
I hate that.
Koa passes me on the stairs, pauses when he sees me. His expression shifts – relief, then something more complicated.
“You’re back,” he says.
“Briefly,” I reply, sighing. “I swear my father’s pulling this shit on purpose. How’s Lani?”
He studies me. “She’s a lot better.”
“I can tell.”
He nods, like that answers a question I didn’t ask. “She’s sharp.”
Of course she is.
“Where’s Sol?” I ask.
“Upstairs,” Koa says.
I grunt and head for the kitchen, needing space. Distance. Something solid and ordinary to ground me. I pour a glass of water I don’t drink, just hold, cold biting into my palm.
I shouldn’t be here. But also, I should never have left.
That thought has been circling me for days, growing louder the longer I avoided naming it. I checked out because staying felt dishonest. Because every interaction with her pulled something loose in me I wasn’t prepared to examine.
And because I knew – long before anyone else admitted it – that the bet wasn’t harmless.
I should have pulled out the minute I met Lani.
Spending time getting to know her, caring for her while she was sick, missing her while I was going…
well, let’s just say I no longer have any interest whatsoever in the wager.
Sol finds me still standing there minutes later.
He doesn’t preamble. Never does.
“She’s recovering,” he says. “Which means boundaries matter more than ever.”
I meet his gaze. “You think I don’t know that?”
“I think you disappeared,” he replies evenly. “And now you’re back.”
“I didn’t disappear.”
“You withdrew,” he corrects. “There’s a difference.”
I laugh softly. “Is there?”
He watches me for a moment, eyes sharp, measuring. “You’re not to involve yourself.”
My grip tightens on the glass. “I haven’t.”
“And you won’t,” he continues. “Not emotionally. Not physically. Not until we understand what we’re dealing with.”
I swallow. “And what do you think we’re dealing with?”
Sol doesn’t answer immediately. That hesitation tells me everything.
“She’s perceptive,” he says finally. “And vulnerable. That combination is dangerous.”
“For who?” I ask.
“For all of us,” he says. “If we’re careless.”
I nod once. “I won’t be.” That’s a lie. “I care about her. I was called away but I didn’t want to go, and you know I had no choice.”
Sol leaves, satisfied enough. I stay where I am, staring at the reflection in the glass until it blurs.
I don’t go and see Lani. I hear her, though. Moving around upstairs later, soft footsteps, drawers opening. Life resuming. Each sound lands like a reminder of what I’m pretending not to feel.
That night, when the house finally settles, I lie awake and let myself admit the truth I’ve been avoiding.
I knew.
From the first moment she walked in, something in me recognised her – not in a claiming way, not in the feral sense the others flirt with, but deeper. Quieter. Like a gravity shift. Like my instincts had adjusted course without consulting me.
That’s why I pulled back.
Not because I didn’t care – but because I cared too much, too fast, and I didn’t trust myself not to ruin her with it.
Distance feels like protection.
But distance doesn’t stop bonds from forming.
It only delays the moment they tighten.
And if she really is what my body insists she is, then all I’ve done is leave her to wake up without me there to explain why everything suddenly feels different.
I don’t know which of us that hurts more. But I know this now, with uncomfortable certainty: whatever this becomes, pretending I’m not part of it won’t keep anyone safe.
It will only make the fallout sharper when the truth finally breaks.