83. Zeke
Zeke
I needed air.
The second she walked in, wearing his damn shirt and carrying that smug, post-wreckage glow, I set my mug down hard enough to crack the silence.
Pushing off the island, I stepped outside—out onto the porch, into the weight of the morning, trying to breathe through the shitstorm brewing behind my ribs.
Alden followed a second later, pausing just inside the door like maybe he was thinking better of this. But then he came anyway—always did. Trace followed.
They stood behind me, silent. I didn’t offer a greeting.
Trace shifted first. “Just say it.”
I didn’t move. Just stared out over the line of trees edging the horizon.
“I told you both the rules.”
Silence.
“Didn’t think it was real,” Trace muttered, voice low. “Not like this.”
I turned. Finally.
“You didn’t think it was real?” I repeated, stepping forward. “You’ve had the tattoos for years. Felt them burn. You knew what it meant.”
Alden stood taller behind him, his voice calmer. “No one did. We thought bonds were ancient. Dying out. And never between three.”
I stared at them both. “And yet.”
Neither one could meet my eyes.
Trace’s tattoo had been glowing faintly when he walked in, and Alden’s hadn’t faded yet either. I’d seen that look on both of them—glassy, spent, wrecked in a way that had nothing to do with lust and everything to do with permanence.
“When did it start burning?” I asked.
Trace answered first. “Years ago.”
Alden nodded. “I always thought it was adrenaline. Battle tension. When she was near. But this…” His voice drifted off. “This was different.”
“Yeah,” I said, my hands gripping the porch rail. “Because it’s not a crush. Not a fling. It’s real. It’s sealed.”
Trace’s brow creased. “We didn’t think it would actually—”
“But it did,” I cut in, stepping closer. “You felt it snap into place, didn’t you? The second she let you in.”
Alden exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair. “It felt like something ancient woke up.”
I nodded once. “That’s because it did.”
Silence stretched between us. Not the easy kind. The kind that pressed in from all sides, suffocating.
“You think she felt it too?” Rhett asked from the doorway, quieter now.
Trace’s jaw tightened—not clenched, just taut with something unspoken.
“She doesn’t know,” Alden murmured. “Not yet.”
“She will,” I said. “And when she does, everything changes.”
Footsteps echoed behind us.
Scarlett’s voice carried across the porch. “Someone better start fucking explaining.”
The three of us turned as she stepped out. Trace’s shirt still hanging off her frame like a flag planted on enemy ground.
I looked between Trace and Alden. Watched the way their bodies went still, the way neither of them moved to speak first.
And I knew then—this wasn’t just about desire. Wasn’t just about the girl.
They’d sealed something they never fucking understood.
And now?
There was no going back.
Trace didn’t flinch. Alden shifted behind him.
“We didn’t plan it that way,” Alden said, his voice rough. “It just—”
“Don’t.” I straightened. Turned to face them. “Don’t feed me that shit.”
Trace’s shoulders rose slightly with a breath, but he didn’t argue.