“How?”
His gaze doesn’t waver.
“Because your body responds to mine whether you want it to or not.”
The words hit too close.
I hate that part of me knows he’s right.
“That doesn’t mean I’m an omega,” I say, but it sounds weaker now. Unsteady.
“It means your system recognises something in me. There’s…a bond in place between us now…regardless of what you are.”
“So what happens next?”
His expression hardens in a way that feels less like authority and more like resolve.
“You stabilise,” he says. “You don’t isolate. You don’t push your limits. And you don’t pretend this isn’t happening.”
“And if I don’t like it?”
“That won’t change it.”
The words sit heavy between us.
I swallow hard, trying to steady my breathing.
“I’m not ready for this,” I say quietly.
“I know.”
“Don’t,” I snap. “Don’t say it like you planned it.”
“I didn’t.”
“But you started it.”
“Yes.”
Another clean, brutal admission.
My mind jumps to my father – the monitoring, the appointments, the rigid control over everything from diet to sleep to bloodwork. The drugs. So many drugs.
“My father tracked everything. If I were – if there was even a hint?—”
He never would have let me leave.
“Suppression exists,” Sol says carefully. “Late presentation exists.”
“You’re asking me to believe my entire life has been mislabelled.” A lie.
“I’m asking you to consider that it may have been managed.”
Managed.
The word lands like a punch.
Controlled. Adjusted. Hidden.