Chapter 45
Mason
Iknow I am an idiot long before the universe decides to prove it.
It happens in tiny cuts, like slices to my heart.
Hudson laughing softly in the kitchen while Alex insists on slicing his apple, even though Hudson has two perfectly working hands. Desmond leaning over the back of the couch, pressing a kiss into Hudson’s hair, murmuring something that makes our omega’s cheeks flush.
The way Hudson’s scent keeps getting stronger, richer, sweeter, threaded through every damn room of the house, even though he’s spending more and more of his day in bed or in the nest because the fatigue hits harder now.
And then there’s the way my chest keeps tightening any time I walk into a room and he’s not there.
That actually isn’t new. It started the day we came home to find he’d returned to his own apartment.
But even with him here, I find myself constantly seeking him out when I can’t see him with my own two eyes.
I tell myself I’m managing it. I go to work. I stay late. I shoulder the heaviest cases so Des and Alex can go home earlier. I rationalize that I’m doing what a pack lead is supposed to do, what a provider is supposed to do.
There’s a folder on my desk with the contact information for the clinic that dissolves bonds. I haven’t called.
I tell myself that’s restraint.
It’s cowardice.
I realize that on a Tuesday afternoon, in the middle of a deposition, when my phone starts to vibrate across the polished conference table.
The vibration doesn’t stop. It repeats, again and again, a sharp, rude buzz against the polished cherrywood surface.
The opposing counsel gives me a tight smile. “Is there a problem, Counselor?”
I ignore him, flipping the phone to see who’d called.
Three missed calls from Alex. Two from Desmond.
My stomach drops.
“Excuse me,” I say, already standing. I don’t ask permission. I’m done asking permission from anyone but my pack. “We’ll need to reschedule. Something urgent has come up.”
“Mr. Anders, my client flew in from –”
“Then your client can fly back.”
I’m out the door before the man finishes his sentence. I call Alex as I move, my stride just short of running as I eat up the space through the office.
Why the fuck is this elevator taking so long to get to his floor?
Alex picks up on the first ring.
“Tell me,” I say.
“He collapsed.” Alex’s voice is raw. There’s a rough edge that throws me straight back to the night he called about the ambulance. “We were in the nest. He tried to get up to pee and just… he went gray. Dropped. Des caught him but he was out for a solid minute.”
“What did the doctor say last week about his blood pressure?” My tone is clipped, but my heart’s about to pound out of my chest.
“That it was borderline, too low, and that we needed to be careful. Mason, he’s not waking up fully. His eyes keep rolling. The ambulance is on the way, but it feels like it’s been forever since Des called them.”
The doors finally open. I step in and stab the button for the lobby.
“Put me on speaker,” I say.
“Baby, just meet us at the hospital, okay?”
The elevator doors close and I stare at my reflection in the mirrored wall. My tie’s perfect. My hair – perfect.
But inside, everything is in shambles.
“Which hospital?” I ask.
He tells me and I hang up.
By the time the elevator reaches the lobby, I’ve texted my assistant to clear my calendar for the week. Not the day. The week. I fire off another message to the senior staff. They can handle the case load. I am done pretending the firm will fall apart if I leave it alone for more than eight hours.
Once I’m finally outside, I jog toward my Maserati, my heartbeat louder than the slap of my shoes on concrete.
He collapsed. Hudson collapsed.
Triplets.
Low blood pressure.
The words echo around my skull like someone dropped them into an empty courtroom.
I slide behind the wheel and pull out with more speed than is technically legal. The hospital is fifteen minutes away.
I make it in eight.
I don’t remember the lights. I barely register the horns. All I can see is Hudson’s face the first time he saw the sonogram, the tears that rolled down his cheeks when he whispered, “Three.”
I park crooked in a visitor spot and leave the car there. Let them ticket it. Let them tow it. They can set it on fire for all I care.
Inside, the antiseptic tang of the hospital hits my nose. Under it is a faint thread of tonka bean and sweet plum. My chest tightens.
