Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
AVA
I followed the schedule. Not because I wanted to. Not because I'd given up. I followed it because Ethan was right—fighting every small thing was exhausting, and I needed to conserve my energy for the battles that mattered.
That's what I told myself, anyway.
The days took on a rhythm. Wake at seven.
Shower. Breakfast with all four of them, the morning light streaming through the windows, the smell of coffee and whatever Mason had decided to cook filling the air.
Then an hour in the library—my reward for compliance, Ethan had said, though it felt more like a lifeline than a treat.
The library was my favorite room in the cabin.
Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined three walls, stuffed with everything from classic literature to modern thrillers.
A leather armchair sat by the window, worn soft from years of use, with a reading lamp positioned perfectly to cast warm light across the pages.
I spent my hour there every morning, curled in that chair, losing myself in someone else's story.
For sixty minutes, I wasn't a captive Omega.
I wasn't bonded to four men I was supposed to hate.
I was just a girl reading a book, the way I'd been before any of this started.
It was the closest thing to peace I'd found since they took me.
After the library came exercise, a yoga routine Ethan had designed, meant to keep me healthy without giving me the strength or stamina to run.
I did it in the living room, rolling out a mat on the hardwood floor, moving through poses while one of them always watched.
Usually Caleb, standing silent by the window, his ice-blue eyes tracking my every movement with that patient intensity that made my skin prickle.
I tried to hate his watching. Tried to feel violated, surveilled, controlled. Instead, I felt... safe.
The realization hit me one morning, two weeks into the routine, as I moved from downward dog into warrior pose.
Caleb stood in his usual spot, massive arms crossed, scarred face impassive.
The morning sun caught the silver in his dark hair, highlighted the hard lines of his jaw.
He wasn't watching me like a prisoner. He was watching me like something precious. Something he would die to protect.
Some treacherous part of me responded to that.
Some deep, Omega part that I'd spent years suppressing whispered that this was right.
That being watched over, guarded, protected—this was what I was made for.
I stumbled out of the pose, my breath catching, my heart racing with something that wasn't quite fear.
"You okay?" Caleb asked, his deep voice rough with concern, his massive body tensing like he was ready to catch me if I fell.
"Fine," I managed, my voice steadier than I felt. "Just lost my balance." He nodded, settling back into his watchful stillness, and I forced myself to continue the routine. My hands were shaking.
I wrote about it in the journal that night.
Something is happening to me, I wrote, the pen scratching across the expensive paper. I'm starting to feel things I shouldn't feel. Safe when Caleb watches me. Amused when Leo makes jokes. Curious when Ethan explains things. Warm when Mason smiles.
I hate it. I hate that my body is betraying me, that the bonds are doing exactly what they were designed to do. I hate that I'm starting to forget what it felt like to be alone. The worst part is—I don't miss the loneliness as much as I should.
I slammed the journal shut, shoving it under my pillow, my chest tight with panic. This was the conditioning Ethan had warned me about. The slow erosion of my resistance, the gradual replacement of hatred with something softer. I couldn't let it happen. Couldn't let them win.
The next morning, I tried to rebuild my walls. Sat at breakfast with my jaw clenched, my eyes fixed on my plate, refusing to engage with any of them.
"Someone's in a mood," Leo observed, his gray eyes dancing with amusement as he slid into the chair beside me, close enough that his arm brushed mine. "Bad dreams?"
"Don't talk to me," I said flatly, not looking at him, stabbing at my eggs with unnecessary force.
"Ouch," Leo replied, pressing a hand to his chest in mock wounded feelings, his lips curling into that infuriating smirk.
"And here I was going to offer to make you a special coffee.
That fancy latte thing you like, with the foam art.
" I froze, my fork halfway to my mouth. He knew how I liked my coffee.
Of course he did—they knew everything about me, every preference catalogued during years of surveillance. The thought should have disgusted me.
Instead, I felt a traitorous flutter of... something.
"I don't want your coffee," I said, but my voice came out weaker than I intended.
