Chapter 42
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
DAVID HARPER
The phone rang at six forty-seven in the evening.
I was in my study, reviewing acquisition reports, a glass of whiskey warming in my palm.
The fire crackled in the hearth, casting long shadows across the mahogany desk that had belonged to my father, and his father before him.
Three generations of Harper ambition, distilled into dark wood and darker decisions.
Mason's name flashed on the screen. I set down the whiskey and answered on the second ring.
"Son," I said, keeping my voice measured, calm, the way I always did when one of my boys needed steadying. "How is our girl?"
"She's still not right," Mason said, his voice strained, exhaustion and fear bleeding through his usual composure.
I could hear the wind in the background, the muffled sounds of movement — he'd stepped outside to make this call, away from the others.
My eldest had always been the steady one, the leader I'd shaped him to be.
Hearing him fray at the edges was... concerning.
"We got her temperature back up hours ago.
She woke up briefly, said a few words, but then she was out again.
Ethan says the bond sickness isn't resolving the way it should.
Her heart keeps— it keeps skipping. Even with all four of us touching her constantly. "
I leaned back in my chair, the leather creaking beneath me. "How long was she separated from you?"
"Five hours. Maybe six. She was in the snow for most of it, hypothermic and—" His voice cracked, and I heard him take a sharp breath, fighting for control. "She almost died, David. She was blue when we found her."
"But she didn't die," I said calmly, swirling my whiskey, watching the amber liquid catch the firelight. "You found her. She's home. Now we deal with the aftermath."
"That's why I'm calling," Mason said, and I could hear him forcing himself back into composure, that rigid self-control I'd instilled in him since childhood. "The bond sickness. It's not responding to skin contact the way Ethan expected. What else can we do?"
I swirled my whiskey, watching the amber liquid catch the firelight.
Bond sickness was a delicate thing, a biological failsafe designed to keep Omegas tethered to their packs.
In the old days, before suppressants and modern medicine, a separated Omega would simply die.
Natural selection at its finest. The weak ones perished; the loyal ones survived.
Ava had never been weak. That was precisely why I'd chosen her.
"Skin contact alone won't be sufficient at this stage," I said, shifting into the clinical tone I knew Mason needed, the detached expertise that would give him something solid to hold onto.
"Her body experienced prolonged Alpha deprivation.
The bond interpreted that as abandonment, pack rejection.
It's gone into crisis mode, flooding her system with stress hormones, trying to force her to find her Alphas or die trying. "
"So how do we fix it?" Mason asked, his voice tight with barely contained desperation.
"Scent saturation. The nest is a start, but you need direct scent gland contact.
Wrists and necks pressed to her pulse points, constantly, in rotation.
Don't leave her without at least two of you at all times," I said, pausing to take a slow sip of whiskey, letting the burn settle on my tongue while he absorbed the information.
"If that doesn't work within the first twelve hours, you may need to take more. .. direct action."
"Meaning what?" Mason asked, his voice wary, edged with the kind of tension that told me he already suspected the answer but needed to hear it spoken aloud.
"Meaning one of you will need to knot her," I said bluntly, setting my glass down on the desk with a soft clink, the crystal catching the firelight and throwing amber shadows across the polished mahogany.
"The bond sickness is her body believing it's been rejected by its pack.
Nothing reassures an Omega's biology quite like being knotted by her Alpha.
It floods her system with bonding hormones, oxytocin, all the chemicals that tell her hindbrain she's safe, she's claimed, she's not alone.
" I let that sink in for a moment, listening to the crackle of the fire and the distant sound of Mason's breathing on the other end of the line.
"She may not be fully conscious for it. That's fine. Her body will respond regardless."
Mason was silent for a long moment, and I could imagine him perfectly, standing on the cabin porch with his jaw clenched tight, knuckles white around the phone, wrestling with the conflict I'd just placed in his lap.