I follow that scent, praying to anyone listening as I rush through the hallway, past doctors and nurses who do their best to dodge out of my way before I plow them over.
I find Alex first, pacing a groove into the linoleum near the emergency intake doors. His hair is a mess, his hoodie half unzipped over a rumpled T-shirt. Des is in a plastic chair, hunched forward, elbows on his knees, fingers laced so tight his knuckles are white.
They both look up at the same time, the bond between us snapping taut. Fear, thick and metallic, slams into me from both sides.
“Where is he?” I ask.
“Back there.” Alex jerks his chin toward a closed curtain area. “They took him in right away because of the pregnancy. His blood pressure crashed. The EMT said he was barely responsive when they loaded him.”
For a second, the world narrows. All the sound in the waiting room drops into a muffled hum. A woman arguing at the desk. A child crying somewhere down the hall. A monitor beeping. All of it barely more than white noise.
Or maybe that’s the blood rushing to my ears.
I walk toward the curtain, but a nurse steps in front of me. She’s a sturdy beta with tired eyes and a no-nonsense expression.
“Family only,” she says.
“He’s my omega.” My voice doesn’t rise. It simply leaves no room for argument. “Our omega.”
Her gaze flicks over her shoulder, then to where Alex and Des wait. Then she looks into my eyes, searching for something. Whatever she sees must satisfy her. She nods toward the curtain.
“One at a time,” she says. “For now.”
I rush in first.
The room is too bright. Hudson’s on the bed, the thin hospital blanket pulled up over his hips. Electrodes dot his chest. A blood pressure cuff sits on his arm. His skin is pale, the undertones ashy, but his eyes are open.
His heart monitor shows a steady rhythm, but his scent is weaker than I like, yet still there, threaded with the sharper tang of fear.
“Hey,” he whispers when he sees me.
My knees nearly give out. I move to the side of the bed and take his hand in both of mine. It feels too cold.
“What did they say?” My voice is rough.
“They’re running tests.” He tries to smile, then gives up. “The doctor thinks it is a combination of low blood pressure and my body being overwhelmed by the pregnancy. Triplets are… a lot.”
“Triplets are too much,” I say, and my throat tightens, “for us to be this careless.”
His brows pinch together. “You have not been careless.”
I think of the folder on my desk. The hours I’ve spent at the office while he sits alone with his nausea and his cravings and his fear. The way I slammed the bond shut instead of giving him the comfort he needed because I was terrified of what it meant to feel him so clearly.
I swallow.
“Yes,” I say. “We have. I have.”
He blinks, as if the admission physically surprises him.
“I heard you,” Hudson murmurs. His voice is weak, a little hoarse, but his eyes hold mine. “That night. When you told them we would dissolve it. When you said I didn’t want a pack and you didn’t want an omega.”
Shame burns hot through my veins.
“I know.” I curl my fingers more firmly around his. “I was wrong.”
His lashes flutter. His expression is wary, like he’s heard this sort of bull shit before from too many people.
I sink onto the chair beside the bed, still holding his hand like a lifeline. For once in my life, I don’t organize my thoughts into neat bullet points. I simply speak, let my heart take over for once.
“When I bit you, it wasn’t an accident,” I say. “I told myself it was rut. Instinct. A lapse. That was a lie I fed myself because it was easier than admitting I wanted you. That I wanted you to be ours. Permanently.”
Hudson’s scent shifts, the sour edge of fear slowly softening.
“I’ve spent months telling myself I was protecting you,” I continue. “That I was honoring our deal by planning to dissolve the bond. I told myself it was what you wanted. I told myself I was being noble.” I huff out a humorless laugh. “Really, I was a coward. I didn’t want to risk you saying no.”
My heart is pounding. I can feel Desmond and Alex outside the room, hovering on the other side of the bond, picking up every pulse of my panic and determination as well as hanging onto every word.
“The thought of losing the babies scares me,” I say quietly. “The thought of losing you is worse.”
