“And you think biting me was the spark,” I say.
“Yes. The key that opened the lock and unleashed…this.”
The finality of it makes my chest tighten.
I look at him differently then. Not just as the calm centre of the storm. Not just as the one who makes the restless hum quiet when he walks into a room.
But as the catalyst.
“You don’t get to lose control with me again,” I say quietly.
Another beat of silence.
His jaw tightens. “I won’t. I swear to you I won’t. I’ll be here for whatever you need, but I won’t touch you like that again. You have my word.”
My body still hums beneath the anger – not as violently as before, but enough that I know this isn’t going to disappear because I’m furious about it.
“I can’t be an omega,” I say again, softer now. “That changes everything.”
“Yes,” he agrees quietly.
“I don’t know who I am if you’re right,” I admit, the words scraping on the way out.
“I know. I’m so sorry, Lani.”
This time it doesn’t sound patronising.
It sounds heavy.
I turn away before he can see how much that shakes me.
And that’s what terrifies me most.
Not the heat. Not the heightened senses.
But the possibility that the life I thought I understood was built on something unfinished, something that has only just started to wake. And if that’s true, then this isn’t temporary.
It’s only the beginning.
THIRTY-FIVE
SOL
I give her space.Not distance. I don’t leave the house. I don’t isolate her. I don’t repeat that mistake.
But I withdraw deliberately.
Meals at opposite ends of the table. Conversations brief. Eyes averted first.
Control.
It’s what I do best.
It lasts less than a day.
By evening, something is wrong.
Not visibly. Not catastrophically. I’m not unsteady. I’m not ill.