Chapter 38
THIRTY-EIGHT
FINN
I know before I see her. The scent reaches me the moment I step through the kitchen door; warmth beneath an ocean breeze, light and sun-touched with that subtle floral sweetness that never overwhelms but lingers just long enough to sink under the skin.
It threads through the air and settles low in my lungs, unmistakable and undeniable.
Omega, undoubtedly.
The word forms instinctively, not from logic but from something older and more primitive. Mine follows just as quickly, territorial and uninvited. I don’t allow it to show on my face, but my body has already registered what my mind is still catching up to.
She’s standing at the counter with her back to me, sleeves pushed up as though she’s trying to ground herself in something ordinary.
Morning light catches in her hair and traces the curve of her neck, and my gaze fixes on the faint mark just beneath her ear.
I wish it were my mark. The sight of it tightens something deep in my chest – not jealousy, not exactly, but recognition.
I hadn’t understood the full weight of it then. I do now.
Lani is an omega, and she’s half-bonded to someone else, someone who isn’t me, and yet every fibre of my body screams that she is mine.
“Morning,” I say, keeping my tone even.
She turns, and for a fraction of a second relief flickers across her face before she smooths it away. Damn, I’ve missed her. “You’re back,” she says, and there’s accusation there, but also something softer she doesn’t quite manage to conceal.
“Yes.” It feels insufficient. It doesn’t account for the distance I put between us, or the silence that followed. “For good this time. No more being called away on business on behalf of my father, thank god.”
“That’s…good. I missed you.”
I step closer, slower than instinct demands, watching her carefully. The shift is subtle but immediate. Her breathing deepens. Her scent warms, rounding at the edges in response to proximity alone. She didn’t just miss me. Her body did too.
“You’re presenting,” I say quietly.
She exhales, a mix of irritation and resignation. “I know.”
“It’s stronger than before.” I shouldn’t phrase it clinically, but it’s the truth. “You feel different.”
Her jaw tightens. “That’s been established.”
Before I can respond, Sol walks into the kitchen, and the air changes again. Lani reacts to him differently – her shoulders lower, tension easing as though something in her recognises steadiness. It’s not dramatic, not obvious to anyone who isn’t watching closely. But I am watching closely.
When Kai enters a moment later, restless energy preceding him as always, her scent brightens sharply, reactive and electric. Koa follows more quietly, and that brightness steadies into something warmer, deeper, almost contented.
I don’t miss the pattern.
The realisation settles slowly, heavy and undeniable. She isn’t bonding selectively. It isn’t narrowing. She isn’t choosing. Whatever’s happening inside her isn’t pulling toward one of us – it’s stretching, widening, finding space for all of us in ways I don’t know how to process.
For a fleeting moment something possessive pushes forward in me – a primitive instinct that demands exclusivity, clarity, order. I suppress it. This isn’t about preference. It’s about reality.
Lani is an omega, and she’s making us a pack, whether we want to be or not.
Don’t get me wrong, my dream was always to pack up with Koa and Kai – they’re my best friends – but I never expected Sol to be a part of that equation, as he barely seemed to tolerate us.
And that’s without taking my father’s demands into account too.
Lani complicates things. But something in me says that she’s more than worth it.
“Outside,” I say, my voice calm but firm.
Kai frowns immediately. “What?”
“Now.”
Sol remains where he is, watching, assessing. He’s not part of this particular mess.
Lani’s gaze flicks between us. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing dramatic,” I reply, though I can feel the tension thickening. “I just need a word with Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum.”
She doesn’t look convinced, but she doesn’t stop us either.
Instead she mutters, “I think of them more as the Chuckle Brothers, actually.”
I laugh.
The terrace air is cool, but it does nothing to relieve the pressure building beneath my ribs. Kai folds his arms defensively. Koa watches me with quiet apprehension.
“We end it,” I say without preamble.
Kai’s jaw tightens. “End what?”
“The bet.” I hold his gaze. “It stops now.”
He exhales sharply. “We already knew that.”
