Chapter 15 #2
"Final rule," I said, drawing their attention back to me.
"We present a united front. She doesn't play us against each other.
She doesn't get to manipulate one of us into undermining the others.
When she tests boundaries—and she will—we respond together.
Consistently. She needs to understand that fighting one of us means fighting all of us.
" Nods from all three. Through the pack bonds, I felt our unity solidifying—four Alphas aligned in purpose, dedicated to the same goal.
Our Omega. Our mate. Our Ava.
"Now," I said, setting down my empty coffee mug.
"She's been in that bathroom long enough.
Time to remind her that hiding from us doesn't work.
" I walked back down the hallway, my brothers falling into formation behind me.
Caleb moved to his earlier position against the wall, the same spot where he'd spent hours last night, talking to her through the door, patient as stone.
Through the bond, I felt Ava's awareness spike, she knew we were coming. Her despair sharpened into something harder. Defiance.
Good. Defiance was better than despair. Defiance meant she still had fight in her. I knocked on the bathroom door. "Ava. It's time to come out."
Silence.
"I'm not asking." More silence. Then, through the bond: a surge of fury so intense it nearly took my breath away.
"Fuck you," came her voice through the door, hoarse from crying. "Fuck all of you."
I smiled. There she was. My fierce, stubborn, beautiful Omega.
"We can do this the easy way or the hard way," I said calmly. "The easy way is you open the door and come out on your own. The hard way is Caleb breaks it down and carries you out."
"Try it and I'll claw your eyes out," she snarled. Behind me, Caleb made a low sound—not quite a laugh, but close. Through the bond, I felt his appreciation for her fire. He'd told me last night that he loved her defiance, even when it was directed at him. Especially when it was directed at him.
"You have thirty seconds," I said. "Then we're coming in.
" Twenty-eight seconds of silence. Then, at twenty-nine, the lock clicked open.
The door swung inward, revealing Ava standing in the doorway.
Her red hair was tangled, her green eyes swollen from crying, her neck still bandaged where she'd clawed at my mark. She looked exhausted, furious, broken.
She looked beautiful.
"Happy now?" she spat, her voice dripping with venom.
"Getting there," I replied evenly. I held out my hand.
"Come on. You need to eat." She stared at my hand like it was a snake.
Through the bond, I felt her revulsion, and underneath it, against her will, the pull.
The need. Her body wanted to take my hand, wanted to let me lead her, wanted to submit to her Prime.
She was fighting it with everything she had.
"I'm not hungry," she said flatly.
"I didn't ask if you were hungry. I said you need to eat." I kept my hand extended, patient. "The rules are simple, Avalon. You eat meals with us. You sleep in the nest. You allow physical contact. Follow the rules, and this is easy. Fight them, and it gets harder."
"Rules," she repeated, her voice bitter. "You kidnapped me, claimed me against my will, and now you want me to follow rules?"
"Yes."
She laughed—a sharp, broken sound. "And if I don't?"
"Consequences." I let the word hang in the air. "Not punishment. Consequences. There's a difference."
"Enlighten me." She hissed, eyes blazing.
"Punishment is about causing pain. Consequences are about teaching.
" I took a step closer, and she flinched back.
"If you refuse to eat, we feed you. If you refuse to come out of the bathroom, we go in and get you.
If you try to hurt yourself again—" My eyes dropped to the bandage on her neck.
"—we restrict your freedom until we can trust you. "
Her green eyes blazed with hatred. Through the bond, I felt the force of it—hot and bright and absolutely genuine. I also felt what she didn't want me to feel. The pull. The ember Caleb had talked about—that tiny, flickering remnant of what she'd felt for us before she learned to be afraid.
"Breakfast," I said firmly. "Kitchen. Now." For a long moment, she didn't move. I felt her resistance through the bond—the desperate need to defy me, to prove that she wasn't beaten.
Then her shoulders slumped, just slightly. The exhaustion won out over the defiance. She walked past me toward the kitchen, her spine rigid, her head held high. A queen walking to her execution.
We followed. Caleb fell into step beside me, his massive presence a wall of calm certainty. "She'll come around," he said quietly, so only I could hear.
"I know."
"We just need to remind her of her old feelings once more.." Through the bond, I felt his patience, vast and deep and utterly unshakeable. He'd waited three years, watching her from the shadows, never breaking. He could wait longer.
We all could.
Ava reached the kitchen and stopped, staring at the table where breakfast was already laid out. Through the bond, I felt her despair. Her fury. The part of her that was screaming to run, to fight, to do anything other than submit.
And underneath all of it, buried deep but not deep enough to hide from us: The pull. The memory of loving us.
We'd fan it back into how it used to be. However long it took.
She was ours now. And we weren't letting go.