Rejected By My Mate; Claimed By Lycan Quadruplets Chapter 180

Lisa's POV

I could still hear the soft hum of the night crickets outside the windows, that low, steady song that always felt like a lullaby in this estate. The house had finally gone quiet. The children had exhausted themselves after another long day—Elias had refused to sleep until Enzo told him a story about wolves and warriors, Aria had clung to me until her tiny fists finally slackened, Kael had fought with his usual stubbornness until Atlas came in with that deep voice that always made him calm down, and Lyra had demanded one more lullaby before her eyes fluttered shut.

Now, it was silence.

The kind of silence where every sound feels amplified—my own heartbeat, the whisper of my breath, the creak of the floorboards when I shifted my weight. I stood in the hallway longer than I should have, staring at nothing, just caught up in the weight of the revelations that had shaken me hours earlier.

Each child… carrying the DNA of each brother.

It still echoed inside me like a storm. Elias, Enzo’s blood. Aria, Ash’s. Kael, Kael’s. Lyra, Atlas’s.

It made no sense, not in the way nature was supposed to work, not in the way my life was supposed to have gone. But the test had been undeniable, and when I looked into their faces now, it was like seeing the truth written plain in their little smiles, in the quirks of their eyes and the set of their jaws.

And now, even more unbearable, it had placed this invisible thread between me and each brother—a thread that pulled tighter with every moment, reminding me that they weren’t just guardians, or leaders, or the men whose lives had somehow tangled with mine. They were bound to me by the strongest bonds imaginable. By flesh. By blood. By children.

But Enzo…

He had been the hardest for me to look at tonight.

He had kept his expression calm when the results came through, though I knew him well enough to see the flicker of pride, the storm of responsibility, the silent vow already forming in his eyes. Elias was his. The boy who already mirrored him in temper and fire. Enzo hadn’t said much, but he hadn’t needed to. That look had said everything—he would burn the world if he had to, to protect what was his.

And Elias was his.

The thought alone made my chest ache.

I didn’t know what I was doing when my feet carried me down the hall. Maybe I had intended to just pour myself a glass of water, to cool my head, to sit alone in the dark living room until my thoughts untangled. But my body betrayed me, because instead, I stopped in front of his door.

The faint glow of lamplight leaked out from the bottom. He was still awake. Of course he was.

I should have walked past. I should have turned away. But my hand lifted before I could stop it, curling into a fist, hesitating, then knocking softly against the wood.

There was a pause inside, the scrape of a chair against the floor, then his voice—low, steady, unmistakably his.

“Come in.”

I pushed the door open slowly, as though I had been caught doing something wrong, and slipped inside.

He was sitting at the edge of the bed, half-dressed in loose sweatpants and a plain black shirt, his damp hair falling across his forehead. There was a glass of whiskey untouched on the nightstand. His eyes flicked to mine, and for a moment, I felt pinned in place by the intensity of them.

“Lisa.” He said my name softly, not as a question, not as a command—just as though he were tasting it. “Couldn’t sleep?”

I shook my head. “No.” My voice came out thinner than I wanted, too revealing. I tried to cover it with a small shrug. “It’s… a lot to process.”

He leaned back slightly, one arm braced on the bedframe. His posture was deceptively relaxed, but I knew better. Enzo never truly relaxed. His mind was always moving, always calculating. Even now, with only me in the room, his body carried that quiet readiness that came from a lifetime of survival and command.

“I figured as much,” he said. “You’ve been carrying the weight of all this on your shoulders long before we got answers. Now that the truth’s out…” His eyes searched mine. “Does it feel heavier, or lighter?”

The question cut deeper than I expected.

I let out a shaky breath and crossed my arms over my chest, not as defense, but to hold myself together. “Both. It feels like… like I’m not crazy anymore, like I wasn’t imagining the pull that tied all of this together. But it also feels like chains. Permanent chains.”

His gaze softened, just a fraction. “Chains can also be bonds.”

I shook my head, looking away, staring at the floorboards. “Bonds I didn’t choose, Enzo. Bonds I don’t even understand. Do you have any idea what it feels like to look at them and know each of you lives inside them? That my children are tied to you in a way that can’t ever be undone?”

“Yes.” The word came out immediately, without hesitation. I snapped my eyes back to him, startled.

He leaned forward, his forearms resting on his thighs, his eyes locked on me with such intensity that I forgot to breathe. “Yes, Lisa. Because when I look at Elias, I see myself. Not just in his eyes, or his stubbornness, but in the fire that won’t let him bend. And when I see that, I know exactly what it feels like. To see a part of you in someone else, to feel it in your bones. Don’t think for a second that I don’t understand.”

I swallowed hard, my throat tightening.

He was right. And that truth both comforted and terrified me.

I sank onto the chair opposite his bed, the distance between us a fragile shield. “I don’t know how to do this,” I admitted quietly. “I don’t know how to carry all of it. I feel like I’ll break if I let myself… feel everything.”

His eyes followed every flicker of my expression. For a moment, he didn’t speak. Then he rose, slow and deliberate, crossing the small space until he stood in front of me. My heart slammed against my ribs, panic and longing colliding.

He crouched down in front of me, his height folding into the smallness of that moment, his presence filling the air until I could barely breathe. His voice, when it came, was quieter than I’d ever heard it.

“You don’t have to carry it alone.”

I blinked fast, trying to keep my tears from falling. “I’m afraid if I lean on you—on any of you—I’ll forget how to stand on my own.”

His lips curved, not into a smile, but something rawer. “Then let me remind you. Not replace you. Not weaken you. Just remind you that even the strongest shoulders deserve rest.”

I couldn’t look away.

For years, Enzo had been the one who seemed untouchable, untamed, the one who made my heart race with both fear and something I refused to name. But now, crouched before me, his eyes burning steady into mine, he was showing me something else. Not the ruthless strength. Not the leader. But the man beneath it.

“Elias is yours,” I whispered, as if saying it aloud would make it less impossible.

His jaw tightened, his breath catching, but he didn’t look away. “He’s ours. Yours and mine. That boy is everything I am and everything you are, all tangled into one. Don’t ever think I’ll let him forget that.”

The tears broke free then, hot against my cheeks. I tried to turn my face away, ashamed of how fragile I felt, but his hand lifted, slow, giving me every chance to pull back, before his fingers brushed against my cheek.

The warmth of his touch undid me.

I closed my eyes, shuddering. “Enzo…”

“Look at me,” he murmured.

I forced my eyes open, meeting his again. The room felt smaller, the silence heavier, the space between us charged.

He didn’t push closer. He didn’t steal anything from me. He just held me there, in that gaze, steady as stone, until I felt my heart begin to crack open against my will.

“I don’t know what this is between us,” I whispered. “I don’t know if I want to know.”

He exhaled slowly, his thumb brushing once along my skin. “It’s not something you need to name right now. Just… let it be. Let me be here. For you. For Elias. For all of it.”

And in that moment, against everything I had promised myself, I wanted to believe him.