15. Tristan
TRISTAN
The penthouse feels like a fucking tomb tonight.
I watch her by the windows, silhouetted against the city lights, and she’s nothing like what I expected.
Nothing like the girl who disappeared after graduation. Nothing like the version of her I’ve imagined in her absence.
Black clothes cling to a body that’s all lean muscle and dangerous curves now, every line speaking of discipline and violence learned through necessity. Her honey-blonde hair is woven into a French braid so tight it pulls at her temples, and my fingers itch to set it free.
Half a decade without us has turned her into a girl that’s sharp and deadly, broadcasting an unspoken warning to stay away, which makes my blood run hot and my hands ache with the need to touch her.
She’s scanning the room again, the third time since we came inside.
Always cataloging exits, always measuring distances.
Someone taught her to think tactically, and I want to know who.
I want to thank them for making our sweet little bee so beautifully paranoid and protective of herself, but I despise that she needed to.
“The balcony,” she says. “Fresh air.”
“Excellent suggestion, sweetheart.”
The endearment rolls off my tongue like honey laced with arsenic. She flinches—just the tiniest jerk of her shoulders, but I catch it. I’m pleased she still reacts to me.
She follows me outside but positions herself strategically across the seating area.
Owen’s vibrating with restless energy, like he’s holding himself back from lunging forward and wrapping her in his arms… or throwing her over his shoulder and vanishing, consequences be damned.
Freddie keeps opening his mouth, then shutting it again. Like he wants to comfort her but knows it won’t land.
Weller’s gone perfectly still.
We’re all on the verge. Not just from wanting to touch her.
From needing to. Needing to convince ourselves that she’s real, that she’s here, that she made it out of the fire in one piece.
We want to relearn everything about her, map every new mark on her skin, memorize all of the changes to a girl we knew everything about.
But she radiates a warning now that’s wild and volatile.
She sits like a creature not used to cages, too sharp to be handled without injury, too beautiful to look away from.
One wrong move, and she might vanish.
Move too fast, and she might bite.
Correction: She definitely will bite.
The bite marks she gave me send a slow burn down my spine, branding my body in a way that feels almost sacred.
My thumb rubs across a deep scratch, loving the sharp reminder that she was here, furious and alive.
I’ve noticed Owen doing the same throughout the evening—our hunger a shared, wordless madness.
Once we’re all settled, I break the silence.
“Tell us what happened to you after graduation, Bianca.”
She goes still. Her hands clench into fists, knuckles tight, then slowly, deliberately, she forces them open. One finger at a time. Until they rest flat on her thighs.
I track every detail—the slow rise of her chest, the careful rhythm of her breathing, which she appears to be counting.
“Which part?” Her voice is cool. Detached. “When I woke up with my skull pounding like someone used it for target practice? Or when I tried reaching all of you that morning and got nothing but silence?”
“Jesus, Bianca...” Freddie breathes the words like a confession. He leans forward, hand reaching before he catches himself. It hovers there for a moment, uncertain, then lowers back to his lap, empty.
“We didn’t know,” he says softly. “We couldn’t answer because we were...”
“Trapped with her. I know… you told me that.” She finishes for him, tone flat… like she’s reading from a report that has nothing to do with her.
But her body betrays her.
Her fingers press hard into her thigh, just for a second. A tell. Her left hand starts tracing a small circle against her leg, over and over, like she doesn’t even know it’s happening.
Owen leans in, elbows braced on his knees. The muscle in his jaw ticks once… then again. His hands open and close as if he doesn’t trust them, like they might fly into motion if he gives them permission. His eyes stay locked on her.
“Mom was rushing me to finish packing for the trip.” She shrugs, but it doesn’t land right. Too loose. Too casual. “I kept calling. Kept texting. Right up until we lost service. I didn’t want to leave without... talking to you. But I had to anyway.”
The image knocks the breath out of the room. Her alone, panicked, reaching out with everything she had left. And none of us there to answer.
None of us even knew.
“We never got our phones back. They gave us new ones.” Weller’s gaze drops to his hands, fingers flexing slowly like he can still feel the weight of that moment. “When we tried to contact you after... it was already too late.”
“Yeah. It was.” Her words slide in like a blade.
