2. Hudson #2
She stood by the panel with her spine straight and one hand wrapped around the rail.
Her coat had fallen open at the throat showing a navy sweater.
Her lower lip was damp where she’d been biting it.
She smelled of rain and blackberry and whiskey and that impossible violet, tearing through every sensible thought I had left.
Lincoln had gone quiet, which was worse than anything he could have said.
I fixed my eyes on the numbers above the doors.
Mary inhaled, small enough that I’d have missed it if everything in me hadn’t already narrowed to her. My scent had reached her, then. The controlled edge of rain I’d been holding down since she walked in.
Her fingers tightened on the rail.
Lincoln’s scent came next, his warm whiskey with a deeper blackberry than mine, and rain gone stormy.
Mary’s breath caught.
It wasn’t possible. She was too young for us.
I looked at Lincoln. He looked at me.
By the third floor, I hated what I was thinking.
Mary swallowed. A bead of sweat slid down her temple. She wiped it away with the heel of her hand and gave a small furious shake of her head, annoyed with her own skin.
“Are you all right?” Lincoln asked, in the low register he kept for frightened people and his former injured teammates.
She didn’t look at him. “Just marvelous.”
The elevator chimed at floor four, and the doors opened onto a quiet corridor. Cream walls, a multi-colored patterned carpet and brass lights spaced on the wall. Mary stepped out first and turned left.
So did we.
She glanced over her shoulder. “This is becoming weird.”
“Our room is this way,” I said.
“Naturally.”
“I can show you the key card if it helps.”
“That seems forward for a first stalking.”
Lincoln huffed a laugh, and then she reached her door and missed the slot with her card. Her hand was shaking visibly now.
She bent to grab the card and folded instead, one hand braced on the door, the other pressed low against her stomach.
And then her scent hit full and lush, with violet blooming through the whole of it.
This was not her perfume.
Mary made a small sound through her teeth.
Lincoln moved first. I caught his wrist before he reached her, and he froze, every muscle in him straining against my hand.
“Mary,” I said.
She lifted her head. Her eyes had gone almost black at the center. She looked from my hand on Lincoln’s wrist to my face and inhaled again.
Her expression changed. Shock first. Then want. Then fear, arriving last and louder than the other two together.
“I’m fine,” she said.
The words shook.
“You’re not,” Lincoln growled.
She squeaked and then moaned as she turned to the door.
“You’re close to your heat. You need alphas.”
She straightened by inches, using the door. “I’m getting the flu.”
“It’s a dangerous thing to ignore,” I said.
“The flu?”
“Your heat.”
Her gaze snapped to me. Good. Anger was better than collapse.
“Okay. You’re right, but I have a clinic appointment tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow may be too late.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” I said. “But I know what pre-heat looks like.”
“Congratulations. Do they give out certificates in alpha training school?”
Lincoln took half a step back with his palms open. “We’re not trying to frighten you.”
“Marvelous. Very reassuring, from the two enormous men stalking me.”
“We’re not stalking you.” I heard how useless that sounded roughly a syllable too late. “Our room is three doors down.”
“I’m sure that is what all stalkers say. Very convenient.”
“We don’t normally do this.”
“So I’m special.”
“You’re unwell or you’re about to go into a heat.”
“You are appallingly bad at this.”
Lincoln coughed into his fist.
Her grip slipped on the door handle. She caught herself, and the movement pushed another wave of scent down the corridor, sweeter and more urgent. Lincoln’s breathing changed beside me.
I looked at him once. His jaw clenched, and he was fighting every instinct he owned.
So was I.
Twenty-three, she had said. Even if that were true, it was young enough that caution had to outrank want.
I took my key card out of my pocket, slowly.
Mary watched as though I’d produced a weapon.
I held it between two fingers and pointed down the corridor. “Room four sixteen.”
Her brows drew together.
“That’s where we’re staying,” I said. “If your flu turns into heat and you need alphas before the clinic can take you. Or if you feel unsafe and you want someone to take you to the heat clinic, we’re there.”
“You knock and you ask for help,” Lincoln said, rougher. “Nothing else.”
Mary stared at us. Her cheeks were flushed and her hairline was damp and her scent was climbing so fast my teeth ached from holding still.
“You’ll take me.” Then she shoved the key card in the lock with a violence that finally worked. The light went green. She opened the door and leaned one shoulder against the frame. “That’s very noble.”
“We don’t have to be noble.”
She looked between us, eyes bright and feverish, her mouth soft with heat and sharpened by pure will. “I have three dildos.”
“And a badly misplaced sense of optimism if you think that’ll be enough,” I said
Lincoln made a strangled sound.
Mary lifted her chin, went to say something and changed her mind. She was already turning when I caught her wrist, gently, and pressed something into her palm. My business card.
“In case you need a lifeline,” I said. “Not an obligation.”
She looked down at it, then back up at me, and whatever moved behind the fever in her eyes, I couldn’t read it. Then she walked into her room and shut the door in our faces.
Neither of us moved for a while.
The scent stayed in the hallway.
Lincoln stared at the door. “Hudson.”
“No.”
“I haven’t said anything yet.”
“You were going to.”
“I was going to say that I like her.”
I closed my eyes.
That was the problem. So did I.