Chapter 44
FORTY-FOUR
LANI
The house is quiet again once the medic leaves.
Not peaceful.
Watching.
Sol remains seated on the sofa, bandage stark white against his side. His skin is pale beneath the blood he lost, but his spine is rigid now, his gaze locked on me with something that hasn’t settled since the moment I spoke.
Kai stands to my right, close enough that I can feel the heat of him without touching. Not moving. Not interrupting.
Koa perches on the arm of the sofa beside Sol, still and grounded, but there’s a tension in his shoulders that wasn’t there before.
Finn leans against the sideboard opposite us, arms folded, controlled as ever—
—but not detached.
Not anymore.
The words I said haven’t faded.
They’ve settled.
Changed the air.
My body reacts to it before my mind can catch up. The heat under my skin isn’t chaotic now. It’s focused. Heavy. Coiling low and tight, like something waking with purpose instead of panic.
No one speaks.
They’re waiting.
Not for an explanation.
For confirmation.
I take a breath, slow and deliberate, and let my gaze move between them.
Kai first—fire banked but barely contained.
Koa—steady, but watching me like I might still disappear.
Finn—too still, like he’s holding something in place by force alone.
Then Sol.
Bleeding.
Feral.
Unmoving.
“I’m not walking away from this,” I say.
My voice doesn’t shake.
That’s new.
Something shifts instantly. Not relief. Not quite.
Something sharper.
More dangerous.
Kai’s jaw tightens. Koa’s fingers flex against the sofa. Finn’s posture adjusts just slightly—like he’s bracing without meaning to.
Sol doesn’t move at all.
He just watches me.
“I felt it before the terrace,” I continue, quieter now, but no less certain. “That’s why it hit like it did. Not because of the bet.”
I swallow.
“Because it was already there.”
The admission lands heavier than I expect.
“With you,” I say, looking at Kai. “When you push me and I push back – and I hate that I don’t want you to stop.”
His breath catches, subtle but there.
“With you,” I say to Koa, softer. “When I kissed you and it didn’t feel like a game. It felt…right.”
His fingers tighten slightly against the fabric beneath him.
“With you,” I say, turning to Finn. “Before I knew any of this. I missed you. I just didn’t understand why.”
Something cracks, just for a second, before he locks it down again.
“And with you,” I finish, looking back at Sol. “When you bit me. When you bled for me. When you refused to leave.”
The space between us feels smaller now. Thicker. Like the air itself is reacting.
“I don’t think this is recoil,” I say quietly. “Or sickness. Or something that needs fixing.”
No one interrupts.
No one looks away.
“I think it’s all of you.”
Silence drops hard and fast.
It’s Finn who breaks it.
“We didn’t tell you,” he says carefully.
My gaze flicks to him. “Tell me what?”
Kai exhales slowly, tension bleeding into the sound. “We suspected.”
Koa nods once. “We just didn’t know how to say it.”
Sol’s thumb brushes once against the back of my neck, and this time I don’t even try to hide the way I lean into it.
Finn’s voice is quieter when he speaks again.
“You’re compatible with all of us.”
A beat.
“Scent-match level.”
Not partial.
The words don’t shock me.
They settle.
“That’s not common…is it?” I ask. I may not have been raised as an omega, but I know some things. And scent matches are rare.
“No,” Kai replies. “It isn’t.”
“It’s super rare,” Koa adds quietly.
“It means,” Finn continues, voice steady and deliberate, “that if you choose it…you’d be the centre of our pack.”
My pulse jumps, but not in fear.
“In plain English,” Kai mutters, almost reverent now, “you’d be ours.”
“And we’d be yours,” Koa corrects softly.
I swallow.
“And if I don’t?”
“Then we don’t force it,” Sol says immediately. “We find a way to deal with the bond so that it doesn’t cause any more suffering.”
There is no hesitation in him.
“And then you can walk away,” Finn adds. “And we’ll let you…if that’s what you really want.”
Even now.
Even after blood.
Even after bond.
The choice is still mine.
The heat inside me deepens, no longer wild or turbulent – anchored now in something far steadier than instinct.
“I’m not walking away,” I say.
Kai’s breath leaves him in a slow exhale.
“I don’t want to be cured,” I continue. “I don’t want to be someone’s political solution. I don’t want to be protected from myself.”
I step closer to Sol, ignoring the protest in his eyes as he shifts slightly.
“I want this,” I say, and this time I mean all of it. “The fire. The steadiness. The calm. The feral.”
My hand curls into the fabric at his collar and I pull him closer.
He inhales sharply, pain forgotten.
“If you’ll have me,” I say.
There is no dramatic pause.
No hesitation.
Sol’s forehead rests against mine.
“Already know I could never let you go,” he says.
Kai steps closer, one hand settling at my hip.
Koa’s palm presses warm at my lower back.
Finn moves last, but he moves.
“We choose you,” he says quietly.
The bond doesn’t snap this time.
It settles.
It’s not panic.
It’s inevitable.