Weller leans forward. Not much… just enough to shift the energy in the room. The air changes with him. His focus narrows until it’s only on her, every inch of him locked in.
“Please tell us what else happened, Bianca.”
She doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she watches him. Watches all of us. Her head tilts, thoughtful, like she’s weighing just how much truth she’s willing to hand over.
Her eyes move from one face to the next, cool and unreadable, those piercing blue eyes that used to soften when she looked at us. Now they just burn.
I see her tongue flick out to wet her bottom lip, a quick, involuntary gesture that betrays the stillness in her frame. She looks calm, but it’s a lie. And we all know it.
“You want the gory details?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes flicker. Just for a second. Not softness. Nothing close. It’s more like a spark flaring to life behind the flatness. The way her mouth curves at one corner… a faint, cynical smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.
“Mom dragged me on the hiking trip,” she says, voice light. Too light. “Said I needed fresh air and perspective. You know, classic post-graduation soul-cleansing bullshit.”
She shifts in the chair, fingers tapping a slow, steady rhythm against her thigh. Like she’s keeping herself tethered.
“No cell service. No contact with the outside world. Perfect setup for a meltdown.”
She lets that hang.
“A few days in, I talked my mom into letting me hike up this ridge that supposedly had reception… if the wind cooperated and the gods felt generous.” Her tone goes light, almost teasing, but the humor has teeth.
“Hours of uphill hell later, it became painfully obvious that a body built for bookstores and bubble baths wasn’t meant for that kind of trek. But I made it.”
My chest pulls tight, splintering under the weight of it.
She shouldn’t have needed those skills. Ever. Bianca was ours to protect. Mine . I made a promise to myself that I would always take care of her. Yet now, she’s sitting before us like brutal evidence of how spectacularly we failed.
“When I got the signal...” She pauses, the pain in her eyes obvious. Her fingers still against her leg, frozen mid-tap like even the memory has teeth. “Whitney had been busy.”
Freddie leans forward, the tension bleeding out of him in sharp, visible waves. “What did she say?”
“Text first. All sunshine and emojis.” Her voice softens, too smooth to be anything but a blade. “Said how you helped her through her heat. How you bonded her. How happy she was. Said she hoped I wasn’t too hurt, considering my little crush.”
Her smile is brittle, pressed into the shape of amusement. “Very thoughtful of her to check on my feelings.”
Owen’s whole body vibrates with violence that is ready to blow at any given moment. “I’m going to ki––”
“You want to know the cherry on top?” She cuts him off. Her voice drops, becoming flat, monotone. “Before the graduation party... Montgomery pulled me into his home office to share lab results.”
The sudden shift in topic makes all of us go still.
“He told me I would never awaken.” She says it like she’s reciting a grocery list, emotionless and detached. “That my omega is damaged and failed to develop properly.”
Something dark and primal rises in my chest, a rage so pure it burns.
Her fingers trace invisible patterns on the chair arm, but her face remains impassive. “No scent. No heat. Never. And...” She hesitates, just for a heartbeat. “No children. Ever.”
“That lying fucking bastard,” I spit, the words barely recognizable through the fury coating my tongue.
The anger burns through me. He did something to her.
The thought of Montgomery laying his hands on her, altering her body without her knowledge, stealing something so fundamental from her…
it makes me want to tear him apart with my bare hands.
To make him suffer in ways that would test the limits of human endurance.
But beneath that is a deeper certainty… more primal and absolute. Awakened or not, she is ours. Mine . Nothing Montgomery did could change that truth. Her ability to bear children, to scent-mark, to experience a heat… none of that defines her worth to me. To us.
“He did this to you deliberately,” Weller states, his voice cutting through the room like a shard of ice. “It was all part of the scheme.”
The others look downright murderous.
“He wasn’t just your doctor,” Freddie scowls. “He was manipulating your treatment, keeping you from us.”
I watch her throat work as she swallows, something vulnerable flashing across her face before she can hide it again.
“Even if that’s true...” Her voice wavers. “What if whatever he did is permanent? What if I really can’t awaken? Ever?”
The question hangs in the air, raw and honest, before she shutters her expression once more. She touches her neck gently, and I grimace.
“We’ll make him pay for everything he did to you,” Owen promises, deadly intent in every syllable.
“It’s irrelevant now.”