Tears gather in Hudson’s eyes again, but he doesn’t look away. His thumb curls against my knuckles, a small, almost experimental stroke.
“You said you didn’t want an omega,” he whispers.
“I thought the three of us were enough,” I admit.
“I thought wanting more was…I don’t know, selfish.
I thought bringing someone in would unbalance us.
Then you walked into our living room and everything in me recognized your soul and I shut it down as hard as I could.
I told myself we were only hiring you as a surrogate.
That I wouldn’t let it be anything else.
That I wouldn’t let you change anything. ”
A weak smile tugs at his mouth. “How is that working out for you?”
My answering laugh breaks on a choked sob. “Terribly.”
He stares at me. I know he’s feeling the flood of what I am not quite saying. I threw the bond wide open, giving him full access to my every emotion.
“What are you saying, Mason?” he asks.
I take a breath. Then another. I’ve stood in front of judges and juries and dismantled men twice my size and experience, yet these three words terrify me more than any verdict.
“I’m saying I love you,” I tell him. “I’m saying I don’t want the bond dissolved. I’m saying I want you to stay with us, not as an incubator,” I say, throwing that word he’s used time and time again back at him. “Not as a temporary arrangement, but as our omega. As my omega.”
His breath hitches. The monitor beside the bed ticks up a few beats then steadies again. The nurse pokes her head in, evaluates the numbers, and leaves without comment.
“And if I can’t carry them to term?” Hudson asks. There’s a quiver in his voice and a sharp stab of pain flies through the bond. “If they say it’s too risky? If we lose one or all of them? What then?”
I lean closer until our foreheads touch. It’s the most intimate we’ve been without teeth and heat between us.
“Then we grieve,” I say quietly. “Together. We keep you alive and safe. We decide what our family looks like from there. Because I want you, Hudson. The babies are a miracle. You…” I take a deep breath. “You are everything.”
Silence stretches between us. It’s not empty. It’s full of all the unspoken things that have been building since the moment he stepped through our front door.
Finally, he whispers, “I am so tired of being temporary.”
The words slice straight through me.
“Good,” I say. “Because I’m done treating you that way.”
His eyes search my face. Slowly, he nods. The tension in his fingers eases, his grip relaxing from a desperate clutch to something softer, more trusting.
“Alex and Des said it,” he murmurs. “I didn’t really believe any of you meant it. Not all the way.” He swallows. “Say it again.” The request is whispered, but he might as well have screamed it with the power it holds over me.
“I love you,” I repeat. The words are easier this time, as if my chest has been waiting for the chance. “You’re ours. If you want to be. If you’ll have us.”
His perfume explodes from him, warm and sweet, even under the sterile hospital smells. Relief pulses through the bond. It’s not only his; Alex and Des are practically shouting their joy down the line.
“I want you,” Hudson says. “All three of you. I just… I can’t be the only one choosing this. I can’t become your biggest regret.”
“Then we choose,” I say firmly. “All of us. Out loud. In front of you. In front of anyone you want. A ceremony. A contract. A pack registration. Whatever makes it real in your head, we’ll do it.”
He lets out a shaky laugh. “You’re proposing to me while I’m wearing a hospital gown.”
I look at the flimsy fabric, then back at his face. “Do you want flowers and a ring instead? I can make a big thing of it, put it on the jumbotron at a game, take out an ad in the fucking paper.”
“Not necessary,” he says on a shaky chuckle. His eyes are shimmering now, but the despair I saw in them weeks ago is gone. “I’ll take you not running.”
“I am never running again,” I promise.
The curtain rustles. The doctor steps in, my mates right behind him. He’s got a tablet in his hand and a practiced calm on his face. He looks between us, eyes lingering for a second on our joined hands.
“Good,” he says. “You’re all here. Let us talk about how we’re going to keep your omega and your three little ones safe.”
I tighten my fingers around Hudson’s and meet the doctor’s gaze head on.
For the first time, I feel like I’m standing in the right place.
Not in a courtroom. Not behind a desk.
Here, at Hudson’s side.
Where I should have been all along.