“Knowing it and formally ending it are not the same thing,” I reply. “It started as a game. It isn’t one anymore.”
Koa nods once, slowly. “It was stupid.”
“Yes.” I don’t soften the word. “And it isn’t harmless now. Lani’s presenting as an omega. She’s emotionally invested with all of us. I don’t want her to get hurt.”
“So are we,” Kai shoots back.
I don’t deny it. “That’s precisely the issue.”
Silence stretches between us, heavier than it has any right to be. I don’t regret calling it. I regret not doing it sooner.
“We tell her,” I say quietly. “All of it. No more hiding behind it.”
The terrace door slides open behind us.
“Tell me what?”
Her voice isn’t loud, but it cuts cleanly through the air.
We turn too late.
She’s standing in the doorway, pale but blazing with something far sharper than confusion. Hurt pulses through her scent – not heat, not flare. Hurt.
“How long?” she asks.
Kai mutters a curse under his breath.
“Lani—” I begin.
“How long,” she repeats, voice rising now, “have I been part of a bet?”
The word lands like impact. There’s no point attempting to dilute it.
“It started before—” Koa begins.
“Before what?” she demands. “Before I kissed you? Before I started presenting?” Her gaze swings to him, then snaps to me. “Or before I slept with you?”
The accusation isn’t screamed. It doesn’t need to be.
“You left,” she says to me, quieter now. “Was it revenge? Is this because I left that beach party before you woke up?”
For a moment I genuinely don’t understand what she’s referencing. Then she says it.
“The blonde. The one you slept with and didn’t even bother to look for the next day. That was me. All this time we were hanging out and getting closer and you still didn’t figure it out.”
The memory surfaces in sharp fragments – sand under my palms, early light over tangled hair, an empty space beside me when I woke. I had assumed she’d left because that’s what people do after nights like that.
My stomach drops.
“That was you.”
It isn’t a question. It’s a stunned recognition. And yet…it’s right. Blindingly obvious now. The pull I felt towards them both. Of course. Because both women were the same, and both were mine.
She laughs, brittle and wounded. “Yes.”
The weight of it settles immediately. I didn’t forget her. I just didn’t recognise her when she stood in front of me again. When I touched her again. The realisation is sickening.
“And you didn’t even know,” she continues. “Even when we slept together a second time.”
Kai goes silent. Koa looks stricken.
“Was this part of a long game?” she asks me. “Humiliate the girl who left before you could?”
“No.” The denial is immediate and rougher than I intend. “I didn’t know.”
“That’s worse.”
She’s right.
“I had feelings for you,” she says more quietly now. “Before I knew about any of this…presenting stuff.”
The words land deeper than the accusation.
She turns on Kai, reminding him of the lie with the twin switch. On Koa, reminding him she trusted him to be different. Neither of them defend themselves convincingly.
Then her gaze shifts toward the doorway. “And you?”
Sol steps forward, composed as ever. “I wasn’t part of it.”
She studies him carefully before nodding once. “No. You wouldn’t be.”
The trust in that single sentence is sharper than anything else she’s said.
“But it doesn’t matter,” she continues, drawing herself upright. “You were all out here discussing when to call it off. Like I’m an event. A strategy. Something to manage.”
“That’s not what this is,” I say, though even to my own ears it sounds insufficient.
“It was,” she replies.
There’s no argument left to make.
“You don’t get to decide when I become real,” she says, her voice steady despite the instability in her scent. “You don’t get to upgrade me from a bet to serious because it got complicated. Or because biology did.”
She takes a slow breath. “I need space. I’m going home. Do not follow me.”
None of us try to stop her.
The front door closes with a sound that echoes far louder than it should.
Kai exhales slowly. Koa stares at the ground. Sol’s expression remains unreadable.
And I stand there with the clarity of two brutal truths settling in my chest.
She was the girl from the beach.
And I let her walk away.
Twice.
This isn’t a miscalculation.
It’s catastrophic damage.
And I don’t know if she’ll give me the chance to repair it.