My brows lower. My voice comes out flat, dangerous. "You gave her my DNA so she could—" I stop. The pieces don't fit. Viv hates the Pact as much as we all pretend to honor it, but this is specific. This is targeted. Surgical. "Why? What did I ever do to her that warrants such extremes?"
Viv's nostrils flare. Her hands drop to her sides, fingers curling into the fabric of her sundress. "You really don't remember."
"Remember what?"
"Chub chub."
The nickname. Shit. It was just a joke. Big brother annoying his younger sibling and her friend. The name sears through me, immediate and irreversible, the way a wrong word does whenyou hear it and can't un-hear it. My heart thuds hard, once, twice, and my throat closes around whatever I was about to say.
The hallway shrinks. Sixteen years ago, I'm sixteen and hollowed out by Mom's funeral, by Dad's wasting, by the silence in a house that used to sing. Viv and Sharma are six. They're round and soft and chasing each other through the kitchen with cookies in their fists. Without my mom there to tell them to settle down, it falls to me. Grayson and Liam are gone, leaving me as the adult in charge. My useless father is curled up on my mother's side of the bed, crying. Fucking crying like he's the only one who lost a loved one.
I'm half drunk on grief and booze stolen from the liquor cabinet and I need something to punch. My fingers ball into fists but I'm not so far gone that I would hit a child. Instead, I grab the cookie from Sharma's hand—pudgy fingers, round cheeks—and I say it. That's enough, Chub Chub. Again, at Easter, and Thanksgiving. Every time she grabbed a snack or laughed too loud. That just became her name. The only way I addressed her, until she stopped coming over when I was home.
Nausea rises hot and acidic, coating my tongue. My hands lift an inch toward Viv, nearly grip her shoulders to demand how bad it was, how deep the cuts went, how long Sharma carried a grieving boy's cruelty. Then my hands drop.
"She was six." My voice cracks. I clear it. "I was—"
"You were cruel," Viv says. No hesitation. "A bully. You made her feel like she took up too much space in the world." She steps closer, her voice dropping to a whisper that cuts deeper than a shout. "The suppressant isn't just about travel, Roan. It's about you. It's about choosing not to be at the mercy of a mate who was an asshole to you, your entire life."
I straighten. My spine locks into place, vertebrae clicking like a rifle bolt. I'm not losing her. Not to a chemical, not to a childhood cruelty I thought was buried under a decade of apologies I never made. My hands close into fists, then open deliberately. Measured.
"Where is she?" My voice drops register. Every muscle in my body orients toward the door. Do it now it screams, before the suppressant erases the chance entirely.
"Roan." Viv steps forward, placing her hand on my forearm. "She presented at sixteen as an omega. You weren't home but as soon as she came in the house she scented it, and she knew. Can you imagine the horror she felt to be the mate of a man who abused her? Luckily, she is a strong girl, and she did not take it lying down. Instead, she's spent six years building a life that doesn't include you. A career. You should respect her decision and leave her alone."
"My mate, Viv, really? I should leave my mate alone? No. This is something we are going to have to work through because she is mine no matter how many suppressants she takes." I shake her off. Not rough, but final. "Which bungalow?" I growl at my baby sister.
"You're not listening."
"I heard every damn word." I turn toward the beach path. The sand shifts under my boots, insubstantial, treacherous. "Now tell me which one."
Viv's silence stretches before the breath leaves her, slow and resigned. "The blue one. Past the palms. But Roan—"
I don't wait for the warning.
The path swallows me. Night enfolds the island in a humid fist, the darkness complete except for the torchlights burning in fixed points along the sand. The ocean persists against the shore, rhythmic, ancient, doing nothing at all about my pulse hammering in my throat. I don't run. Running suggests panic, and what moves through me isn't panic — it's the deliberate narrowing of everything unnecessary until only the target remains. My stride lengthens, deliberate, each step crushing the sand with intent.
The bungalows blur past in pastel shadows. Pink. Yellow. White. My hands swing at my sides, aware of themselves, fingers flexing like they're already touching her. The suppressant means she won't scent me coming. Means the biological pull is one-sided, a hook in my gut dragging me toward her while she stands immune. The injustice of it burns.
I stop at the blue door. My knuckles hover an inch from the wood. I could break it down. The thought surfaces, feral and sharp. I could splinter the frame and take what the bond promises. My fist clenches. I knock. Three raps, steady but forceful.
The wait tears at my control. I count seconds by the waves crashing behind me. One. Two. Three.
The door opens.
Sharma stands in the frame, backlit by a single lamp, her dark hair catching the light at the edges. She's wearing a tank top and sleep shorts, bare legs, bare arms — more skin than I've seen on her since she was a child. Her curves shout she's grown up since then. Her eyes narrow immediately, dark slits that take me in and ice before I've opened my mouth. Her nostrils flare—scenting me, even through the chemical barrier. The pulse at herthroat jumps, visible, rapid. A small betraying flutter beneath brown skin that says her body knows what her mind denies.
My focus narrows. The world shrinks to the space between her collarbones and her jaw, to the way her hand grips the doorframe.
"We need to talk." My voice is gravel.
"I don't think so." Her voice pitches higher than it should, the consonants clipped short, each word bitten off at the stem. She doesn't step back or offer an invitation.
"It wasn't a question." The words come out clipped, economic. "You're my omega and your alpha is saying open the damn door."
Her gaze cuts from the sand beyond my shoulder to me. The heat of it lands on my face like a flat palm. Her free hand taps a frantic rhythm against her thigh.
The tendon in her neck tightens. A breath fills her chest and her shoulders roll back. "Then yes, Alpha. Let's have it out."
