Chapter 16 Ronan
RONAN
The house had taken on a quiet, lived-in hum, settling around us as the night stretched on. Despite the place being new to most of us, I’d already grown comfortable here, hoping to overwrite the shadows Kieran’s family had left behind. The others seemed to feel the same.
Steele and Gabe were half-sprawled on the couch, their low voices reviewing our meeting earlier. Bastian hovered near the tall bookshelf along the living room wall, tracing spines like he might actually sit for a second, which we all knew he wouldn’t.
For a moment, it almost looked normal—dangerously domestic. The kind of calm that made you forget what waited outside. I turned back to the counter, laying out dinner supplies. A familiar pattern: the scrape of a knife, the smell of pepper and raw spice. Simple things that steadied my hands.
I took out the steak I’d defrosted that morning, and as I seasoned it, the comfortable quiet took on an edge—something electric threading beneath the calm.
It pressed at the edge of my awareness like a change in air before a storm, subtle and charged.
Maybe it had to do with Kieran and Niz; Creator knew most of the focus in this house was on them tonight… but this felt deeper than that.
Of course, the sounds from upstairs weren’t helping my concentration.
I ground salt between my fingers, sprinkling it over the steaks, and shook my head. The faint rhythm of Kieran’s voice carried through the quiet of the past hour, low and broken, filled with pleasure.
The kind of sound that made every muscle in my body tense, remembering the shape of her. It had been too damn long since I’d been inside her, too long since I’d held her with nothing between us.
Hearing her shout Niz’s name a minute ago lit a match to every hard-won bit of discipline I’d ever developed. I had no idea how I was managing to stay in the kitchen, knowing the idea of joining them wasn’t entirely off the table. But Niz deserved his time with Kieran to himself.
The footsteps on the stairs came sudden and unexpected; I hadn’t thought they’d be coming down so soon.
Conversation slowed to a stop as they reached the last few steps, the soft scuff of Kieran’s bare feet followed by the heavier tread of Niz behind her.
Even after seeing him in human form so much recently, it still threw me off balance.
I couldn’t deny that it had brought us closer, our bond—one formed long before I realized he was more than a creature I’d tamed—stronger than ever.
He wasn’t just a companion anymore; he was a friend. A brother, even.
“Darling, I’m so glad you’re finally free,” Bastian sang out, head tilted toward the stairwell. “I was just deciding which of these books to use.”
Kieran blinked, and my gaze dragged over the oversized shirt she wore, hem brushing her knees. Fuck, she was perfection incarnate. “For?”
Bastian’s grin turned dangerous. “A stack tall enough to bend you over, for sure. Then again”—he gestured lazily upstairs—“your balcony might have the better view.”
Kieran muttered a curse, and it didn’t take me long to piece together what he was alluding to. Niz had taken her there—out in the open on the balcony. The thought of anyone outside of us seeing my Beauty like that twisted hard in my chest, but I forced it down.
Niz’s low rumble came immediately as he crossed to the kitchen island, sitting down in one of the chairs. “Don’t even think about it.”
Gabe chuckled. “What, is the balcony yours now?”
Niz’s eyes lit with mischief as Kieran shot him a look that promised trouble, her steps carrying her to stand beside me. I slid the steaks into the oven and started chopping vegetables, the rhythm of the knife steadying my hands.
“Well,” Niz drawled, “since we’re in the habit of claiming things… I heard someone down here thought he was the only one charting new lands.” His mouth curved into a smirk. “Consider this a friendly notice, Steele—that won’t be true for long.”
A flicker of tension moved through the room.
Steele’s head snapped up. “Is that so?” His gaze slid to Kieran, then to Niz. “While you were in there, did you still feel my cum inside her?” A beat passed, the corner of his mouth tilting. “Oh—wait. Sounds like you weren’t even allowed in.”
Kieran let out a breathy sound, half-gasp, half-laugh, heat rising up her neck. Looking down at her, she was clearly entertained and embarrassed, cheeks flushed, pupils blown wide—and damn if she wasn’t turned on.
Niz just laughed—quick and bright. “Allowed? More like otherwise occupied. But don’t worry, I plan to remedy that and make sure it's the only experience that stays buried in Kieran’s sweet mind.”
“This is…insane,” Kieran hissed, hiding her face against my arm.
I kept my focus on Steele, out of old habit and caution. The man was carved from pride and purpose, and both could cut. But Steele didn’t bristle. He leaned back, one forearm slung over the armrest as if he had time to spare.
