I grip the banister and close my eyes.
Why does it change depending on who’s near me?
Why does the sharpness spike around one and soften around the other?
And why does neither feeling seem entirely wrong?
This isn’t because of my fever. This isn’t in my imagination.
Something in me has shifted, and it’s responding in ways I don’t recognise – as though my body has begun reading a language my mind hasn’t learned yet.
The most unsettling part isn’t the heat, or the heightened senses, or the way my pulse refuses to behave.
It’s that some part of me doesn’t want it to stop.
THIRTY-FOUR
LANI
By the third day,I can’t pretend it’s a coincidence anymore.
It isn’t just heightened senses. It isn’t stress. It isn’t leftover fever. The pattern is too consistent, too precise. The restlessness creeps in whenever I’m alone too long. The tightness in my chest builds slowly, not painful but insistent, like something coiling. And the moment one of them steps into my space, it changes.
Not equally.
Not randomly.
Differently.
Kai sets me on edge, but in a good way. Bright heat, sharp awareness, pulse racing too fast. The bitterness in his scent is like a lick of danger, of temptation. A dare. It feels reckless and alive and dangerous, like leaning too far over a cliff and enjoying the drop in my stomach.
Koa steadies me. His presence lowers the pitch of everything inside me. His sweetness makes my breathing even. The world feels more solid. Like gravity has returned.
Finn hasn’t been around much but when he is, it’s like basking in the sun.
And Sol?—
Sol does something else entirely.
I don’t like thinking about it.
The first time I test it deliberately, I tell myself I’m only curious.
He’s in the study, the door half open, sunlight cutting across the polished wood floorboards. I hover in the hallway longer than necessary, my body already aware of him before I step inside. The air shifts the second I cross the threshold. Cleaner. Cooler. Something in my chest loosens in a way that is almost humiliating.
He looks up from whatever he’s reading.
“Lani.”
Just my name.
The restlessness that’s been needling at me all morning recedes. Not gone. But muted. Like someone turned down the volume.
I hate that it’s so obvious.
I walk further in, leaning against the edge of the desk. “We need to talk.”
His gaze sharpens immediately. “About what?”