Nothing.
"There's something I need to tell you."
His body tenses against my legs. "Bells?—"
"No. You need to actuallylet me tell youthis time."
A beat.
"Every single time I try, you stop me. You kiss me or you growl at me or you change the subject because you already know what I'm going to say and you're too fucking scared to hear it out loud."
His jaw clenches against my thigh. I feel the exposed tendons shift.
"If we die in this stupid tacky birdcage and I never get to say it, I am going to find you in hell and I am going to make your afterlifemiserable, Rex. I will haunt you for eternity. I will be the world's most annoying ghost. I will rattle chains at you and—well, I guess you already have chains, so?—"
"Say it," he growls into my stomach.
I take a breath.
“You already know I’m a girl. But I'm also an omega.”
Silence.
The fluorescent lights flicker overhead, lighting the cage in stuttering shadow.
"And you're my scent match."
His breathing stops.
"Phoenix and Raf are too."
Nothing moves. Not his chest, not his hands, not the fine tremor in his muscles. Complete and total stillness, like I just hit pause on every biological function his body was still running.
One second.
Two.
Three.
I wait.
Because this is the moment where everything either clicks into place or shatters beyond repair, and I can't do a goddamn thing about it except sit here with his head in my lap and his blood soaking through my jeans and hope.
His exhale comes out slow through his damaged cheek, warm against my thigh.
"You deserve better," he grits out.
My lungs cave in.
"You deserve better than being scent-matched to a fuckingmonster."
The word comes out like he's said it to himself ten thousand times. Like it's carved into the inside of his skull. A statement of fact delivered with the same flat conviction he'd use to say the sky is blue or the earth is round.
Monster.
Like it's his name.
Like it's the only name that matters.