Not sharp. Not aggressive. Soft. Warmed by skin and fabric and security. It threads straight through my chest and settles low, tight enough that I have to brace myself against the doorframe.
Fuck.
I shut my eyes and breathe through it slowly, deliberately. This isn’t real. It can’t be. The guys warned me Lani was staying here, but that heavenly smell cannotbe coming from her.
She’s been sick. Fevered. Vulnerable. She’s a beta. My instincts are misfiring because that’s what instincts do when they don’t have enough information.
That’s what I tell myself.
It doesn’t help.
I move further into the house with care, like the wrong step might trigger something I won’t be able to put back in its box. Voices drift from upstairs – hers among them, clearer than I expect. Stronger.
She’s awake.
I don’t go to her room. I don’t even go up the stairs. I hover at the bottom, listening like a coward, cataloguing without engaging.
She laughs at something – quiet, dry, unmistakablyher– and my body reacts like I’ve been waiting for that sound without knowing it.
I hate that.
Koa passes me on the stairs, pauses when he sees me. His expression shifts – relief, then something more complicated.
“You’re back,” he says.
“Briefly,” I reply, sighing. “I swear my father’s pulling this shit on purpose. How’s Lani?”
He studies me. “She’s a lot better.”
“I can tell.”
He nods, like that answers a question I didn’t ask. “She’s sharp.”
Of course she is.
“Where’s Sol?” I ask.
“Upstairs,” Koa says.
I grunt and head for the kitchen, needing space. Distance. Something solid and ordinary to ground me. I pour a glass of water I don’t drink, just hold, cold biting into my palm.
I shouldn’t be here. But also, I should never have left.
That thought has been circling me for days, growing louder the longer I avoided naming it. I checked out because staying felt dishonest. Because every interaction with her pulled something loose in me I wasn’t prepared to examine.
And because I knew – long before anyone else admitted it – that the bet wasn’t harmless. I should have pulled out the minute I met Lani. Spending time getting to know her, caring for her while she was sick, missing her while I was going…well, let’s just say I no longer have any interest whatsoever in the wager.
Sol finds me still standing there minutes later.
He doesn’t preamble. Never does.
“She’s recovering,” he says. “Which means boundaries matter more than ever.”
I meet his gaze. “You think I don’t know that?”
“I think you disappeared,” he replies evenly. “And now you’re back.”
“I didn’t disappear.”