I still hadn’t told anyone it would be twins.I didn’t know how.
“You’re getting rounder,” Benji said. “That’s good. It means your body’s doing what it’s supposed to.”
I nodded slowly. The emotion in my throat rose too fast to name—pride, maybe. Or dread.
My body was doing what it needed to do. What it had failed to do so many times before.
For the last two years, I’d blamed myself.
But now I wondered if I’d just had the wrong alpha.
Maybe Ishouldlet Vinny mark me.
The thought startled me the second it formed. It wasn’t a full idea yet, just a whisper of one. But it was enough to shake me.
I blinked down at the water, the edge of a plate blurred through the suds.
Why can’t I just let myself love him like I love the rest of them? Why does loving Vinny feel like opening a wound?
“How are you feeling?” Benji asked, pulling me back from my thoughts.
The same way I always felt when I was away from Vinny. Tired. A little sick. But I knew the second I curled up in his lap and pressed my face to his neck, I’d feel better.
Fine,I signed.
Benji’s gaze didn’t budge.
“I can feel that you’re lying,” he said softly. “That’s what a bond does.”
He leaned back against the counter, soaking the hem of his jacket in dishwater.
I dried my hands and signed.How?
Benji blinked, then reached up and unbuttoned his coat. He pointed to one of the smaller bite scars on his skin.
“Serena’s mark,” he said, nodding toward the matching scar on my shoulder. “It creates a circuit. If something’s off, the bond lets us know. Can you not feel us?”
I shook my head.
Maybe missing Vinny’s mark left my circuit open.
Benji’s expression softened. “If you weren’t pregnant, I wouldn’t push you to accept Vinny’s mark.”
My stomach flipped.
What do you know?I signed slowly.
He paused. Then asked, “At your first appointment, did they tell you pregnancy would be hard with fresh or nonexistent bonds?”
I nodded.
“Did they tell youwhy?”
I searched my memory, but all I could recall was the phrasebond rot. Not the science. Not the reason.
I shook my head.
Benji took the towel from my hands and tossed it aside. Then he lifted me like I weighed nothing and set me gently on the counter. My heart fluttered.
