But my eyes won’t leave the mark on her neck.
And my chest won’t stop tightening like my body already knows the truth?—
Even if I refuse to say it out loud.
TWENTY-SEVEN
KOA
The house smells wrong.
Not bad. Not dirty. Just…unsettled.
Like something’s been cracked open and hasn’t decided what it’s going to become yet.
I don’t say anything at first. Neither does Kai. We don’t need to.
We’ve both felt it upstairs.
The way her body arched toward Sol like gravity had shifted. The way her breathing steadied only when he touched her. The way the rest of us might as well have been furniture.
I scrub a hand down my face and lean back against the counter. “Well.”
Kai folds his arms slowly. His jaw is tight – not angry, but thoughtful. Dangerous.
“That wasn’t subtle,” I add.
“No,” he agrees. “It wasn’t.”
Silence stretches between us, thick and heavy.
I shake my head once. “She didn’t just calm. She settled.”
Kai’s gaze flicks instinctively toward the ceiling. “Like a lock clicking into place.”
I grimace. “Yeah. That.”
We stand there for a moment, listening to the house breathe. To Sol’s pacing overhead. To the faint rustle of sheets.
“She’s burning up,” I say quietly. “Shaking. Disoriented. And that scent?—”
“Fractured,” my twin finishes.
I nod. “Textbook.”
The phrase neither of us wants to say hangs there anyway.
Rejection sickness.
“She’s not fully emerged,” Kai says slowly. “But she’s close.”
“And she’s not rejecting Sol,” I add. “Her body’s reaching for him.”
He finally looks at me properly. “You felt it too.”
“Yeah.” My mouth twists. “Hate that I did.”
Another pause.