My jaw tightens.
I’ve let it go for days now. Let her set the pace. Let her decide what I’m allowed to give and what I’m not. Let her keep me at the edge of something I’m built to be at the centre of.
It ends now.
I don’t announce it.
Don’t warn her.
I move.
The nest shifts as I climb in properly, ignoring the pull at my side, the sharp protest that follows it. Pain registers, but it doesn’t slow me down. It’s background noise. Irrelevant.
What matters is her.
She looks up, startled for half a second before her expression sharpens. “Sol?—”
“Enough,” I say, my voice low but carrying, cutting clean through whatever she was about to throw at me.
The room stills.
Kai goes quiet. Koa doesn’t move. Finn’s attention snaps fully into place.
Lani blinks at me, something flickering across her face—surprise, irritation, something else under it that doesn’t quite settle into either.
“You don’t get to decide this alone,” I continue, holding her gaze, not giving her space to deflect it. “Not when it’s me you’re shutting out.”
“I’m not shutting you out,” she argues immediately.
“You are,” I say, not raising my voice, not needing to. “You’re taking what’s easy and refusing the rest.”
Her expression tightens. “Because you’re injured.”
“Because you don’t trust me to handle it,” I correct.
She stills for a second, her breath catching just slightly.
“That’s not?—”
“It is,” I cut in, not giving her space to soften it. “You think you’re protecting me.”
“I am protecting you,” she snaps.
“No,” I say, sharper now. “You’re deciding for me.”
Silence stretches between us, tight and charged.
Her chest rises and falls faster now, her scent spiking slightly in response, the heat coiling tighter instead of easing.
“Sol,” she says, quieter now, like she’s trying to pull it back. “You’re hurt.”
“I’m an alpha,” I reply. “Youralpha. I’ve got this.”
There’s no force in it.
No need for it.
Just truth.