Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
MASON
“I’m sorry… what.”
It’s not even a question. Just a flat statement of disbelief as I stare at Phoenix across our shared hotel room.
She’s sitting cross-legged on the bed, still wearing the clothes from our hospital visit, her copper hair falling in messy waves around her face.
There’s a manic gleam in her amber eyes that I’ve come to recognize as the precursor to catastrophically bad decisions.
“We need to let the studio know that I’m going into heat,” she repeats, enunciating each word like she’s explaining something to a particularly dense child. “So I won’t be able to attend the press tour.”
“Your heats always come like clockwork,” I say, trying to keep my voice level despite the alarm bells clanging in my head. “Your next one isn’t for another two months.”
I probably know her cycle better than she does.
I track it on my calendar with color-coded reminders for the pre-heat symptoms, the actual heat, and the recovery period.
I’ve rescheduled press junkets, pushed back filming dates, and once bribed a location scout to “discover problems” with a venue just to ensure Phoenix wouldn’t be trapped anywhere uncomfortable during her most vulnerable time.
She doesn’t take enough suppressants to kill a lesser man like I do.
Phoenix shrugs, a deliberately casual gesture that doesn’t match the calculation in her eyes.”I’m already feeling pre-heat symptoms. Maybe the stress of the plane almost crashing triggered them.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Well, it’s happening,” she huffs, crossing her arms over her chest. “Look, heats count as a medical issue that will excuse me from the press tour. I know that’s in my contract. We just need to let the studio know.”
I study her, really study her. The way her fingers tap restlessly against her knee. The slight flush high on her cheekbones that has nothing to do with actual pre-heat symptoms and everything to do with the adrenaline of hatching a scheme. The way she won’t quite meet my eyes.
“What did you do?” I ask quietly.
She bites her lower lip in that way that makes my chest tighten—a gesture so unconsciously seductive it should be illegal. Before I can stop myself, I reach out and drag my thumb across her lip, pulling it from between her teeth.
“Isn’t it better if you can maintain plausible deniability?” she asks, voice dropping to a coquettish whisper that she must hope will be distracting.
I already know that if I go into my medicine kit, I’m going to find exactly what I think is missing is actually missing.
The bottle of heat inducers—prescribed by Dr. Winters at my insistence after I caught Phoenix buying black market ones from a PA on her last film—won’t be there. Or it will be there, but empty.
“How many did you take?” I ask, fighting to maintain my patience.
Phoenix winces. “Remind me. How many were left in the bottle?”
“Damn it, Phoenix!” The words explode out of me before I can stop them.
I’m not a shouter. I’ve built my entire professional identity around being the calm in her storm.
But right now, with the weight of everything—this town, Judah, the plane, Stephanie, all of it—pressing down on me, my control slips.
“I didn’t have a choice,” she insists, voice rising to match mine. “You heard what Atticus said. The studio will bury me if I try to back out. This is the only medical excuse that will work.”
Exasperation wars with amusement with a small side of wanting to shake some sense into her, as if that had any chance of actually working. I take a deep breath, trying to reclaim my professional demeanor.
“Let me get this straight. You would really rather spend an entire heat in this hotel room than get on a plane for a few hours?”
Her eyes widen with triumph, and she waves a small white business card under my nose like it’s a winning lottery ticket.
“I won’t have to stay in the hotel room because I’ve already been offered a place to stay, under the roof of a very nice alpha who won’t even be a threat because he is already mated. ”
The world stops spinning.
Every cell in my body goes cold, then hot, then cold again as I recognize the card in her hand. Simple white cardstock, embossed with a name I’ve spent ten years trying to forget.
Judah Daniels. Daniels Fishing Co.
Horror crashes through me in waves. Phoenix has no idea what she’s done. No idea what she’s suggesting. No idea that the “very nice alpha” she’s planning to spend her heat with is the same man who bonded with me at seventeen and then watched me walk away without a word.
I have no way to explain to her how catastrophic this situation is without revealing my secret.
“Phoenix.” My voice comes out strangled. “You can’t stay with him.”
“Why not? He said he has plenty of room, and he seems nice. Like, genuinely nice, not Hollywood nice where the person really just wants something from you.” She tilts her head, studying me. “So what’s the problem?”
The problem is that Judah is my alpha. Was my alpha. Is my alpha, damn it. Because a bond is permanent. The alpha I abandoned for the exact reason that he didn’t try to stop me.
“The problem,” I say carefully, “is that you can’t just invite yourself to stay with a stranger during your heat. It’s inappropriate. It’s dangerous.”
“He’s mated,” she repeats, like that solves everything. “And he offered. I didn’t ask.”
“He offered because he was being polite, not because he actually wants an omega in heat under his roof,” I explain patiently.
Normally, I can find a way to reason with Phoenix even when she is at her most chaotic but I feel this situation spiraling out of control.
“Besides, you don’t know anything about him. ”
“I know he saved me from a creepy biker. I know he was a gentleman about it. And I know he has a claiming bite, which means he’s not going to try anything.” She narrows her eyes. “What’s really going on, Mason? You’ve been acting weird since we landed in this town.”
I can feel the walls closing in. The secret I’ve kept for ten years—the one I’ve built my entire life around avoiding—is about to come crashing down around me.
“Nothing’s going on. I just think it’s a bad idea to stay with a stranger instead of at a proper hotel.”
