Chapter 16
brYLEE
The question cleaves straight through me.
Are you Teddie?
Time doesn’t stop—but it fractures, splintering into sharp, uneven pieces that lodge beneath my skin.
The hospital room blurs at the edges, whites bleeding into grays, like my mind is throwing up fog to soften the impact of the moment I’ve been running from since the day I pulled my brother’s uniform over my head and became a lie with a pulse.
Ridge is watching me too closely. Not with suspicion. Not with anger.
With patience.
Waiting is somehow worse. Waiting means he already knows the truth lives somewhere between us, feral and dangerous and starving to be seen.
My lungs burn. I realize I haven’t breathed since he asked.
“Yes,” I say.
The word is small. Fragile. It feels like glass in my mouth. But it lands between us like a gunshot, loud and final and impossible to take back.
Ridge doesn’t move. Not a muscle. His eyes darken, sharpening into that lethal alpha focus that once made entire rooms at Eros Academy fall silent, that had instructors stepping aside and cadets straightening without realizing why.
His hand tightens around the edge of the bed, knuckles whitening, tendons standing out like cables under strain.
But he doesn’t look away from me.
“Yes,” I repeat, my voice steadier now that the truth has cracked the dam and there’s no point pretending I can hold it back anymore. “I’m Teddie.”
The silence stretches. Thick. Heavy. It presses against my ears until it hums.
Ridge exhales slowly, carefully, like if he breathes wrong, something vital will shatter.
“Your brother,” he says.
Not a question.
“Teddie is my twin, as you know.” I nod. “The prince. The heir. The alpha everyone thinks is strong enough to rule a kingdom someday.”
My hands tremble in my lap. I lace my fingers together, nails biting into skin, trying to anchor myself in the present instead of the years of lies stacked like corpses behind me. Ridge notices anyway. He always notices.
“He’s dying,” I say.
The word feels obscene. Permanent. Like I’ve spoken a curse into the room.
“Terminal,” I continue, because once I start, I can’t stop.
“His organs are failing one by one, slow and cruel. And no one outside our family knows—though our parents like to pretend he’s perfectly fine.
I don’t know if they’re delusional or if they simply want it to be true so badly that they’re willing it to become reality.
The people see a golden prince who smiles and charms and waves from balconies.
They don’t see the way his hands shake when he lifts a glass.
Or how he coughs blood into silk handkerchiefs and smiles through it. ”
Ridge’s jaw tightens, a muscle jumping like it wants to snap.
“Our parents refuse treatment because my mother doesn’t believe it’s serious,” I go on, bitterness seeping through the cracks despite my effort to stay composed.
“The only cure that exists was developed by our enemies. Medicines can be smuggled in…sometimes. But they’re not enough.
And will my parents negotiate with their sworn enemies? Absolutely not.”
Anger flashes in Ridge’s eyes—hot, immediate, incandescent. It rolls off him in waves, a barely leashed thing that has broken bones and spilled blood before.
It almost makes me smile.
“When our parents told him he had to attend Eros,” I say, my voice softening as memories surge forward, sharp and merciless, “he couldn’t even leave the damn bed. He was a shell of my brother.”
I look down at my hands, at the faint scars and calluses that don’t belong on a princess. I remember how they shook as I packed my brother’s things. His uniforms. His clothes. His clunky boots.
“So I went instead.”
The words feel inevitable. Like gravity.
Ridge’s brow furrows slightly. “You chose that?”
“I chose him,” I correct quietly.
I swallow and keep going before fear can wrap its hands around my throat and drag me under.
“I bound my chest until breathing hurt,” I say.
“Until every inhale felt like defiance. I wore a suit layered so thick it hid every curve, every softness, every truth. I practiced his walk until my hips forgot how to sway. Lowered my voice until my throat burned. I learned his temper. His silences. I learned how to take hits meant for him.”
The academy crashes over me in brutal flashes—training mats soaked with sweat, classrooms that smelled like testosterone and cruelty, the way alphas slammed me into the ground harder because I was the crowned prince and they hated me for it.
“I wore a wig every day,” I continue. “Sweated through it during drills. And the scent blocker—gods, that awful perfume.” A shaky laugh slips free before I can stop it.
“It burned my nose, clung to my skin like poison. But it masked my scent well enough that no one realized I was an omega standing in the middle of a den of predators.”
Ridge stiffens, something dark crossing his face. “We were cruel to you.”
“Yes,” I admit.
There’s no point denying it. The truth doesn’t bruise any worse than the memories already do.
“To him. To Teddie.” I force myself to meet his eyes, even as tears blur my vision. “You didn’t see me. Not then.”
I blink hard, but tears spill anyway, hot and traitorous.
“And then the bond started pulling at me,” I whisper. “Every instinct screaming that you were mine and I was yours, and I was trapped inside a lie so deep I didn’t know how to climb out without burying everyone I loved.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Ridge’s voice is rough, scraped raw.
“Because if I did,” I say, “the whole world would come down on us. The academy. The crown. My brother’s safety.” My hand presses to my chest, feeling my heart slam against my ribs like it’s trying to escape. “And because I was scared.”
The confession hurts more than the lies ever did.
“Scared that once you knew the truth, you’d hate me,” I whisper. “That you’d see betrayal instead of survival. A manipulative omega instead of a girl trying to keep her brother alive.”
Silence again.
But this one is different. It doesn’t feel like a blade hovering over my neck. It feels like space.
Ridge reaches for me, slow and deliberate, giving me time to pull away. Giving me a choice.
I don’t take it.
He cups the back of my neck, thumb warm against my pulse, grounding me in the here and now. “You carried all of that alone.”
“Not alone,” I say softly. “I had Harper, and Colter, and—”
His eyes sharpen instantly. “Colter?”
Incredulity rings through his voice like a death knell.
“He discovered the truth,” I confess, a brittle laugh slipping free. “He’s more perceptive than anyone gives him credit for.”
A storm of emotions crosses Ridge’s face—disbelief, jealousy, hurt, and reluctant understanding. It twists something in my chest.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “For lying. For risking you. For dragging you into something this dangerous.”
His grip tightens, careful of both of our injuries but unyielding in intent. Protective. Certain.
“You didn’t drag me anywhere,” he murmurs. “You survived a system designed to break you.”
The words crack something open inside me.
I cling to him, shaking, exhaustion crashing over me now that the truth is finally free, no longer rotting inside my chest.
“I don’t know what happens next,” I admit.
He presses his lips to my hair, a quiet, grounding promise. “Then we figure it out. Together.”
And for the first time since I became my brother—since I erased myself piece by piece in the name of love and duty—I let myself believe that maybe, just maybe, I don’t have to do this alone anymore.