The shadows explode into chaos, their whispers becoming shouts becoming songs becoming laughter.We told you,they shriek with glee.
That's what they've been trying to tell me. Why their scents keep calling to something deep in my bones despite every instinct screaming at me to resist. Why my skin doesn't crawl when they touch me like it does with every other alpha. Why being here feels simultaneously wrong and right in ways that make my head hurt.
"Huh," I say, because apparently that's all my brain can produce right now. "That's... huh."
Felix, meanwhile, looks about as surprised as if someone told him water was wet. His expression doesn't change, that careful mask he wears staying firmly in place, but I know him well enough to read the micro-tensions in his jaw, the way his fingers tap once against my thigh.
"You're not surprised," I accuse, turning to stare at him.
He gives me a rueful smile that makes my chest ache. "I suspected."
"And you didn't think to mention this?"
"Wishful thinking," he says quietly, and there's something in his voice I can't quite identify. Regret? Longing? "Hoped I was wrong."
Before I can demand he explain what the fuck that means, Elias leans forward, concern written across his stupidly handsome face. "Juniper? Are you alright?"
"Fine," I lie through my teeth, even though my world just got flipped upside down and shaken like a snow globe. "I'm totally fine. This is fine. Everything's fine."
"You said fine four times," Carlisle points out helpfully. "That's statistically improbable for someone who's actually fine."
"Fuck your statistics."
Archer shifts in his seat, those brown eyes warm with something that might be understanding. Or pity. I can't tell and I don't like either option. "Nothing's going to happen that you're not ready for. Either of you. We just thought you deserved to know why?—"
"Why you've been acting weird," I finish for him. "Why you keep bringing us food and trying not to spook us and looking at us like..." I trail off, not sure how to describe the way they look at us. Like we're precious and dangerous and theirs all at once.
"We've been doing those things because you're in our custody, and therefore our responsibility," Elias corrects. "It has nothing to do with you being our scent matches."
Why is he telling us that? Because he doesn't want us to think it's going to change if we reject them?
Yeah, right.
"We would never force anything," Bane agrees, his voice rumbling like distant thunder. "This doesn't have to change anything if you don't want it to."
Felix laughs, but there's no humor in it. Just that bitter edge. "Itdoesn'tchange anything." His voice is flat, emotionless in that way that means he's feeling too much and shutting it all down before it can escape. "Not on my end."
He turns to look at me, silver eyes unreadable. "Juniper can make up her own mind about what she wants. But beyond helping you find the people who hired us, since they're apparently keen on killing us now too, I have no interest in any of you."
The words land like punches, and I can see the impact on each of their faces. Bane's scarred jaw clenches. Elias goes carefully blank. Archer looks like someone kicked his puppy, which is also him. Carlisle just smiles wider. Like rejection is his favorite flavor of foreplay.
I want to say the same thing. Want to stand in solidarity with Felix, tell them we don't need them, don't want them, that we're perfectly fine with just the two of us against the world like always.
But the words stick in my throat.
Because some traitorous part of me, the part that's tired of running, tired of hiding, tired of being afraid all the fucking time, whispers that maybe this could be something. Maybe these alphas who saved us, who've been patient and careful and haven't tried to separate us even though they could have, maybe they could be...
No.
I can't even think it.
Felix sets me aside and stands abruptly, and I follow on instinct, our movements synchronized from years of practice. "If that's all?"
"That's all," Bane confirms, though he looks like he wants to say more.
We walk out together, Felix's hand finding the small of my back in that protective gesture that's as natural as breathing. The door closes behind us with a soft click that sounds like finality.
Neither of us speaks on the walk back to our room. My mind is spinning, thoughts fracturing and reforming like the shadows that dance in my peripheral vision. Scent matches. Four of them. A whole pack, which is the thing we've never wanted, never needed, never even considered because we had each other and that was enough.
