Chapter 30
THIRTY
JUDAH
“You look like absolute shit.”
Dom settles into a lounge chair next to me on the back porch.
“Thanks,” I manage. My voice comes out like gravel scraped across sandpaper. “Appreciate the feedback.”
“Just calling it like I see it.” He holds out a beer to me. “When’s the last time you actually slept?”
I don’t answer. Can’t answer, because the truth is I’ve lost track.
Two days? Three? Time has become elastic since Mason’s heat started, stretching and compressing in ways that make no sense.
All I know is the relentless pull of the bond, tugging at something deep in my chest every time a new wave crests through him.
He’s in there. Right now. Burning.
And I can’t go to him.
The bond I’ve managed to ignore for ten years has come roaring back to life over the last few days. Mason’s need bleeds into me—hot and desperate and lonely. So goddamn lonely it makes my throat close up.
“Jesus.” Dom’s hand lands on my shoulder, heavy and grounding. “Judah. Breathe.”
I suck in air through my nose. Hold it. Let it out slowly. The wave recedes, leaving me hollowed out and trembling.
“How much longer?” I ask the darkness between my knees.
“Heats usually last—”
“I know how long heats last.” I force myself to sit up, to meet Dom’s eyes. “I meant how much longer before I lose my fucking mind.”
Dom doesn’t flinch at my tone. He just watches me, obviously trying to decide if I’m about to do something unfortunate.
“You’re not going to lose your mind,” he says. “You’re going to white-knuckle through this like you do everything else. And when it’s over, you’re going to figure out what happens next.”
“What if he doesn’t ever want to see me again?”
His hand squeezes my shoulder once before releasing. “Then you deal with that too.”
He might technically be correct. But, also, dealing with this is starting to feel completely impossible.
I know he’s right. Hate that he’s right. Hate the helplessness that’s been crawling under my skin for days, the inability to do anything except sit here and feel Mason’s heat from a distance while someone else takes care of him.
Atticus Sloan.
The name sits in my gut like a stone. I’ve been trying not to think about what’s happening in that room. Trying not to imagine another alpha’s hands on Mason’s skin, another alpha’s scent mixing with his, another alpha giving him what I should be—
Stop.
I drag my hands down my face, feeling the rasp of stubble against my palms. Three days without shaving.
Four days without a proper shower. I’ve been existing in some twilight state between human and animal, powered by coffee and stubbornness and the bone-deep need to be close even when close isn’t allowed.
“You should eat something,” Dom says, taking a swig of his beer. “Have you had anything since Phoenix forced that omelet on you?”
Phoenix.
She’s been a force of nature these past few days, frankly impossible to ignore. Every interaction with her leaves me slightly off-balance, like I’m constantly recalibrating my assumptions.
“She’s something,” I say, not quite a question.
Dom’s fingers drum on the beer bottle. “That’s one way of putting it.”
The tips of his ears have gone slightly pink, visible even in the dim light from the window.
I feel my mouth twitch. “Something you want to share with the class?”
“Fuck off.”
“That’s not a no.”
“I said fuck off.” But there’s no heat in it. Just embarrassed resignation, like a man who knows he’s been caught and can’t be bothered to mount a defense.
I almost smile. Almost. Then another wave of longing from Mason hits me and whatever humor I’d found evaporates.
The back door creaks open.
Phoenix stands in the rectangle of light, barefoot in yoga pants and an oversized sweater. Her copper hair is piled on top of her head in a messy knot, and there are shadows under her brown eyes that speak to sleepless nights of her own.
I’m immediately on my feet, my first thought that something terrible has happened to Mason.
Then she says the thing I most want and least expect to hear.
“Mason’s asking for you.”
The world stops.
Or feels like it does, at least. My perception narrows until I can’t hear or see anything but the movement of her mouth as she shapes the words. Everything else falls away.
“Are you sure?” My voice doesn’t sound like mine. Too rough. Too desperate. “He said that?”
Phoenix rolls her eyes with an exasperation that seems both wildly inappropriate and exactly like what I’d expect of her. “I’ve been trying to distract him for the last two hours, so yes, I’m pretty sure. But you can stay out here if you want.”
I’m moving before the last word leaves her mouth.
Dom jumps up to follow me. “I’m coming, too.”
Phoenix studies him for a long moment before her gaze flicks away. “Just remember the rules.”
I nod, not trusting my voice.
