Chapter 5 - Three mates. Three threads.

Her silence afterward said everything.

“And me?” I asked. “Where do I fit into this?”

She looked almost sad. “I believe you were born under its shadow, too. Buried. Hidden. Forgotten. Until now.”

When I returned to my room, I barely made it three steps before I froze.

Celina was sitting on my bed.

She twirled a dagger between her fingers, smiling like she’d been waiting.

“You left your door unlocked,” she said sweetly.

“I wasn’t expecting snakes,” I replied.

She stood, slow and graceful.

“I’m not here for a fight,” she said.

I didn’t move.

She lunged, fast—grabbed my wrist, and slashed it, clean and shallow.

I yanked away with a hiss. Blood welled instantly.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

Celina leaned close, eyes shining. “You bleed like an omega. But that’s not what you are. Is it?”

I stared her down.

“If you ever touch me again—”

“I won’t need to,” she said. “Because something’s going to snap soon. And when it does… it’ll take you down with it.”

She walked out without looking back.

I collapsed on the bed, clutching my bleeding hand, heart pounding.

Blood soaked into the wrap I'd tied around my palm.

Celina was gone, but the sting in my skin lingered. Not just the cut—though it throbbed with every heartbeat—but the way she’d said it. Like she’d been waiting years to draw that line.

“You bleed like an omega” kept pounding in my head.

She wasn’t wrong.

But she wasn’t right either.

I wasn’t sure what I was anymore.

I locked the door this time. Not that it would stop her. Not that anything would, if she really wanted to finish what she'd started.

I walked to the basin in the corner of the room, unwound the wrap, and let the cut bleed into the water. It stung. Sharp and shallow, but not deep enough to leave a scar.

Still, it felt like one.

I rinsed it and wrapped it again. Tight.

Then I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at nothing.

My thoughts were a mess. A spiral I couldn’t stop falling through.

Riven had tried to reject the bond. The pain from that was still fresh in my body—my shoulder burned where the mark had flared, the memory of the connection ripping like someone had tried to tear muscle from bone.

Thorne had kissed me like he had known he was the first. And somehow, my wolf had responded to him like it had been waiting for the moment.

And then Kael—

No.

Not yet.

He hadn’t even touched me, not since the clearing, not in the same way. But his eyes... His eyes had watched everything. Every moment. Every choice.

Three mates.

Three threads.

The elder’s words echoed in my mind: if one thread is pulled, the rest unravel.

I hadn’t pulled just one. I was tugging on all of them now.

The weight of it made my chest tighten. I could feel each bond straining beneath the surface—alive, electric, unsettled. They were supposed to be rare. Sacred. Permanent.

But mine?

Mine felt like a curse.

I curled my knees to my chest and stared at the bandaged hand resting in my lap. The blood had already started to soak through.

The cut wasn’t serious.

But the damage was done.

Celina knew something. I could feel it in the way she moved. The way she didn’t flinch when she hurt me. Like she had history I wasn’t part of but somehow belonged to.

And she wasn’t going to stop warning me until one of us broke.

My shoulder throbbed again. A flash of heat under the skin—quick, but sharp enough to make me wince.

The mark.

It was always worse when I was alone. Like it knew I wasn’t distracted anymore. Like it wanted to be noticed.

I closed my eyes and leaned back against the wall.

“I didn’t choose this,” I whispered.

But I wasn’t sure that mattered anymore.

My eyes fluttered shut.

Only for a second.

A sound pulled them open again.

The softest shift in the air.

Like breath.

I sat up fast.

Someone was outside my door.

My heart jumped once—then slammed into a faster rhythm.

No knock.

No voice.

Just presence.

Then, I opened the door.

Kael stood in the threshold.

He didn’t speak.

He didn’t move.

He just watched me.

His eyes were dark, unreadable, and locked on mine like he’d come to make a decision he hadn’t yet said out loud.

I opened my mouth to say something—but nothing came out.

He took one slow step inside.

Then closed the door behind him.

And said nothing.