The part of him I'd raised to be honorable, to value consent and patience, warring with the deeper part, the Alpha part, that would do anything to save his Omega.
I'd trained that conflict into all my sons, that tension between civilization and instinct.
It made them better men. It also made them easier to manipulate when the time came.
"If it comes to that," he finally said, his voice rough and low, the words dragged out of him like they cost something precious.
"If it comes to that," I agreed, keeping my tone mild, understanding, the voice of a father offering difficult but necessary advice. "But try the scent saturation first. Has she been eating? Drinking?"
"We've gotten some water into her," he said, and I heard the frustration bleeding through his exhaustion, the helplessness of an Alpha who couldn't fix his Omega through sheer force of will.
It was a particular kind of torment, I knew, watching your mate suffer and being unable to do anything but hold her. "She keeps drifting in and out."
"When she's conscious enough, feed her. Small amounts, frequently.
Her body needs fuel to heal, and the act of being fed by her Alphas will reinforce the pack bond," I said, settling back into my chair, the leather creaking softly beneath me.
"The sickness will fade over the next day or two, provided you maintain constant contact.
If her heart irregularities continue past forty-eight hours, call Dr. Mercer. He's discreet."
"And if she runs again?" Mason asked, the question hanging heavy between us, loaded with all the fear and uncertainty he was trying so hard not to show. I heard what he wasn't saying: the fear, the doubt, the worry that their Omega would never truly be theirs.
"She won't," I said with certainty, letting the weight of conviction settle into my voice.
"She ran to prove she could. Now she knows the cost. The bond sickness, the hypothermia, the choice between freedom and death, she's learned what happens to an Omega who leaves her pack.
" I set down my glass, watching the firelight dance through the crystal.
"She'll be yours completely after this, Mason.
The rebellion had to burn itself out. Now it has. "
Mason was quiet for a long moment, and I could picture him standing on the cabin porch, breath misting in the cold air, wrestling with hope he was afraid to feel.
"She said she loves us," he finally said, his voice rough with emotion.
"Before she passed out. First time she's ever said it outside of heat. "
"Then you have your answer," I said, allowing a note of warmth into my voice, the paternal pride I knew he craved, had always craved since I'd bought him from his worthless parents at four years old. "She's chosen you. All that's left is to make sure she never has reason to regret that choice."
After he hung up, I sat in the silence of my study, thinking about choices.
About investments. About Elena. The fire had burned low, embers glowing like dying stars, and I fed it another log before settling back into my chair.
The flames caught, crackling and spitting, and I watched them dance while memories surfaced like bodies from deep water.
Elena Brantley. Beta. Childhood friend. The girl who was supposed to be an Omega but wasn't. I'd known Elena since we were children, our families running in the same circles of old money and older blood.
Her mother and sister were both Omegas, prized and pampered, the jewels of their family line.
Everyone assumed Elena would present the same way.
She had the temperament for it, sweet, gentle, eager to please.
When she presented as a beta at sixteen, I watched her family's disappointment curdle into something uglier.
Dismissal. Neglect. Her mother and sister barely acknowledged her existence after that, too consumed with their own Omega concerns to waste attention on a daughter who couldn't live up to the family legacy.
I filed that information away and didn't think about her again for years. Until she called me, desperate, twenty-three years old with a five-year-old daughter and nowhere to go.
Her Alpha husband had left her for an Omega.
Typical story, beta wives were placeholders, warm bodies to keep the bed occupied until something better came along.
He'd found his something better, a pretty young thing with breeding hips and that intoxicating Omega scent, and Elena had been discarded like yesterday's newspaper.
Her family wouldn't help. A beta daughter was embarrassment enough; a beta daughter who couldn't even keep her Alpha husband was simply too shameful to acknowledge.
She was about to be evicted, she told me, her voice thick with tears, cracking on every other word.
She had a child. She had nowhere to go. Please, David.
Please. You're the only one who might remember me.