Chapter 66: The Reason They’re Running

Astrid

"You really don’t know?" Ivy sounded genuinely shocked, and I felt a flash of embarrassment along with it.

"I didn’t exactly grow up with lessons on werewolf biology," I said. "Stop sounding like I crawled out from under a rock."

She laughed briefly, then got serious again. A rut, she explained, was a biological period alpha males experienced, when their instincts sharpened, their senses heightened, their bodies grew restless. The need to be near their mate became something they could barely push aside. Everything got more intense, emotions included.

I thought back through the entire day as she talked. Reed’s tension. Xander’s distraction. The way both of them had flinched away from any accidental contact.

"Then why are they staying away from me?" I asked.

Ivy went quiet for a second. "Because you told them to."

That landed hard. She reminded me what had happened after the ball, how I’d rejected them, begged them through a locked door to reject me right back, told them clearly I didn’t want any of this.

So what were they supposed to do with that? They were keeping their distance. They weren’t using their own instincts as an excuse to cross a line I’d drawn myself.

I ran back through everything I’d witnessed that day. Reed pulling his hand away. Xander leaving the room entirely. Both of them keeping careful space between us at every turn. I’d read all of it as rejection.

Now I understood it might be the exact opposite.

"So they’ve been doing this because of me?" I asked, guilt already twisting in my chest.

"No," Ivy said. "They’ve been doing this because they’re trying to respect you."

That distinction mattered more than I wanted to admit. I’d been terrified the bond would strip away my choice entirely. Instead, they were protecting it, even while it clearly cost them something.

"What happens if they just suppress it?" I asked.

Ivy’s joking tone disappeared completely. A rut wasn’t something an alpha could ignore indefinitely, she explained. Suppressing it caused real strain, exhaustion, pain, something close to fever, emotional instability, and eventually genuine physical danger.

My stomach dropped. "How long can they do that?"

There wasn’t an exact answer, she said. It depended on the strength of the rut, the strength of the bond, and in Reed and Xander’s case, there were two alphas bonded to the same person, which made everything more unpredictable.

"Could they actually die from it?" I asked.

She didn’t give me a dramatic yes. "If they keep pushing their bodies past the limit, it becomes dangerous."

That was enough to scare me thoroughly. I thought about their faces earlier. They hadn’t looked angry.

They’d looked exhausted.

After the call ended, I couldn’t settle. I kept thinking about them, considered going after them, then stopped myself. What if they thought I was changing my mind out of fear rather than anything real? I didn’t want to make a decision that way.

I picked up the phone Ivy had bullied me into getting, scrolling through my short list of contacts until I reached Reed’s name. I typed out a message.

Are you okay?

I sent it and immediately regretted it. No response came. I waited. Ten minutes passed. Still nothing.

My worry only grew.

Eventually the apartment door opened, and they both walked in. Something was clearly wrong the moment I saw them. Not ordinary tired. Their movements were controlled in a way that looked deliberate, forced, like they were holding themselves together through sheer effort.

"Where have you been?" I asked.

"We needed air," Xander said vaguely.

"We’re fine," Reed said.

I knew they were lying, not necessarily about being fine exactly, but about how serious this actually was. I watched Reed set something down on the table, his hand tightening briefly around the edge before he let go.

Xander noticed me watching and straightened quickly.

I thought about everything Ivy had just explained, and suddenly the whole scene looked completely different.

"Is this because of me?" I finally managed.

Silence.

Neither of them answered right away, and that silence told me everything I needed to know.

Reed finally spoke. "You asked us to stay away."

He wasn’t accusing me of anything. That was what made it worse.

"Are you really entering your rut?" I asked.

Neither denied it.

Xander explained they didn’t want to make things harder for me, that they knew I was afraid, knew I didn’t want the bond, and refused to use their own biology as leverage to pressure me into anything.

"Even if you’re suffering?" I asked.

"Your choice doesn’t disappear because we’re struggling," Reed said.

That hit somewhere deep.

"We can handle ourselves," Xander added.

I didn’t believe him. "Why didn’t you tell me?"

"Because you already had enough to deal with," Xander said quietly.

Reed looked at me. "We weren’t going to make you responsible for us."

I didn’t have a response to that. It was exactly what I’d been afraid of all along, the bond forcing responsibility onto me I hadn’t asked for. Instead, they’d been carrying it themselves, silently, without a single complaint, just so I wouldn’t have to.

They retreated to their rooms shortly after, and I stayed in the common room, completely overwhelmed. I thought about my mother, the life I’d come from, the bond, my fear of being trapped, my fear of being tied irrevocably to the royal family that had already taken everything from me once.

But now there was a new fear sitting alongside all of it.

Losing them.

I didn’t want to accept the bond simply out of fear. But I also couldn’t keep pretending I felt nothing, not after everything I’d just learned, not after watching them suffer quietly rather than push me into something I didn’t choose.

I looked down at the phone still in my hand, my conversation with Ivy still open on the screen. Then I looked toward their closed bedroom doors.

For the first time, I understood something clearly.

Reed and Xander weren’t running from me because they didn’t want me.

They were running because they wanted me too much to violate my choice.

My thumb hovered over their names again. I didn’t call.

Not yet.

But something inside me had shifted, quiet and undeniable, settling somewhere I couldn’t quite name.

I thought about the choice I’d been avoiding since the night of the ball. Accept them, or keep rejecting them.

Until now, I’d only been afraid of what would happen if I accepted the bond.

For the first time since the bond appeared, I wasn’t afraid of what would happen if I accepted it.

I was afraid of what would happen if I didn’t.