She turns on her heel, clearly expecting us to follow.
Dom squeezes my shoulder and then we’re following Phoenix into the house and up the stairs. Each step feels like a year. Each heartbeat pounds through me like it’ll be my last one.
I can smell Mason before we reach the bedroom door.
Chamomile and black pepper, deepened and enriched by heat until it’s almost intoxicating. My feet slow. My breath catches. Ten years since I’ve been this close to that scent, and it hits me like a punch to the solar plexus.
Mason. My Mason. Right there, on the other side of that door.
Phoenix pushes the door open.
I register the nest, a mountain of blankets and pillows arranged in a cocoon in the center of the bed. Then my gaze flicks to Atticus, sitting in a chair on the far side of the room, having wisely removed himself as far away as the room will allow.
The third thing is Mason, who I give my exclusive focus now that safety is assured.
He curls in the center of the nest, trembling. His face is buried in a pillow, shoulders shaking, skin glistening with sweat despite the flush painting his cheeks and throat. He looks small and fragile.
And cold.
“Why doesn’t he have a blanket?”
Phoenix answers with wry amusement. “Because he keeps kicking them off. But you’re welcome to try again yourself if you want.”
I’m not going to make her repeat herself, just in case she says something different next time.
I approach the nest slowly, telegraphing every movement the way I would with a wounded animal.
Each step loud enough that it can’t be mistaken for something else.
I lower myself onto the edge of the mattress, not touching, just present.
Letting Mason adjust to my proximity, my scent, the weight of me on the mattress beside him.
Mason goes rigid.
Every muscle in his body locks tight. His breathing stops. For one terrible, endless moment, I think I’ve made a mistake. Think he’s going to tell me to leave, to get out, that he’s changed his mind and doesn’t want me anywhere near him.
Then, gradually, his body starts to unfurl.
It’s like watching a flower turn toward sunlight it hasn’t felt in years. His shoulders drop. His spine curves toward me. His face lifts from the pillow, gray eyes finding mine through the fever-haze.
“Judah.” My name on his lips is barely a whisper.
My own voice cracks. “I’m right here.”
I reach out with my palm up. An offering rather than a demand. Just my hand, suspended in the space between us, waiting for him to decide.
Mason stares at it for a long, terrible moment. His chest heaves with ragged breaths. His fingers twitch against the sheets.
Then his hand closes around mine.
The contact sends a visible shudder through both of us.
The bond—dormant for a decade, reduced to background static and occasional flickers—roars back to life. Every synapse fires at once. Every nerve ending ignites. It’s like a circuit being completed after a ten-year blackout, electricity surging through wires that forgot they were connected.
I gasp.
Mason makes a broken sound.
I shift closer. Carefully. Slowly. My arm tentatively comes around his shoulders, ready to retreat at the first sign of resistance.
Mason doesn’t resist.
He collapses.
His whole body folds into mine like paper finally allowed to crease where it was always meant to bend.
His face presses against my chest. His fingers twist into the fabric of my shirt.
He’s trying to crawl inside me, and I want to let him.
Want to absorb him completely, wrap myself around every fragile inch of him and keep him safe forever.
My hand moves in slow circles across his bare back. Relearning the topography of a body I used to know by heart. The ridges of his spine. The planes of his shoulder blades. The soft skin at the dip of his lower back where he’s always been ticklish.
Physically, it’s like no time has passed at all. He feels exactly the same.
I cradle his face in both hands, thumbs brushing tears from his cheekbones. When did he start crying? My fingers thread into those damp curls that he always fought to straighten. His hair is longer than it used to be, softer, and I’d forgotten how much I loved the texture of it against my palms.
I press my forehead against his. Our breath mingles. Our noses brush.
“Mace,” I whisper. “God, Mace—”
He stiffens.
The transformation is instantaneous. One moment he’s melting into me, pliant and trusting. The next he’s rigid as stone, shoving backward with hands that shake against my chest.
“I can’t.” The words come out strangled. “I can’t do this. I can’t—“
He scrambles away from me until his back hits the headboard, knees drawn up to his chest, arms wrapped around himself like he’s trying to hold his own pieces together.
No. No no no—
Phoenix is there before I can move.
She flows onto the bed like water, positioning herself behind Mason so he’s sandwiched between us. Her arms wrap around him from behind and she hooks her chin over his shoulder, voice dropping to a murmur I can barely hear.