"Your loss," Leo replied cheerfully, standing and moving to the espresso machine with fluid grace. "I've been practicing my foam art. I can do a pretty decent heart now."
"I don't want a heart," I snapped, finally looking up to glare at him.
"How about a middle finger?" Leo offered, shooting me a grin over his shoulder, his gray eyes sparkling with mischief. "Seems more appropriate to your current mood." I tried not to smile. I really did. My face fought me, the corners of my mouth twitching upward despite my best efforts.
Leo saw it. His grin widened, triumphant and delighted. "There she is. There's our girl."
"I'm not your girl," I said, but the words lacked their usual venom.
"Whatever you say, Red," Leo replied, turning back to the espresso machine, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter.
I looked down at my plate, my face warm, my heart doing things it absolutely should not be doing.
Through the bond, I felt Mason's quiet pleasure at the exchange.
Felt Ethan's clinical satisfaction. Felt Caleb's deep contentment.
They were happy because I'd almost smiled.
Because for one moment, I'd forgotten to hate them.
The walls I'd tried to rebuild crumbled before they were even half-built.
The afternoons were harder.
That was when I had individual time with each of them—an hour apiece, scheduled and unavoidable. Ethan had explained the reasoning: the pack bond needed to develop individually as well as collectively. Each Alpha needed their own connection with me.
I'd argued. Protested. Refused.
Mason had simply said, "It's on the schedule," and that had been the end of it.
My hour with Mason was always in the living room.
He talked—about books, about music, about his work with the family business.
I listened, or pretended not to listen, my arms crossed, my gaze fixed on the window.
Sometimes he asked me questions. About my job before they took me.
About my apartment. About the life I'd built without them.
I never answered. Not at first.
Then, one afternoon, three weeks in, he asked about my mother.
"Do you ever regret it?" Mason asked, his honey-brown eyes soft with genuine curiosity, his voice gentle. "Not going to her funeral?"
My chest tightened. I hadn't talked about my mother since that phone call from David—the one that had shattered my world and sent me spiraling into paranoid isolation for months afterward.
"How do you know about that?" I asked, my voice harsh, defensive.
"David told us," Mason replied simply, his honey-brown eyes holding mine. "He said you hung up on him. Changed your number the next day."
I laughed bitterly, the sound scraping my throat. "I thought that would keep me safe, that if I just cut all ties, disappeared completely, you wouldn't be able to find me." I shook my head. "Stupid. You were watching me the whole time, weren't you?"
"Yes," Mason admitted, no apology in his tone. "We never lost track of you. Not for a single day." The confirmation should have horrified me. Instead, it just felt like another weight added to the pile.
"She stayed behind so I could escape," I heard myself say, the words escaping before I could stop them.
My voice came out rough, hollow. "That was the deal.
She helped me run, gave me money, fake documents, a head start.
But she had to stay. If she disappeared too, you would have known something was wrong. "
Mason was quiet for a moment, processing. Through the bond, I felt his complex tangle of emotions, understanding, something that might have been respect.
"She sacrificed herself for you," Mason said softly. "That's real love."
"She died thinking it worked," I continued, my throat tight, tears burning at the corners of my eyes.
"She died believing I was free. That all her sacrifice meant something.
" I looked up at him, letting him see the fury and grief burning in my gaze.
"And I didn't even go to her funeral. I was too scared.
Too paranoid that it was a trap, that David was trying to lure me back. "
"It wasn't a trap," Mason said quietly.
"I know that now," I replied bitterly. "But I didn't know it then. My mother died alone, was buried alone, and I wasn't there. Because of you. Because of what you made me."
"You made a choice," Mason said, his voice gentle but not letting me off the hook. "To stay away. To protect yourself."
"A choice you forced me into," I shot back, anger flaring hot and familiar. "If you hadn't been hunting me, I could have gone to her when she got sick. Could have held her hand at the end. Could have said goodbye."
"Yes," Mason agreed, no defensiveness in his tone. "That's true. We took that from you." I stared at him, thrown by the admission. I'd expected excuses, justifications, the usual twisted logic they used to explain away their cruelty. Not this. Not simple acknowledgment.