Page 111 of The Drama King

They exchanged glances, one of those silent pack communications that excluded me by definition. It was Dorian who answered, as primary Alpha and primary mate.

"That depends partly on what you want," he said, the words carrying weight I couldn't quite decipher. But even as he said it, his posture screamed possession. This wasn't negotiation. This was him allowing me to voice preferences about my own captivity.

"What I want?" I laughed, the sound harsh. "What I want is to turn back time three days and never go into heat in the first place. What I want is to finish my degree without being claimed by the Alphas who spent months tormenting me. What I want is a choice in my own life."

"The reality is that we're bonded now," he continued, steamrolling over my words with that maddening Alpha certainty. "You to all of us, but primarily to me as fated mate. That bond isn't something that can be broken or ignored without serious consequences."

"What kind of consequences?" I asked, though part of me already knew the answer from what I'd been researching.

"Physical symptoms similar to withdrawal," Corvus replied, his analytical precision making it sound like a textbook rather than a threat. "Fever, nausea, severe pain, potentially life-threatening complications in extreme cases. For both sides. Alphas and Omega alike."

But not impossible, I thought, remembering the forum posts about bond rejection. Difficult, dangerous, but not impossible.

"So I'm trapped," I said flatly, testing their responses. "Forced to stay with the very Alphas who spent months systematically tormenting me."

"Not trapped," Dorian corrected, his voice carrying that possessive undercurrent I was learning to recognize. "Bonded. You're ours now, Vespera. We're yours. It's not a cage. It's completion."

The casual ownership in his tone made my skin crawl. This was how he saw it. I'd been acquired, claimed, incorporated into their pack structure. Any resistance on my part was a failure to understand my new position.

"Feels like semantics from where I'm sitting."

Oakley stepped forward, his expression earnest in that guilty, pleading way that was somehow worse than Dorian's honest possession. "We can make this right, Vespera. I know we hurt you before, but this changes everything. We can make you happy. We can give you everything you've ever wanted."

The presumption was breathtaking. As if happiness was something they could bestow upon me, something I should be grateful to receive from my former tormentors.

"And what makes you think you know what I want?" I asked, meeting his gaze directly. "You spent months studying how to break me, not how to make me happy."

His face flushed with shame, but he pressed on. "We were wrong. We know that now. But the bond proves we belong together. Biology doesn't lie."

"No," I said, my voice gaining strength as I dismantled their careful justifications one by one. "Biology is a chemical reaction. It's evolution's way of ensuring genetic diversity and offspring survival. It has nothing to do with love or compatibility or happiness. It's programming."

Corvus's eyes sharpened with interest and alarm. "You've been researching," he observed, his tone carefully neutral.

"Of course I have." I pulled out my phone, letting them see the screen full of bookmark tabs. "Did you think I'd accept this without trying to understand what you've done to me?"

The tension in the room ratcheted up several degrees. All three Alphas were suddenly alert, assessing, calculating. They'd expected compliance, I realized. Expected me to fall into line once the claiming was complete.

"What did you find?" Corvus asked, his clinical detachment not quite masking the concern underneath.

"Enough," I said, meeting each of their gazes in turn. "Enough to know that this isn't the fairy tale ending you seem to think it is. Enough to know that I have options."

Dorian's jaw tightened, Alpha authority asserting itself despite his apparent efforts at restraint. "The bond requires maintenance, Vespera. Separation would cause physical symptoms for all of us."

"I'm aware of the risks," I said calmly, taking a deliberate bite of eggs to show how unaffected I was by their growing alarm. "I'm also aware that people have survived bond rejection before."

"People have died attempting bond rejection," Oakley said, his voice sharp with panic he wasn't quite managing to hide. "You can't seriously be considering—"

"I'm considering all of my options," I interrupted, enjoying the way they flinched at my calm certainty. "Including the option of finishing my degree without interference from the Alphas who made my life hell for months."

The silence that followed was deafening. I could see them processing, calculating, trying to figure out how to manage this unexpected resistance. They'd expected gratitude, submission, inevitability. They hadn't prepared for rejection.

"This is insane," Dorian said finally, his careful composure cracking. "You're talking about risking your life to avoid a bond that could make you happier than you've ever been."

"Are you happy?" I asked, tilting my head with mock curiosity. "Because from where I'm sitting, you all look terrified that your new acquisition might slip through your fingers."

"You're not an acquisition," Oakley protested, but his scent spiked with distress that gave lie to his words.

"No? Then prove it." I set down my fork and leaned back in my chair, projecting confidence I didn't entirely feel. "Give me space. Let me finish my exams, which, by the way, are next week and I've lost three days to this heat you helped trigger. Let me complete my degree without interference. If this bond is real, if it's meant to be, then it should survive a few months of distance."