“This isn’t a proper hotel. It’s a bed and breakfast with one available room for the three of us.” She gestures around at the cramped space. “Besides, if I’m really going into heat, I can’t stay here with Atticus.”
The thought of Phoenix in heat anywhere near Atticus sends a spike of something ugly through my chest. It’s not jealousy. It can’t be jealousy. I have no right to be jealous.
“We’ll get you your own room,” I say, grasping at solutions. “We’ll rent a car and drive to Portland. There must be proper hotels there.”
“In four hours, I’m going to be in full heat, Mason. We don’t have time for a road trip.” She leans forward, her expression softening. “I know you’re worried about me. You always worry about me. But I’ve thought this through.”
That’s what terrifies me. Phoenix’s version of thinking things through usually involves charging headfirst into the most chaotic option available and dealing with the consequences later.
“How many pills did you take?” I ask again, trying a different angle.
She winces. “All of them?”
“All of them.” I close my eyes briefly. “Phoenix, those are meant to be taken one at a time, with at least twelve hours between doses. They’re not meant to induce a full heat, just to enhance the natural cycle.”
“Well, they’re definitely working. I’m already feeling warm.” She fans herself with the business card. “And my skin is getting that tingly feeling.”
I study her more carefully. Her pupils are slightly dilated, and there is a flush spreading down her neck that wasn’t there before.
Her scent has changed too—subtly, but noticeably to someone who’s spent as much time around her as I have.
The usual notes of vanilla and citrus are deepening, growing richer, headier.
She’s not lying about the symptoms. The pills are working faster than I expected.
“This is insane,” I mutter, more to myself than to her. “You can’t just force yourself into heat to avoid a plane ride.”
“Too late.” She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Already done.”
I need to think. I need to come up with a plan that doesn’t involve Phoenix showing up at Judah’s door in pre-heat. I need to fix this before it spirals completely out of control.
“We’ll call Dr. Winters,” I say, reaching for my phone. “She can prescribe something to counteract the inducers.”
“It’s almost midnight in LA. She won’t answer.”
“Then we’ll go to the emergency room here. They can give you suppressants to—“
“No.” Phoenix’s voice hardens. “No hospitals. No doctors. No suppressants.”
“Phoenix—”
“I’m not getting back on that plane, Mason.” Her amber eyes flash with a determination I’ve rarely seen, even from her. “I can’t. I won’t. And if this is what it takes to avoid it, then that’s what I’m doing.”
I run a hand through my hair, tugging at the strands in frustration. “You’re being ridiculous. It’s a three-hour flight. You’ve done it a hundred times.”
“I’m not doing it,” she says, voice dropping to something low and fierce. “I don’t care what it costs. I don’t care if the studio sues me. I don’t care if it tanks my career. I am not getting back on a plane.”
The absolute conviction in her voice stops me cold.
This isn’t just Phoenix being difficult. This isn’t her usual resistance to schedules and obligations. This is genuine fear. The kind that burrows deep and refuses to be reasoned with.
“Okay,” I say softly, changing tactics. “Okay. No planes. We’ll figure something else out.”
Relief washes over her face, so powerful it makes my chest ache. “Thank you.”
“But you can’t stay with Judah Daniels.”
Her expression hardens again. “Why not? Give me one good reason.”
Because he’s my alpha. Because I can’t leave you alone with him, but being under the same roof with both of you might finally be enough to destroy me.
“Because I don’t trust him,” I say instead.
“You don’t know him.”
“Neither do you!”
“I’m a good judge of character.”
I scoff before I can stop myself, but swallow the sound when Phoenix glares back at me.
“This is just a bad idea, Phoenix.”
“Look, this heat is happening whether you like it or not. The pills are already in my system. There’s no undo button.” She spreads her hands wide, palms up. “So if you have a better plan than showing up on this guy’s doorstep, I am genuinely, completely, one hundred percent open to hearing it.”
I open my mouth. Close it. Open it again.
Nothing comes out.
Because she’s right. The heat inducers are already working their way through her bloodstream, triggering a cascade of hormonal changes that can’t be reversed without medical intervention she’s refusing to accept.
In a few hours, she’ll be in full heat—vulnerable, desperate, unable to think clearly.
And I have no alternative to offer that doesn’t involve either revealing the real reason I don’t want her anywhere near Judah or watching her suffer through it in this cramped room with an unmated alpha three feet away.
The bathroom door opens with a rush of steam.
Atticus emerges with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist, water droplets still clinging to the planes of his chest. His dark skin gleams in the lamplight, muscles shifting as he reaches up to run a hand through his damp hair.
Phoenix’s head swivels toward him like a compass finding north.
Her lips part. Her pupils blow wide, the amber of her irises shrinking to thin rings around pools of black.
The flush that had been creeping down her neck spreads lower, disappearing beneath the collar of her shirt.
I watch her throat work as she swallows, her gaze tracking Atticus’s progress across the room with the fixed intensity of a predator—or prey.
The desire in her suddenly glazed eyes is impossible to miss.
Oh no.
The heat inducers are working faster than I thought.
Much faster. Phoenix’s scent has shifted again in just the last few minutes, the vanilla and citrus notes now threaded through with something darker, muskier.
Something that’s making Atticus’s nostrils flare as he pauses mid-step, his own eyes darkening as he catches whatever pheromones she’s already pumping into the air.
This is a real emergency. We are officially out of both choices and time.