His grin widened. “I’ve never shied away from competition.”
Relief slid through the room like an exhale at his tone. Not possessive—not like before—and not a line in the sand. Despite the teasing, there was something else underneath it. Acceptance.
Kieran, pink-cheeked, pressed a hand to her face, though her eyes were still dancing. “Okay, come on now,” she groaned, “that’s seriously—”
“Gentlemen,” Bastian announced, throwing himself into a chair at the dining table, “purely for administrative purposes—is there a sign-up sheet to add our cum to this allegedly contested zone, or are we going old-school? First come, first served?”
“Bash,” Kieran groaned, mortified now, which only seemed to amuse him.
“Darling, I just think being organized as a family is important,” he said, perfectly serious in the way only Bastian could be.
I couldn’t help but smirk. Much like the old system of organizing who slept with Kieran each night, it wasn’t the worst idea—
What the fuck was I even saying?
Except that I was already imagining burying myself between her long legs.
Gabe drew a hand down his face with a chuckle. “If anyone even starts putting together a calendar, I’m burning it.”
“And democracy dies under Gabe’s boot,” Bastian sighed in disappointment. “Think about the bedroom rotation!”
“Democracy,” I said drily, sliding the vegetables into a pan on the stove top, “was never going to survive this house.”
Because in my mind, what Kieran wanted was the plan. Even if I had to remind her to eat, to rest, to breathe—she led, and the rest of us followed. Even if they were slow to admit it.
“Okay,” she huffed finally, planting her hands on her hips—and drawing my attention straight to her waist and the way her shirt rode up slightly. “We are not making a sign-up sheet for anything. I am not a community project.”
Bastian lifted a finger. “Counterpoint: community projects have budgets, and I would like funds allocated to spoiling you—”
“Bash,” I interrupted, letting my laugh break loose.
“Well, that isn’t the worst idea,” Niz reasoned, and Gabe nodded his agreement. Even Steele looked mildly intrigued by the concept, which said a lot about how far we’d come. I couldn’t believe this was an actual conversation we were having.
Bastian was still talking, but my attention had already drifted back to Kieran. She let out a soft, happy sound, her gaze sweeping over all of us—so full of quiet affection and love it left me stunned. It wasn’t just visible; I could feel it rolling off her, warm and steady.
And then something shifted.
The hairs on my arms lifted. Every instinct in me went still. Something sharp and powerful rippled through the room, lashing out like threads of light snapping into place.
“This could be forever.”
Kieran’s voice echoed in my head, clear and bright. I froze, looking down at her as her eyes went wide in realization. Her hand flew to her sternum in shock.
“Oh,” she whispered. “Oh, shit.”
“There’s no way.”
Her voice wasn’t just a sound. It bloomed right in my head, intimate and undeniable, as natural as breathing.
The spatula I’d been holding clattered to the counter as I stared at her, trying to process what was happening. “Am I losing it, or am I actually hearing you in my head, Beauty?”
She blinked, startled. “No. I mean that isn’t possible—”
Every man in the room had gone silent, eyes locked on her in stunned disbelief.
“Is it possible? My parents had the ability, of course…” Kieran’s words slipped between thought and speech, the bond too new to control, as if she couldn’t help testing its limits. This time, her voice brushed through my mind, as clearly as if she’d spoken aloud.
Gabe stood abruptly, looking surprised, but also intrigued. “I don’t understand. Why would this just start now?”
Kieran’s mouth opened, closed. Her voice came out as a whisper. “I don’t know. I really don’t know…”
“How had I not expected this?”
“Shit,” Steele grunted in response to her projection, brow furrowing as he leaned forward. “This is going to take some getting used to.”
Bastian's voice echoed through my head, as if he was speaking loudly in the room, “Darling, I’m used to hearing voices, but I have to admit yours is far more appealing than what I normally deal with.”
“So we can hear each other too?” I demanded, the words coming out sharper than intended as my gaze cut to Bastian, then to the others—each of them frozen, the same confusion and disbelief etched across their faces.
Kieran’s eyes darted between us, horrified and fascinated. “I think—” she started, and then her voice swept through all of us at once. “I think this has something to do with the mate bond.”
Every muscle in my back went rigid. Not because of the idea of a mate bond—there was nothing in this world I wanted more—but because I saw Kieran’s reaction, the way her skin paled under the weight of five sets of eyes fixed on her.
If the connection stayed like this, open and raw, we’d need to learn to shield before it drove us all mad.