19

INKA'S POV

In the kitchen Zane set a perfect espresso in front of me.

“Temperature is just right.”

Hunter slid a plate of tiramisu over. “Try.”

I took a slow bite. Rich. Decadent. Sinful.

“Amazing.”

Hunter’s eyes flared. “Yes?”

“Really amazing.”

“I make good tiramisu too,” Seth said quietly. “I could”

“Good,” Hunter said, leaning across the island until his lips were inches from mine. “Because I want to feed you like this every night. I want to watch your tongue wrap around every bite I give you.”

My thighs squeezed together.

Zane sat beside me, hand finding mine. “We are going to spend our lives proving you are everything.”

Seth stepped closer. “Please. Five minutes”

“No,” I said. Calm. Final.

Seth stumbled back.

“You heard her,” Hunter said, voice lethal.

“She said no,” Zane added, colder.

Seth’s face crumpled. “I was wrong”

“Wrong does not erase what you did,” I said softly.

Our eyes met.

Through the bond it crashed over me again: regret so deep it tasted like drowning, self-hatred that burned like acid, the same raw clawing need I had felt from him for days. But underneath quiet, stubborn, achingly familiar was the same hurt I had seen in Hunter when he thought no one noticed, the same guarded flicker Zane carried right before he shut down. Triplet echoes. Even when they hated each other, they still mirrored each other.

He looked smaller than I had ever seen him like the middle brother who had always tried to stand between the other two and still ended up crushed.

My chest tightened. Not just anger anymore. Grief. For all three of them.

I set the spoon down.

The room froze.

Hunter’s fingers stilled on my chin. Zane’s arm locked around my waist.

Seth did not dare breathe louder.

I exhaled.

“Five minutes,” I said.

Hunter growled low a sound I had only heard when someone threatened one of his brothers.

Zane’s grip turned bruising. “Inka”

“Five minutes. Alone.”

Hunter’s jaw ticked. “If he so much as raises his voice”

“I know what I am asking,” I said quietly. I pressed my palm to Hunter’s wrist, then reached back to squeeze Zane’s forearm small anchors. “He is still your brother.”

Zane’s eyes flashed gold, then dimmed. “That is exactly why this is dangerous.”

Hunter stared at Seth like he was weighing whether to let him live another five minutes. Finally he stepped back, slow, reluctant. “We are right outside. One wrong move, middle, and I do not care how many times Mom made us share birthday cake you are done.”

Seth flinched at the old nickname. Middle. The one they had used since they were kids half teasing, half reminder that he was the one caught between them, always trying to balance, always the first to apologize.

Zane gave one sharp nod, but his gaze never left Seth. “Do not make me regret this.”

They walked out. The door clicked shut.

The kitchen felt suddenly too big, too quiet.

Seth stayed rooted, hands fisted so tight his knuckles were white.

I slid off the stool and crossed to him slowly. When I was close enough to smell the faint cedar-and-regret that was so distinctly him so close to Hunter’s and Zane’s, yet always a little softer, a little more uncertain I stopped.

He would not meet my eyes.

“I do not deserve even five seconds,” he whispered.

“No,” I agreed. “You do not.”

His shoulders dropped another fraction.

“But I am tired of watching three pieces of the same soul tear each other apart,” I said. “You three have spent your whole lives stitched together fighting, protecting, bleeding for each other. Right now you are ripping that stitching out over me. I will not let that happen.”

He finally looked up. Shocked. Eyes glassy.

I placed my hand over his heart. It hammered wildly same frantic rhythm I had felt from Hunter when he thought I was dying, same thunder I had felt from Zane when he held me against the wall upstairs.

“I felt it all,” I told him. “Every time you hated yourself for what you said. Every time you watched Hunter and Zane close ranks around me and felt like the outsider again. Like middle child. Like the one who always has to apologize first.”

A tear tracked down his cheek. He did not brush it away.

“I still hurt,” I continued. “I am still angry. But I remember the Seth who would sit between Hunter and Zane on the couch when they were fighting, refusing to pick a side until they both calmed down. The Seth who learned my coffee order because he noticed Hunter always got it wrong and Zane pretended not to care. The Seth who looked at me like like I could be the thing that finally made the three of you feel whole instead of fractured.”

His breath shattered.

“I am not saying it is erased,” I whispered. “I am saying I want to try. Because losing you would mean losing a piece of them too. And I cannot will not watch my mates destroy each other.”

He made a choked sound, something between sob and laugh.

I stepped into him until our bodies touched.

His hands rose hesitantly, trembling, then settled on my waist light, careful, like he was afraid the other two would burst in and tear him away.

“I was terrified,” he rasped. “Terrified that if I let you in completely, I would ruin you the way I always thought I ruined things for them when we were kids. I pushed you away to protect you from me. And I only hurt all of us.”

I tilted my face up. Our foreheads met.

“I know,” I said.

He shuddered so hard I felt it in my bones.

“I forgive you,” I whispered. “Not because what you did was okay. But because I choose us all four of us. Because I want my middle mate here where he belongs. Between them. Between us.”

A raw, broken sob escaped him.

His arms came around me slow at first, then crushing, like he had been starving for this contact. I wrapped my arms around his neck and held on.

The bond flared warm between us again. Not desperate. Not punishing. Just home.

When I finally pulled back, his eyes were red, but the shadows in them had eased.

“I will earn this,” he said hoarsely. “Every single day. For you. For them.”

“I know you will.”

I took his hand.

When we walked back out, Hunter and Zane were leaning against the opposite wall arms crossed, expressions hard. But the second they saw our joined hands, saw the tear tracks on Seth’s face, saw the quiet peace on mine, something shifted.

Hunter exhaled like he had been holding his breath for days.

Zane’s shoulders dropped a fraction.

“You good?” Hunter asked me, voice rough.

I nodded. “We are trying.”

Zane looked at Seth long, assessing, the way only a brother who shared a womb could look.

“You hurt her again,” Zane said quietly, “and blood or not, I will end you.”

Seth met his gaze. Steady. “I know.”

Hunter pushed off the wall, walked over, and without a word clapped a hand on the back of Seth’s neck. Hard. Not quite a hug. More like a rough reminder.

“Sit your ass down, middle,” he muttered. “You look like shit. Eat something before you pass out and I have to carry you.”

Seth huffed a watery laugh.

Zane moved to the table, pulled out the chair next to mine.

Seth hesitated, glancing at me.

I squeezed his hand. “Come on.”

He sat.

Hunter shoved a fresh plate in front of him.

Zane poured water into Seth’s glass then, after a beat, refilled mine too.

I picked up my spoon again. Took another slow bite of tiramisu.

Three sets of eyes followed the motion.

All of them softer now.

All of them mine.

Through the bond I felt the four threads knit back together scarred, tender, but stronger in the places they had torn.

I licked cream from the spoon.