Maria.

The healer finally arrived after what felt like forever.

By that point, my patience had completely worn thin.

The moment he stepped into the quarters and saw us standing there waiting, his expression shifted slightly in surprise before he quickly lowered his head respectfully.

"Luna Moon," he greeted politely.

The title instantly made Adrien scoff beside me.

"Luna?" he repeated, raising his brows. "Isn’t it too early to address her by that title? Nothing is certain yet." He said, folding his arms across his chest.

My irritation immediately doubled.

I turned sharply and shot him a deadly glare that would have silenced anyone else instantly.

Why was he suddenly acting bothered by the title now?

The same people who once treated me like I meant nothing suddenly had opinions about who addressed me as Luna.

Honestly, I was getting tired.

"I want to break a mate bond," I said impatiently before the healer could respond to Adrien.

The words immediately shifted the atmosphere in the room.

The healer blinked in obvious shock.

For a moment, he simply stared at me silently, as though trying to process whether he had heard me correctly.

Then his eyes slowly drifted toward the Quadruplets standing behind me.

His gaze lingered on each of them carefully, almost like he was trying to piece together the strange situation standing before him.

A frown settled faintly on his face.

"Luna Moon..." he began cautiously after several seconds of silence. "You can easily reject the bond."

"I know," I interrupted immediately, my voice strained with frustration. "But there is an issue."

The healer stayed quiet, waiting for me to continue.

I inhaled deeply before speaking again.

"Whenever I try to say the word ’reject,’ I feel a sharp pain in my neck..." I paused briefly, my fingers unconsciously brushing against the marked spot before I turned my face away slightly. "...at the place where they marked me."

The room suddenly became very quiet.

The healer’s expression immediately changed.

Without wasting another second, he stepped closer toward me carefully.

"May I?" he asked.

I nodded stiffly.

His fingers gently brushed against the side of my neck where the mark rested. The moment he touched the area, a faint sting spread through my skin again, causing me to wince slightly.

His brows furrowed deeply.

Then slowly, he turned his gaze toward the Quadruplets.

The atmosphere around them had become tense.

Adrien looked restless.

Davian’s jaw was tightly clenched.

Damien stood unusually still.

And Aidan looked like he was already expecting bad news.

The healer let out a deep sigh before finally speaking.

"The mark on your neck isn’t complete..."

My heart skipped instantly.

"What do you mean?" I asked quickly.

The healer hesitated briefly before continuing.

"Unless they all mark you completely, you cannot break the bond." He paused carefully, almost like he was choosing his words cautiously. "And once the bond is complete..." his eyes darkened slightly, "...breaking it requires someone to be sacrificed."

My entire body went cold.

"What?" I asked instantly, my voice filled with disbelief and shock.

For a moment, I genuinely thought I had heard him wrongly.

A sacrifice?

No.

That was impossible.

I had never heard of such a thing before in my entire life.

A mate bond requiring a sacrifice to break? It sounded absurd and terrifying.

My breathing became uneven as I stared blankly at the healer.

Beside me, even the Quadruplets looked shaken.

Adrien’s face had gone pale, Damien’s composed expression cracked slightly, Davian cursed softly under his breath and Aidan simply stared silently at the healer, his fists tightening slowly by his side.

"The bond is sacred, Luna Moon," the healer said carefully again. "Although it..." He suddenly paused mid-sentence.

His eyes drifted once more toward the Quadruplets standing behind me.

The strange hesitation in his expression only made my chest tighten further.

A terrible feeling slowly settled inside me.

And as for them, Adrien raised his brows immediately, clearly confused by the healer’s strange silence.

Davian, on the other hand, stared firmly at the healer with sharp eyes, his expression hardening with every passing second.

Aidan kept tapping his feet gently against the ground impatiently, the soft repeated sound filling the silence inside the room.

And Damien stood still.

But somehow, his silence felt heavier than the others.

All four of them kept staring at the healer, waiting for him to continue, yet the old man remained quiet, his gaze lingering on them in a strange way.

It was beginning to irritate everyone.

"Cat got your tongue?" Damien finally asked, his tone calm but laced with warning.

The healer immediately lowered his head slightly.

"I would love to speak to Luna Moon alone," he said respectfully.

The moment those words left his mouth, Davian’s expression darkened instantly.

"Stop calling her that!" he growled, taking a threatening step forward. "We are her mates, so any danger or anything the rejection of this mate bond could cause, we have to be aware of it!"

His voice echoed firmly through the room.

Honestly, my headache only worsened.

Everything already felt complicated enough, and now they were making things even harder for the healer.

"Shut up, you all!" I suddenly yelled out in frustration.

The room instantly fell silent.

I was breathing heavily at that point, my fingers curling tightly into my palms.

Not being able to reject them already felt suffocating enough, and now this strange conversation about incomplete bonds and sacrifices was only making my mind spin even more.

Surprisingly, all four of them immediately kept quiet.Their eyes shifted toward me at once and for a strange moment, it almost looked like they were waiting for permission to speak again.

That alone irritated me further.

I immediately turned toward the healer before any of them could say another word.

"Go on," I said firmly.

The healer nodded slowly.

Then he inhaled deeply, as though preparing himself carefully before speaking.

"Luna Moon," he began cautiously again. "I do not wish to pry into your personal life..." His voice trailed slightly before he continued. "But you are the first person I have ever seen with the tendency to be bound to more than five mates."

The words instantly made my stomach twist.

"What five?" Aidan asked immediately, confusion flashing across his face as he straightened up. "We are four and logically one."

His tone carried both irritation and confusion.

Honestly, I was equally confused.

The healer slowly shook his head, then his expression grew even more serious.

"Luna Moon..." he said carefully. "You have an alternating bond."

My face immediately paled.

For a second, it felt like my ears stopped working properly.

"What?" I whispered unconsciously.

The words sounded foreign, strange and terrifying.

An alternating bond?

I had never heard such a thing before.